Southwood Presbyterian Church

Experience and Express grace ‘Kiss’ in Small Groups!

Monday, July 25, 2011

-a guest post by Bill Nash, Associate Pastor and Director of Small Groups at Southwood Presbyterian Church.

“I have realized that we all have plague.” Dr. Rieux in The Plague, by Albert Camus

Jean asked me to guest blog this week and suggested that I write on how the experience and expression of grace “kiss” in small groups. Sounds good to me, I like kissing. TMI…

There are a number of ways the experience and expression of grace “kiss” in small groups. But, how do I highlight one or two (at most) and not appear self-serving or as a heavy handed small group Pharisee adding to grace the need to be in a small group if you really love Jesus. And how do I write about it without painting a rosy picture of life in community?

First of all, I am a self-serving small group Pharisee that struggles with wanting to be the best small group pastor presiding over a successful ministry that is the standard-setter on the face of planet earth.  Neurotic, I know… (sigh) That is why small groups are not a rosy picture of sweet community life. It is full of and led by neurotic messes like me.  Instead of experiencing grace by letting the truth work on my heart that God alone is my refuge and my strength, I struggle every day with the desire to take refuge in a successful ministry. I look to find relief in a small group ministry that is growing, where every leader is awesome and everyone gets along. The Bible has a name for that: Idolatry. And so, I guess that makes me an idolatrous self-serving small group Pharisee… (sigh).

But, that is each one of our stories - isn’t it?  We’re all like that. “We all have plague.” Every day we wake up to competing voices. C.S. Lewis puts it this way, “The moment you wake up each morning, all your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals.” He goes on to say the challenge is “...shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in.” What Lewis terms as “the other voice… other point of view… quiet life” is what we would term experiencing grace. It’s the idea that it’s ok that you’re not ok; that it is better to know God than to know why; grace is better than being better; etc.  As Jean has said recently, “Do you believe that believing is enough?” My answer so often to that is “No. It will be enough when I have twice as many small groups up and running. It will be enough when I am better at (place here an endless supply of idols, including really good ones like scripture memory, and being a great parent)”

Stop laughing and feeling better about yourself. I’m worse than you, but you’re a close second!

And so the challenge begins with ourselves. As I rush in to busyness and a successful ministry for refuge, what I am really doing is avoiding grace, I am leaving the God of grace to commit adultery with the Goddess of Success. We all do it. We all work to avoid grace. In our church circles we avoid grace by pretending and performing. We avoid grace by getting better at being better: scripture memory, quiet times, great public prayers, re-Tweeting a John Piper Tweet, etc.

Joining a small group is not a solution in and of itself to pretending and performing as if simply getting in one will fix your lack of zeal for God, and guarantee you’ll finally put others first, memorize scripture, set a personal best streak of quiet times, etc. Here’s why: we are all skilled at hiding, excusing and minimizing sin. Only the best among us at hiding their sin can move from the minor leagues of looking good in a large crowd on Sundays where conversations are quick and noncommittal to looking good in the close confines of a small group where you must be a highly skilled Southern Evangelical quick on your feet with pious excuses and creative minimizing. It takes a lot of effort to pretend and perform for 90 minutes in a small group. That’s why a lot of us have retired from small groups. We’ve “been there done that.” Our spiritual backs have the strength to pretend and perform on Sundays. It’s just that we can’t be in a small group because we threw-out our backs doing all that heavy lifting of pretending and performing in the last group we were in.

Now, before I make the mistake of getting on the off-ramp to guilting and cajoling you to get in a small group (even better, lead one - it makes me look good if we have lots of groups!) let me wrap this up by pointing out a single word I believe gets close to why and how small groups bring experiencing and expressing grace to kiss: Proximity.

Let’s face it. Most of us don’t want to be in the proximity of others for too long because we don’t trust God’s grace for ourselves and/or we don’t trust others to show us grace.* Another way of saying it is that we pretend because we have failed to experience grace for ourselves and we fear others won’t express grace to us.

And let’s be real. One of the best ways to avoid grace is to avoid other people. When you’re in community with other people it’s not long before your sin surfaces because being close to a fellow neurotic exposes the sin you’ve been hiding. Let’s be clear, others are NOT the cause of your sin, YOU are. Proximity just doesn’t let you get away with hiding it. Proximity forces you to wrestle with whether you believe believing is enough for yourself or others. Proximity positions you to express the very same grace that has been lavished upon you.

Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Ephesians 4:32

And there it is in Scripture: Proximity. To the degree you are in proximity to the Cross - seeing your sin and finding continual relief, rescue, repentance, and rest - to that degree you will express grace through kindness, compassion and forgiveness to others. To that degree, conversations won’t end with others feeling condemned because all you have to offer them is advice and clear Biblical principles - principles you can’t meet either, by the way. Because when you have been in the proximity of the Cross where you continually find relief, rescue, repentance, and rest you won’t be out to fix anyone. You will be free to show kindness, compassion, and forgiveness to those in your proximity.

The experience and expression of grace “kiss” in small groups because you remain close enough to the Cross to be kissed by Jesus and experience his lavish unfathomable grace. It’s the joy of that kiss that compels you to maneuver and position yourself in the close proximity of others in community to give away that very same kiss of grace.

Peace…

P.S. Back in the day, small groups at Southwood where called K-Groups for the Greek word for fellowship (koinainia).  Maybe we should resurrect the K-Group moniker, except this time the K is for Kiss because in small groups the experience and expression of grace kiss. Well, maybe not… (sigh).

*An idea I stole from Tim Chester in his awesome book You Can Change, p.162.