Final Class Project - Small Groups for a Semester

When looking at the list of class project options immediately I chose the small group option because it was something that I had already started from a previous semester so I figured it would be nice to document the life of the small group. The group consisted of a group of gentlemen who lived on my floor last year and they wanted to continue the group again so I agreed to lead it again. Our starting number was five members last semester and it grew to nine by the end of last semester. This year we started off again with even less because a group of guys from our floor moved to a different building. So I was forced to start over with a new group of guys who were new to the school and new to my style of teaching. At the first floor meeting of the semester I announced it to the floor that we would hold bible study every Thursday evening and we kicked off the small group with a six people. As a group we decided we would go through the book of Romans because we could almost do one chapter per week and we would try to have a meal together each week so it wasn’t simply a group to study the bible but a group who hung out together. The next week some of the guys from last year returned to group, which created an interesting atmosphere. The group I was with last year was very familiar with me as I was with them and because of it we were able to be more open and blunt about our understanding of the text and how it applied to our lives. This new group was not ready for this openness and therefore it created tension. Also, because we already had many connections with each other there were jokes and things from last year that they didn’t understand. Therefore, I had to find a middle ground, which would allow the freshmen newcomers to understand what we were talking about while at the same time keeping the old members interested and satisfied. I did this by shifting the way I taught so that fifty percent of the time I would be speaking to a level that the freshmen could understand and the other fifty I would dive deeper theologically in order to please the more mature in the group. This worked out well because both groups came back in the weeks to follow. We continued strong throughout the first few weeks of school because everyone had the ambition that comes with starting a new semester but after a while this dedication wore off and some of the people did not come back to the small group. I understand this is hard to do with a group of college students who are busy with schoolwork, extra-curricular activities, and employment for them to make time to come to small group. Another difficulty that I found was that it was hard to get in contact with everyone and to remind them about small groups. Each week I would send a mass text message to those who would normally come but I wouldn’t pursue them any more than that because I didn’t want them to feel guilty about not being able to come because I know how hard it is when you feel pressured to come to an event when there are a million things going on. On the contrary, I think they may have needed more reminders because they often would tell me that they forgot. Moving on to a lighter note, as a group we were able to battle with the tough questions of our faith and the particulars of certain passages of scripture. For example, when we dealt with the passage in Romans dealing with the Holy Spirit interceding with us some of us in the room had different views on whether or not this passage implied tongues or not. This sparked a long conversation about each of our experiences with tongues and therefore allowed a lot of healing to go on for those who had bad experiences with people misusing the baptism of the Holy Spirit. It was things like this, which helped me to continue to lead the small group even when I was tired. One of things I was most proud of was creating an atmosphere where all questions were fair game. The guys in the group found that it was rare that they were in an environment where people allowed questioning of the Holy Bible and therefore jumped at the chance to ask any question. I made sure to tell them that I wasn’t the be all and end all for their questions because I am still young and dumb but I did take some classes and I know where we could find information so we could look for it together. It felt good to have a group of guys that were younger than me who felt close enough to ask me for my opinion on things and knew that I wouldn’t act like I had all the answers. Each week we continued to look in the scriptures we continued to talk and ask questions which often led to tangents but were good for our spiritual health. I realized that it wasn’t the curriculum that was what impacted people’s lives the most it was how we decided to dialogue about it and help each other learn and apply it to our own lives. Maybe learning doesn’t happen best in lecture settings but discussion and application. Regardless I learned that I definitely want to be in a small group for the rest of my life because it really changes people’s lives. Amongst the many victories that we had one of the biggest failures that I realized which I am now trying to correct is how the small group is dependent on me. During certain weeks I was away on Thursdays and could not conduct small group. I urged the group to continue to meet but they did not while I was away. Now that graduation is upon me in two weeks I am trying to get more people to lead the final meetings of our small group in order that they become used to a new leader. Overall, I loved the small group experience and this assignment really opened up my eyes to things I need to do better and things I want to continue to do.