by Keith Miller | Bible, Christian Living, Small Groups, Weekly Devotional
This is a response to the second question of a two-part question that came up after John Burke (Lead Pastor at Gateway Church) interviewed me last month. I responded to the first of the two-part question on last week’s blog. Last week’s question was about why I think the kind of small group I had mentioned was important. My response is that Jesus spent approximately two-thirds of his three-year ministry with a small group of twelve men—the same twelve men. And all Jesus left was that small group and the Spirit in their midst. Further, Paul’s ministry was largely devoted to starting and continuing to correspond with and mentor a few small groups scattered in cities around the Roman Empire.
So now I’m getting to the second question: “What is the purpose of the small groups you talked about, and do these groups prepare Christians to fulfill the Great Commandment to issue God’s invitation to the world?”
What is the overall purpose of an “adventure” group?
Although the members of an “adventure” group learn about and experience ways to pray as Jesus taught the Twelve, and they examine relevant scripture passages, the overall purpose is for the group members to experiment with and actually experience receiving and giving the love of Jesus in their real time everyday lives and relationships. The experiment begins with every member agreeing that for thirteen weeks they will assume that the God Jesus called Father is real. And for the thirteen-week period the participants will live as if they had actually surrendered their entire lives to God. This includes an agreement among the group members not to argue about God’s existence or different interpretations of the Gospel. Instead they will be guided to experiment with how to love the people in their personal and vocational lives beginning with the other group members. They learn how to share in the group meetings by listening without interrupting or challenging what anyone else says they have experienced, and by reporting what happens—the failures as well as positive experiences—when they consciously take God with them clear through their days and nights. Each group member agrees to pray for the others every day during the experiment about the things shared in the group.
This group experience is not like any Bible study or sharing group most people have ever been in. The purpose is not to evangelize your neighbors or become expert Bible students; it is to learn (by doing) how to carry out the new command that Jesus gave the disciples when he was about to leave them: “Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.” (Jn. 13:34-35, The Message)
Since we are also called to love the world, the primary purpose of Jesus’ group and these groups is to learn how to love God and do his will in all areas of our own lives, secular as well as “religious.” And as we try to do some simple things to learn how to receive and give love—with the Father and each other, we will be acquiring the core characteristics, attitudes and behaviors that we will need later when we go out to meet the needs of those who have been marginalized in our culture—the hungry, the sick, those without clothing and shelter, etc. I’ve always thought it was strange that Jesus didn’t send the Twelve out on missions until not too long before the crucifixion. He evidently wanted them to be sure to go out with love as well as a perspective in everything they did.
Bruce Larson and I worked for years with dozens of groups to build a course that is emotionally safe. We did this by developing rules (and making these rules clear) that keep the members from putting people down who risk sharing their reality, (i.e. not “fixing” them, offering suggestions or corrections) that would shame them for not participating or for “making mistakes”. The leader and all the group members will help each other to learn how to love and assure every person’s safety in the group. (This experience can be invaluable later in missions to people who have been abused in their worlds.)
Almost anyone can lead an Adventure group. In the meetings, Bruce and I face and respond first (on CD’s) to every question to which group members are asked to respond. And the group leader responds third. So an appropriate level of vulnerability is established before other group members are asked to share, which allows the group to become safer and closer more quickly than is usually possible otherwise. Also, any participant can choose to “pass” on responding to any of the questions or exercises without being shamed or criticized. These guidelines create a safe and more free and open atmosphere than many participants have ever experienced anywhere. An atmosphere in which the real issues, the fears, the joys and the reality can be shared—of trying to commit their lives and relationships to God in the real life contexts of their own families, church situations and vocational and social lives.
So in this safer atmosphere, the participants try various experiments in their real life situations (outside the group, between sessions) of praying, handling the many disappointments of admitting when they are wrong and asking forgiveness. As they do so, they are building a library of experiences—living stories—from the experiences they will personally go through and share with the group during meetings. And while they are carrying out these experiments between group meetings, the group members will also be examining some of Jesus’ stories (parables) and considering with which character they identify—thus adding more living stories to their educational base.
When people close to Jesus (including the Twelve) asked about the stories he pointed out that they (whom he was teaching) were getting a good picture of how the Kingdom of God works in their lives. But other people whom they encountered along the way—people who hadn’t had this much teaching from Jesus and so didn’t understand—for those people stories created readiness—readiness to hear more. (See Mark 3:10-11, The Message, quoted at the end of this blog.)
What usually happens—invisibly at first—is that in the process of being heard and accepted as they are, people who may have been church members for years, come to realize that love has crept in and replaced loneliness and the sense of not fitting—feelings that apparently all people long to overcome.
As to the sharing, it often happens that when someone who has “passed” several weeks in a row finally speaks, he or she may be a different person than the one whom you met at the first meeting.
We believe that these experiences are all parts of the transformation process Jesus said was essential. It is like being “born anew from on high.” And friends, when you see a fellow adventurer being transformed before your eyes, week after week, it is impossible to tell you what this can do to your faith and ability to love God and other people. It seems that one must experience this personally to understand how important it is.
There is also a strong rule about keeping everything that is said in the meetings confidential. At first this seems strange but in the end, this creates an unbelievable sense of freedom and honesty. I remember when I started the first group of this kind in a church in Norman, OK in the 1950’s I had explained the group plan to the pastor and gotten his permission to start the group. We were meeting in our home. After several weeks the pastor called me and said, “What are you telling the people about money?”
I said, “Why are you asking?”
He said, “Well, three of the couples have started tithing since the group started meeting and they were a little vague when I talked to them.”
I laughed because tithing hadn’t even been mentioned. But the minister was so happy that he said, “I’m sending another couple over to join your group.”
“I’m sorry, Joe,” I said. “The rules are that no new members are allowed to join a new group after the second week. In this intimate atmosphere running in new people every week means starting to build the trust level all over again. We may do another group later if some people want to.”
The minister then asked, “Well what is this ‘secrecy’ all about? Where did you ever come up with a rule about people not sharing what’s going on in a group?”
I smiled and said, “Jesus. Several times Jesus told people who’d been helped by his ministry, “Don’t tell anyone.”
This may sound like an unusual way to operate a group, but people who have been together for thirteen weeks sharing their reality, the good news and the bad, sickness and celebrations, have reported time and again that long before the thirteen weeks are over, participants report that they find themselves becoming more caring for people around them outside the group, even difficult people and even in painful situations. But these feelings and attitudes of really beginning to trust and share are new and a little scary for people at first. And we are convinced they need a safe, non-critical place to report failures as well as successes. (We still attend such groups after all this time.)
This sort of group experience can create a spiritual culture of people who want to experiment with really trying to offer to God the living out of their eating, sleeping, working, walking around lives for Christ. (See Romans 12:1, The Message)
No group structure or process is for everyone, of course. But we have found that unless a large church finds a way for new people to learn to love each other and pray specifically for each other in a face to face atmosphere, over a period of time the back door of that church will become bigger than the front—no matter how gifted and committed the teaching pastors are. And our experience indicates that many group graduates go on mission trips after a thirteen-week group, or join a mission group in their own city, or teach a class in the church. They report that because of their experience in these groups, they find themselves listening to and praying for or with the people they are going out to help.
I have not tried to give you a comprehensive picture of the course content. If you would like to read about the course materials, click here.
And one last thing: because of years of being in adventure group meetings of various kinds, I realize that people are all different in their needs, hopes and dreams. And I have discovered that my job is not to change anyone—even any of you who may be reading this blog. So if what we have learned is not something that you feel comfortable trying, we won’t bug you. But this is just my answer to the person who wanted to know the purpose of this kind of group experience.
We are starting up again working in local churches after many years of working in different cultures here and overseas. If you choose to use this group experience as a part of your Christian formation effort, we’ll be glad to do what we can to help that happen.
***
“When they were off by themselves, those who were close to him, along with the Twelve, asked about the stories. He told them, “You’ve been given insight into God’s kingdom—you know how it works. But to those who can’t see it yet, everything comes in stories, creating readiness, nudging them toward receptive insight. These are people—
Whose eyes are open but don’t see a thing,
Whose ears are open but don’t understand a word,
Who avoid making an about-face and getting forgiven.”
-Mark 4:10-12, The Message
“God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s.”
-1st Jn. 4:17, The Message
Lord, Thank you that you took the time to live the life of love with the few people you chose to deliver the Father’s invitation to the rest of us, so we’d know it’s really livable. Give me trust at this time to believe that I will get my work done if I risk interrupting my busy schedule long enough to live your life with a few others…again. In Jesus’ name, amen.
by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional
Dear Keith, I’m wondering if you could talk about God’s love as you understand it. If God’s love is “unconditional,” as people often claim it is, why does he need people to accept him? Isn’t that a ‘condition’? It seems contradictory to me for Christians to claim that God loves everyone and then that only those who love him back a certain way get a reward. I’m hoping you have something insightful to say about your own faith that will help me sort through this issue. Thanks, Emily
This is a great question, Emily, one that theologians have wrestled with a lot. All I can do here in this blog is try to tell you how I’ve come to deal with it in my own faith journey.
I believe that God loves all people like a perfect parent would love his or her child, regardless of what the child has done. For me, God’s unconditional love doesn’t require anyone to accept him. The greatest gift he has given us (besides his unconditional love) is free will, which allows us to decide whether we will live life with God or without God. Therefore, because of God’s integrity, he will not take away this free will and coerce us or manipulate us to accept him. Whichever choice we make, his love continues unconditionally.
I’m assuming that when you say “get a reward” you are referring to eternal life with God in heaven after death. But I am convinced that this eternal life is not a reward for “loving him back in a certain way;” it is a relationship with God and other people that we are invited to start now. So if we choose to live a life with God, what does that mean? God invites everyone to live Life with him. Jesus told us before he died that the Spirit or Personality that we saw in him is going to be with us and within us as our tutor and companion in a relationship with God that begins now and never ends. This life involves learning from God by seeing how Jesus and other Christians on God’s adventure are living that life in a loving way without hesitation or equivocation.
When we make this choice we re-position ourselves to allow God to be in charge of everything in our lives, and to become child-like students who want to know everything about God and his nature, and to learn to live more and more as loving co-creators and healers with God. The more we can surrender our own wills and let God lead us, teach us, and transform us, the more we learn the freeing power of being loved just as we are, without doing anything to earn this love. This is living in the creative image of God. The more that we do this (live the life that Christ modeled) the more that we realize the creative potential that we possess and the more fulfilled we can be.
This transformational process is not generally what is seen in the religious institutions of the world. This transformation is something that happens to individuals in a family/community that sees itself as part of the transformational family of God that is being actualized now. This life is based on a continuing and constant prayerful and intimate relationship with God’s Personality (or Spirit) within us and with other Christ followers in a safe and sharing community, helping each other as they are loving hurting people in the ‘worlds’ each inhabit.
Those who do not choose to accept God’s invitation to life with Him, choose separation from God (which is a primary definition of hell.) And I suspect it makes God very sad when people choose to try to reinvent life in ways destined to separate them from God and other people.
Emily, I hope these thoughts in this limited format will help you sort through this issue. There is so much more I wanted to say about God’s unconditional love and about how a life with God has been transforming me and other people I have been in community with. Perhaps I will say more in future blogs. And if what I’ve said today raises any other questions for you, please let me know.
Jesus, thank you for telling us that your spirit or personality would be with us and within us to teach us and be our companion if we choose to live a life with you. And thank you for the enormous gift of freedom to make our own choices—and that you can patiently love us just as we are even when we make choices that do not bring fulfillment or the realization of our potential. Help me to make good choices that are in accordance with what you had in mind when I was born. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Jesus, thank you for telling us that your spirit or personality would be with us and within us to teach us and be our companion if we choose to live a life with you. And thank you for the enormous gift of freedom to make our own choices—and that you can patiently love us just as we are even when we make choices that do not bring fulfillment or the realization of our potential. Help me to make good choices that are in accordance with what you had in mind when I was created. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Jesus said these things. Then, raising his eyes in prayer, he said:
Father, it’s time. Display the bright splendor of your Son
So the Son in turn may show your bright splendor.
You put him in charge of everything human
So he might give real and eternal life to all in his charge.
And this is the real and eternal life:
That they know you,
The one and only true God,
And Jesus Christ, whom you sent.
– John 17:1-4, The Message
Peter replied, “Master, to whom would we go? You have the words of real life, eternal life. We’ve already committed ourselves, confident that you are the Holy One of God.”
– 1 John 5:21, The Message
And we know that the Son of God came so we could recognize and understand the truth of God—what a gift!—and we are living in the Truth itself, in God’s Son, Jesus Christ. This Jesus is both True God and Real Life. Dear children, be on guard against all clever facsimiles.
– 1 John 5:21, The Message
God’s mercy is not merely therapy for a few individuals beset by guilt…God does not dole out mercy like cookies only for good, repentant children. God’s mercy is not conditioned by our response. God is mercy. So, wide is wider than we guess…. Our calling is to live in mercy…. Recalling God’s unmerited mercy … we absolve one another, enacting the good news. ‘In Jesus Christ,’ we say, ‘we are forgiven.’ So we look into each other’s eyes without illusions; we are sinners all. Yet we embrace each other in the mercy, the wide, wide, mercy of God.
David Buttrick, The Mystery and the Passion
“If men and women today began by the thousands to experience the depths of Jesus Christ in a transforming way, there would simply be no place for their expression of experience to fit into present-day straitjackets of Christianity.”
Gordon Cosby, Sermon
If any of you are interested in one simple way to accept this invitation from God there is a free download, “How Can I Find God?”, here.
by Keith Miller | Christian Living
Keith, my problem is that my spouse says that I am selfish, but I buy her nice clothes and presents of jewelry, etc. I even joined the church because she wanted me to. And I know a lot of men don’t do things like that. But in spite of everything I do, she is very frustrated because she still thinks I’m selfish and is getting very discouraged because I still can’t see that I’m selfish (and I’m angry because she thinks that.) What does a man have to do to let a woman know he’s not selfish???! What does being selfish mean to you?
A lot of people (and couples) have wrestled with that one. When I made a serious commitment to become a Christian, I—like you— had always done a lot of “nice things” for my wife (and other people, too), and I was floored when we started getting more open with each other that she felt that I was selfish—even though I was sincere in wanting to be God’s person.
As I read the Bible and talked honestly to the other Christian men in a small men’s group about this, I learned that there is evidently sort of a “secret control room” in the center of my mind that has one seat (a throne). And whoever or whatever is sitting on that throne determines all my actions. If I am sitting in the control seat, then without even knowing it, virtually all of my conscious actions are intended to influence and control the people and situations in my life to make me happy or to enhance the image I want to project that will make people admire me or love me. And usually the desired outcomes I try to bring about lead to my getting more than my share of their time, attention and love in close relationships. But I can’t see that I am doing this because I do so many “nice things” for them.
In my case, I began to see that I was trying to project an image of being smarter, wealthier, sexier, and a better Christian than I felt I really was.
Then one day after an argument, I recalled a movie, The Wizard of Oz, in which Dorothy, the young girl from Kansas, was in this huge hall in the land of Oz. She and her new friends (the Tin Man, Scarecrow and Cowardly Lion) were standing before a huge frightening holographic image of the great Wizard. But Toto, Dorothy’s little dog, had run over to the side of the great room and pulled back the curtain, exposing a frumpy little old man sitting at the large control board that controlled the voice and movements of the huge projected image of a wondrously powerful Wizard with a deep booming voice. The little man (the actual wizard) tried to save himself from the shame of being revealed as only an ordinary man by having the booming voice say, “Don’t look behind that curtain!” But it was too late.
That’s exactly how I felt when my spiritual mentor helped me pull back the curtain of denial and see that I had been unable (or unwilling) to recognize and deal with my motivations for maneuvering to get outcomes I wanted from people and situations in my life. I was in denial not only about pretending to be more than I am, and a pretty unselfish husband, but also I had not been able to face that I am inordinately self-centered even as a Christian.
It finally got through to me that becoming a Christian meant putting God in the center control seat (of my life) so that His character revealed in Jesus and His values would determine my actions. Through study and prayer, but mostly by confessing my Sin of taking God’s role in the center of my own life (and the lives of people close to me) and then surrendering that place to God, I began the reorienting process of making decisions on the basis of what will help God transform me into the loving, giving, culpable, and vulnerable person I believe God made me to be.
And when I began consciously to surrender to God the throne room and control board of my life, I discovered what my wife had been trying to tell me—that just giving her nice clothes and jewelry (although a nice thing to do) also made her a more beautiful trophy wife, part of the larger-than-life image of myself I was unconsciously trying to project as a successful male in America.
I was horrified to discover this and it was only the beginning of discovering the double meaning of a lot of my “unselfish” behavior. This does not mean that I didn’t love my wife, or that I didn’t want to give her nice things because I love her. (Because that was true.) But it does mean that until I am willing to face, confess and make amends for my self-centered taking of God’s place by trying to ‘shape’ the world around me into my image, I can never be the intimate, happy and loving man I was made to be—and now want with all my heart to be.
This has already meant a revolution in the way I live my days and nights. In order to know how to love the people around me, I am having to learn to listen to them and discover what I can do to help them become all they want to be—instead of insisting they play their parts in my drama of being the “Wizard of Austin, Texas.”
Lord, I want to see more clearly where I am occupying the throne in my life in Your place. Help me to become aware when I am on that throne. Show me how to get out of Your way, and how you would have me love and free the people you put in my life. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
“You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are—no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.”
Mt. 5:5, The Message
“You’re blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.
Mt 5:8, The Message
Blessed the man, blessed the woman, who listens to me, awake and ready for me each morning, alert and responsive as I start my day’s work. When you find me, you find life, real life, to say nothing of God’s good pleasure.
Prov. 8:32 The Message
The day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides and gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, we shall have discovered fire.”
Teilhard de Chardin
