From: jmrg9881@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Jon Reid)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Small Group Church -- my personal testimony
Date: 5 Jan 93 08:27:54 GMT
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana

The Vineyard Christian Fellowship of Champaign, Illinois, is
currently in the process of transitioning to a Small Group (or
Cell Group) Church.  The following is an account of the resulting
changes in my life.

                                        Jonathan Reid
                                        January 2, 1993


WHERE I WAS

I have been a devoted Christian for many years, and considered
myself to be fairly mature in the faith.  Evangelism has always
been important to me.  There is actually only one person I have
"led to the Lord", but some of my friends say I was a strong
influence in their becoming Christians.  I have done some
open-air preaching, and learned to do "contact evangelism" with
strangers.

However, I have seen my life bear more fruit in discipling than
in evangelizing and felt that this reflected the spiritual gifts
God had given me.  I considered evangelism to be important, but
came to think that it was better done by people "with the gift". 
Leave the bulk of evangelism to such people; I would concentrate
on discipling those who were saved.

It never occurred to me that this was circular reasoning. 
Considering the fact that I've been a believer for nearly twenty
years, I have not led many people to Christ.  Therefore I must
not have the gift of evangelism.  Therefore I should concentrate
more on my discipling gifts.  Therefore evangelism was not a real
priority in my life. Therefore I did not lead many people to
Christ... and so on.

Even while living in Japan for three years as self-supporting
missionaries, my wife Kay & I spoke with only one neighboring
family.  We never entered their home, nor did we invite them into
ours.  We had my friends from work over to our place exactly
once.  The situation was the same back in the States; we never
made the effort to meet our neighbors.


WHAT HAS HAPPENED

As our church began shifting toward becoming a Small Group
Church, our senior pastor shared how he had made a list of all
the people with whom he spent at least one hour of quality time
each week... and discovered, to his surprise, that there was not
a single unbeliever in his circle of friends.  I made a quick
list in my head and, to my shame, found that the same was true of
me.  I used to have more unbelieving friends when I lived in a
dorm at college (and three of those friends ended up being
saved!)  But now, how could I expect to be "salt and light" if I
didn't know any unbelievers?


Life Basic Training

In a small group, we began going through a workbook called Life
Basic Training by Ralph Neighbour, subtitled "A Biblical
Examination of Value Systems".  The Lord used LBT to convict us
of ways in which our stated beliefs were not held as true values,
that is, they were not expressed in our everyday actions.  We
were challenged to adopt the values of Jesus, especially:

   - that true significance is rooted in our relationship with
     the Father;

   - that the Father has a deep love for the lost and wants to
     adopt them into His family;

   - that participation in the Father's work is the best possible
     lifestyle and results in closer fellowship with the Lord,
     with fellow servants, and with the unsaved;

   - the importance of going to the "Listening Room" to receive
     instructions from the Father;

   - that servanthood is a primary value in God's kingdom -- the
     way of the Cross.


Reaching Out to Neighbors

Kay & I began to make a deliberate effort to get to know our
neighbors and to spend time with them.  Whenever we saw people
moving into the neighborhood, we went out to meet them.  When we
saw neighbors in our common yard or walking in front of our home,
we would stop whatever we were doing and go outside to talk with
them.  We started looking for ways in which we could serve them
with the unconditional love of Jesus.

The neighbor to the left of us was a single mother by choice,
wanting the baby but not the father.  We found that her brother
had died on her birthday ten years ago, and that she had not had
a birthday party since... so we made a cake and put up
decorations and threw a little party for her on her birthday.  We
took care of her cat while she was gone for a few days.  When she
moved out recently, she badly needed someone to sublet her place,
so we prayed for her that God would provide such a person.  She
later wrote, "The prayer Jon said for us really worked!  The
duplex was rented two days later!"  We have been invited over to
her new place for dinner. 


A Supernatural Encounter

As we reached out to people, we found that the Lord gave us a
love for them.  We began praying for our neighbors daily.  One
day something quite unexpected happened to me as I listened to
music while paying some bills: I felt a strong urge to praise God
and started to dance with joy.  Suddenly, I felt a pain deep
within me and began to weep uncontrollably.  As I staggered about
reeling from this sudden flood of emotion, I cried out, "Lord,
what is this?  What's going on?" and felt Him reply, "This is
what I feel.  This is my heart for the lost."

Then I felt a Presence enter the room; I could not see anything,
but I had to take a step back from some holy pressure. 
Prostrating myself, I worshipped through my tears.  Then I felt
Him telling me to stand up.  As I stood before Him, my weeping
was quieted, and I prayed, "Lord, give me Your heart."  Then as
quickly as it started, it was all over.

I do not fully understand what happened in this encounter, but I
believe it was significant.  The memory of it serves to remind me
of how deeply the Lord yearns for the lost.


Lifestyle Changes

In October we began leading a small group, taking them through
Life Basic Training.  The group has grown to 12 people (including
Kay and myself), and we have begun training an intern who, at the
right time, will take half the people and form a new group.  One
of the most important things we want to pass on to our intern is
that "church" and "small group" are no longer just organized
weekly meetings.  The focus is on building relationships, not
doing activities.

Kay & I pray for the group members every day, and try to have
some sort of contact with each person during the week.  Where
Sunday mornings used to be just a matter of "go to church and
come home" for me, they are now a time to serve, touching bases
with group members and inviting new people to be part of our
group.  We try to spend special time with at least one
unbelieving friend and with one small group member every week. 
This might be eating together, having them over, visiting them
where they live, or doing something fun like bowling.  The church
has stripped down its weekly activities and programs so as not to
compete with the time needed to build relationships with these
people. 

We enjoyed spending time with others, but Monday nights we
declared to be "ours" because that's when Sherlock Holmes and
Star Trek are on TV.  No sooner had we made this declaration than
the neighbor to the right of us, another single mother, needed
help one Monday night, so we turned off the TV and spent the
evening at her place.  The following Monday, just as Star Trek
had gotten started, she came over wanting to talk, so we turned
off the TV again and invited her in.  We figure that the Lord was
trying to get a message to us: that all nights are His, and even
our "nights off" are not to be selfishly clung to as "ours".  Now
we use the VCR to record these programs as we watch them so that
we don't mind being interrupted if God has other plans.


Prayer Life

Our prayer life has been revolutionized.  In over six years of
marriage, Kay & I were never consistent with our "quiet times"
apart from occasional bursts of commitment.  Now, the growing
love that God has given us for our small group and our unsaved
friends compels us to pray, and we find that we have to go to bed
earlier in order to get up earlier because there just isn't
enough time to do all the praying we need.  Prayer has become
more exciting because instead of just flinging requests up at
God, we try to listen to Him to see what He wants to do in each
person's life.

We are not always filled with passion, nor do we always wake up
when the alarm goes off, but even in the drier times, we lift up
our friends and ask God to bring the fullness of His kingdom into
their lives.  More and more we realize that there is nothing we
can do by our own strength to change people's lives -- it must be
a work of the Holy Spirit, and we want to cooperate with Him.


Results

I feel my life has new direction and purpose.  Every day is
focused in some way on drawing unbelievers to Christ and building
up believers to maturity.  I am coming to see that this is the
heart of God, and the more I open myself to His heart, sharing in
His dreams and cooperating in His work, the closer I grow to Him.

So far we haven't seen any conversions, but we can say with
confidence that we are making a difference in people's lives. 
Ten believers are receiving personal care and prayer that they
would otherwise not have, even in a small church.  And we have
touched roughly a dozen unbelievers with the love of Jesus,
planting seeds which we pray will yield the fruit of salvation.


______


Life Basic Training and other resources for Small Group Churches
are available from Touch Ministries, 1-800-735-5865.

Introduction to Life Basic Training and other resources for
churches interested in transitioning to a Small Group Church are
available from North Star Strategies, 217-384-3077.

-- 
Jon Reid    j-reid@uiuc.edu    GEnie: THE.REIDS
"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."