By Jeff Goins, Editor
My Sophomore year in college, five of us guys got together every Thursday night around 11pm and would just share what God was doing in our lives. The desire to do this was born out of the lack of true fellowship we were experiencing in large groups, mainly at the fault of our own unwillingness to open up. In this small band of brothers, we talked about edgy issues and struggles of which we were ashamed but also desperately needed to confess. The effect was, to say the least, cleansing.
We came from all walks of life. One guy was a resident assistant. Another was in the campus praise band. Another was the leader of the largest campus fellowship. Another was the president of the most popular, non-Christian fraternity. And I was involved in all of those activities. We wouldn’t usually finish our times of prayer, worship, and study until 3am. Sometime, they went longer.
It didn’t take long for others to hear about our little get-togethers. Several people asked us if they could join, and we gently turned them down, encouraging them to start something similar on their own. No one did, and the requests kept coming in.
People saw that we had something special, and they failed to realize that they could have the same thing, if they were willing to be vulnerable in a small group setting. It was frustrating for us, because we knew other Christians were getting jealous, but we also suspected that opening it up to the masses would destroy what we most loved about the fellowship. There comes a point in any movement when you must do what’s best for the most, not the few. Yet, if we did the unthinkable, turning our fellowship into something corporate, would it lose its beauty? Would we lose interest? I’m sure it’s the same question that famous franchises once asked of themselves when they were just a “Mom ‘n’ Pop” joint: When you have something good, is it always worth sharing? And is there a way to go “big” without contaminating the personal feel of it?
The fellowship we had grown comfortable calling “Three O’Clock Thursdays” had grown into something we never imagined. We five men were pouring our hearts out to each other, baring it all without shame, and openly receiving correction from each other. We had built such a high level of trust and accountability with one another, it was incredible. It truly was the fellowship I had been searching for. It was “church” in the purest sense of the word. We shared our brokenness and were healed by the loving affirmation and rebuke of community.
After a semester of meeting together like this, more and more outsiders were talking. I don’t know if we were somehow flaunting it in people’s faces or if it was just jealousy, but I remember even girls coming up to me, wanting in on the goodness of our small community. Was it just because we were leaders and out in the limelight? Whatever the cause, I heard from a lot of people that we were a stumbling block to others. We didn’t get it; we were just trying to do something authentic.
We struggled with our consciences for a few weeks. It seemed that we were inadvertently hurting others by not letting them into this fellowship; yet, it was the truest experience of the Body of Christ any of us were having. It was a risk to open it up to the public, but ultimately, we felt that it was the best thing to do. It became the official men’s campus Bible study. Five guys turned into ten, then, fifteen. Then thirty, then fifty. We met in a dormitory basement once a week, read a passage of Scripture corporately, broke into small groups to discuss, and usually ended much sooner than 3am.
We used this as an opportunity to raise up new Christian leaders, asking a couple men to lead these small groups, men whom we thought needed some training and experience. We did this, admittedly, so that our group of five could stick together. It became clear to me why the apostles stayed in Jerusalem when the rest of the Early Church was scattered. The large group kept growing, more leaders stepped up, and eventually, the Bible study had to break into two parts.
Eventually, our group of five got mixed in with the rest, and the Thursday night of intimate fellowship and community turned into another programmed religious activity. The five of us soon got tired of it and went on to start other things. It’s a picture of how the church universal has evolved–beginning with a few brothers committed to each other and turning into an institution. We were too young to understand what was happening, but as the stewards, we let it happen.
I’m still puzzled over what we should have done better, but I did learn some key lessons about how movements grow. It had multiplied beyond our expectation (as all good things do), and we didn’t have the maturity to guide it in the right direction. Soon afterwards, the whole thing got relocated to the Chapel and was anesthetized. As founders of a movement, we had failed, but here’s what we learned in the process:
- Movements lack definitive headship. There is usually a person or small group of people who get the ball rolling, but there is no claim to ownership.
- Movements grow by getting smaller. Their strength is in small, relational groups that are committed to each other. A little yeast works its way through the whole batch of dough.
- Movements must be de-centralized.
- Movements are all about empowerment. In a movement, authority is given away freely. The leaders are constantly working themselves out of a job, getting those under their authority to do what they do. There is high accountability and expectation, but no micro-management. Because of this, movements involve a huge level of trust.
- Everyone in the movement has an important part to play.
I hope that you are able to apply these lessons and have more success than we did. It seems that God wanted to entrust us with something that we weren’t ready for. We wanted a small group; he wanted a movement. Our “church” started to grow beyond what we imagined, we got scared, and closed down shop. We should’ve stuck around and taught everyone how to have what we had. Instead, we acted like elitists and didn’t do anything but build another large group where people still felt on the “outs.” Eventually, it was so unappealing to us, we left. Hopefully, next time he entrusts me with a movement, I’ll be smarter.
If you liked this article, check out: Creaster
Jeff graduated from Illinois College, a small liberal arts school, with a degree in Spanish and Religion. He lives in Nashville, TN. He works for Adventures in Missions, edits this silly little magazine, and loves to do new things. He just got married.