Wanna Grow? Get in an LTG

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Note: This is part three in a series of articles on small group discipleship. You can read the first article on John Wesley's Class Meetings here, and Band Meetings here.

At Ocoee Oaks, we have a two-pronged mission: love God and love people (Matthew 22:35-40; Matthew 28:18-20). This simple mission expresses itself in many ways, but I will focus on only two here. First, we love God by obeying Him. Jesus, God in the flesh, commanded His followers to make disciples. Jesus' strategy is disciples making disciples. Second, we love people by inviting them into fellowship with God and mentoring them to maturity in Christ. In other words, we love God and love people by making disciples. This article describes the biblical foundation for our process at Ocoee Oaks.

Ephesians 4:22-24 forms our foundation for disciple-making. Paul writes, "You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness." I love this phrase to put on and put off. That's the same word that is used for getting dressed and undressed. We are to clothe ourselves with the righteousness of Christ. But, how, exactly, do we do that?

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Putting Off The Old Self

We engage in this process of putting off the old self by getting rid of the sin in our lives. This is not something that we do for ourselves. Rather, it is something that we have to position ourselves for God to do in our lives. One way we do this in small groups is through confession of sin to others in the group. 1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” If we would be forgiven from our sin, and purified from our sin, there is no other route than confession of our sin to God.

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A second aspect of confession is confessing our sin to a trusted group of believers. The operative phrase is “a trusted group of other believers.” I do not advocate confession, as a general rule, in a public service of worship. However, as trust develops among a group of two to three individuals who meet together weekly, confession of sin can develop naturally if the intention is to grow spiritually together (and the process described in my next blog entry is followed).

The fruit of confessing to another is found in James 5:16, “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” Many people carry around the weight of shame and guilt of past sins. Confessing these sins to another and receiving acceptance and confirmation that God has forgiven our sins can have the effect of unburdening us and releasing us to experience true joy in the Lord.

Putting On The New Self

We put off the old self by confessing to God and one another. We put on the new self when we read and apply Scripture to our lives. The Bible is full of references to the purifying effects of God’s word. Here are just a couple of examples.

Ephesians 5:25-27
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

Psalm 119:9-11
How can a young person stay on the path of purity?
By living according to your word.
I seek you with all my heart;
do not let me stray from your commands.
I have hidden your word in my heart
that I might not sin against you.

The Word of God has the power to shape us, mold us, and purify us. Said differently, the Spirit of God shapes us through the Word of God. God uses His Word to restore His image in us as we seek to co-operate with God and conform our minds to the teachings of Jesus.

The Disciple-Making Imperative

Making disciples is not optional for the church. A Christian church is a church in name only if it is not making disciples. Mike Breen said in Developing a Discipling Culture, “If you make disciples, you always get the church. But if you make a church, you rarely get disciples.” For too long the Church has focused on building churches, not disciples. Too few disciples is why mainline denominations like Episcopalians and United Methodists are “tanking” according to Havard researchers. Just as a healthy plant grows and multiplies, healthy Christians and churches grow and multiply.

A part of the disciple-making imperative is to train new believers to invite their friends into a relationship with Jesus. Too often we burden people with training (like Evangelism Explosion from my youth). Sometimes the best witness is the one who has had a significant experience with Jesus and very simply goes and tells others about what Jesus has done for them. We certainly see this pattern over and over again in the gospels. For example, recall the man from whom Jesus exorcised a legion of demons in Mark 5:1-20. While we have no record of his effectiveness, we do have a record of Jesus commissioning him to go to his home town and tell the people about what He had done for him. Why complicate it? This man hadn’t been through a single discipleship course, and somehow, Jesus thought he was qualified to send out on an evangelistic tour.

Conclusion

So, our process at Ocoee Oaks has three aspects. We put off our old self through confession to God and one another. We put on the new self through the reading and application of God’s word. We pray for and seek opportunities to share the gospel verbally with the people who naturally populate our lives.

In my next entry, I will outline exactly what a LIFE Transformation Group looks like, who should be in one, and how to get one started. If I have already piqued your interest and you would like more information about LIFE Transformation Groups, please contact me by clicking here.

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