Praise the Lord! Pastor Liu had a successful operation & is now recuperating @ her sister's house. (:

Jieying asked me 2 qns just now.

1) How was the cell group last sunday?
2) Is there anything you see in the cell group? What? ( I assumed she meant room for improvement)

I genuinely enjoyed cell group that day.
We read an article titled "No more Mr. Nice Group".
It's about 5 practices that take small groups beyond polite sharing to the disciplines that change lives.

Confession: remove the masks
We all wear masks. We hide from each other. It's part of our falleness. That is why one of the most formative practices in a small group is confession. Confession is the appropriate disclosure of my brokenness, temptations, sin, and victories for the purpose of healing, forgiveness, and spiritual growth. Without confession we are a community hiding from the truth.

To see real transformation, small groups must begin with reality. By removing our masks through the discipline of confession, we acknowledge the reality of who we are and open ourselves to God's transforming work.


Application: look in the mirror
James 1:23 says, "Those who listen to the Word, but do not do what it says, are like poeple who look at their faces in the mirror, and after looking at themselves, go away immediately forget what they look like." A small group is a place for people to look into the mirror, discover who they are, and then ask, "How do I apply God's Word into my life as it really is?"

What would Jesus do if someone cut him off in traffic? Would he say, "I don't condemn you; go and sim no more?" Or would he roll down the window and shout," Woe to you, you whitewashed sepulcher, it will be better for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of Judgement than for you." ? What would Jesus do? Alot of people have heard about Jesus, but many have not been taught how to apply Jesus' teachings to their real lives. Small groups can address this gap.

What we desperately need are small groups to be schools of life. Imagine soneome has a problem of anger- a small group leader should ask them:"What kinds of situations tend to get you angry, and how do you resppond?" Give them some alternatvies to sinful patterns of anger. Roleplay these situations in the small group. Then next week ask, "How did it go?"If they got it right, celebrate it. If they didn't, investigate what happened, and encourage them to do it differently next time.


Accountability: Stand on the scale
I have made certain commitments about food and exercise in my life, but how serious I am about those commitments is difficult to determine without measuring my progress. Ascale serves as a tool of accountability for me. Am I achieving my goal, or am I missing it? Ultimately the scale reveals how effective I have been in living up to my commitment.

Small groups are the place for people to get onthe scale and reveal how intentional they have been to pursue transformation into the image of Christ. People do not drift into full devotion to Christ. People do not drift into becoming loving, joy-filled, patient, winsome, worldchangers. It requires intention and effort.
But the default mode of the human heart is to drift. If a person has experienced real transformation, it's typically because someone else has cared enough to say, "i want you to live God's way, and I want to help you know if you are serious about it."


Guidance: follow the map
When people needs directions to a place they have never been, they use a map. Too often when people have major life-forming decisions to make, they make them alone.

The small group is to be where we find guidance, where we help each other learn how to listen to God. Small groups who rely upon God's Spirit serve as a map for us when making important decisions. Small groups should be places where people gather to hear God through prayer and listening. Every small group meeting should include this question, "Is anybody facing a significant decision this week?" And in community the group should seek the Spirit's voice for they people facing the decision.

Church of the Saviour in Washington D.C. practices this discipline by what they term "sounding the call". When someone has a significant decision to make, the community enters a time of prayer and listening to God. They speak openly with each other about their sense of what God is saying. They take seriouslythey leading of the Spirit while avoiding any sense of superiority or control.


Encouragement: embrace each other
A hug is a gesture of love & encouragement. An embrace represents what we all need from a community of transformation. We need to know that someone is committed to us and loves us. That cannot happen when we are alone, and it cannot happen in a large gathering. It is going to happen through smaller communities.
Today small groups have the privilege of loving and accepting human beings for whom Christ gave his life. In these groups, we can supply the love, encouragement, and embrace people need to continue their journey of transformation.
A long time ago, I decided I wanted to talk to someone honestly about my temptations, where I had messed up, I wanted to practise the discipline of confession. So I asked my friend Rick if we could meet. By that time, I had know him for about ten years.

I told him everything there was to tell about me- all of the darkest stuff and everything I felt the most embarassed about.
When I got to the end, I could barely look up at him. When I finally did, Rick looked me in the eyes and said, " John, I have never loved you more than I love you right now."
Those words were so powerful; they felt so good that I wanted to make up even more bad stuff to tell him. To have someone know everything about me and still love me was truly life giving.

That kind of love is what we ultimately need in small groups to transform lives. We can make small groups so complex and difficult, we can build the perfect small group strategy, but if we do not have the love of Christ present, we are not really engaged in transforming people into his likeness.
Spiritual formation in community is mostly about loving people, and that is something we can do.






How do we get rid of the masks and niceties? That is something I really want to know.
I trusted someone & told her my so-called-secret (that was donkey years ago), but she let the cat out of the bag. & from then on, I never told anyone in church anything.

How do we put our trust in someone, & be ensured that this trust will not be betrayed?