Your church’s small groups must overcome difficulties.
When the four friends saw the path to Jesus blocked, they had every reason to feel discouraged, but they didn’t give up. They looked for another way to bring the man to Jesus.
Everybody gets discouraged at times. But in order to share Jesus with our friends, we must persist through those difficulties. I remember a small group at Saddleback Church who prayed for a lost friend for two years before that person made a commitment to Jesus. I’m sure that guy is glad they didn’t give up after a year and a half.
Your church’s small groups need the courage to do something different.
When faced with a discouraging situation, these four friends decided to do something different to get their friend to Jesus, they went through the roof! Sometimes we have to do something different to get people to Jesus as well.
Although you might not crawl through a roof to get someone to Jesus, you might host a party. For a small group in a San Diego church, that meant buying season tickets to see professional football games. Besides buying their own tickets, the couples bought one extra ticket—for someone who didn’t know Jesus. That group brought 13 couples to Christ through that experience.
Your church’s small groups must work together to get the job done.
Have you ever tried to carry someone on a stretcher with only three people? It doesn’t work. If all four of the friends hadn’t helped, the paralytic would have fallen off the stretcher.
Some people will only come to Jesus through a group effort. Studies have shown that people come to Christ faster when they come through a supportive environment.
That’s why small groups are so essential in bringing people to Christ.
When you talk to someone at work, and it’s just you and that person, you’re the only witness. If you’re able to bring them to a group event—particularly one that is fun—they’ll go, “Wow, these people aren’t goofy. They aren’t religious nuts. They’re normal people.”
Your church’s small groups must be willing to pay the cost to bring someone to Jesus.
These four men wouldn’t have made a hole in the roof unless they were willing to fix it. They had to pay the cost of bringing their friend to Jesus.
Bringing a friend to Jesus always requires sacrifice. For many small groups that means sacrificing their own comfort within the group. Many people have become so comfortable within their small groups that they are afraid of adding new people and messing up the group dynamics.
Before our community will come to Jesus, they need to see those in our congregations get out of their comfort zones.
