Adventureland Part 2: My Group is Better than Your Group!

In my last post, I mentioned that the latest thing that our Lord is doing at Adventureland is in the area of small-group Bible studies. We started having them last year. Steve Pinkley had long been interested in having smaller "accountability groups" where everyone could get to know the other members and could share more intimately with each other. When God sent us Jack and Karen Gregory last year, this ministry was begun.

I must admit that at first I was a bit skeptical when Steve talked about "growth" through small groups. My formerly Southern Baptist and as yet not entirely converted mind abhorred the word "small" when applied to Christian meetings. I also reasoned, "how are we going to be able to pack six to eight people into an RV (of all places!) and expect such a meeting to grow." I also feared that we might lose the unity we had in the large Bible study group, and would turn into a bunch of smaller cliques.

And then I went to one . . .

The first thing I realized was that they were talking, not about numerical growth, but spiritual growth (duh!). After just the first week with the group that I was in last year, I felt like I had taken an "accelerated spiritual growth hormone"! The experience was remarkable! And the unity of our greater Christian Community here, if anything, seemed to be enhanced by the small groups, rather than having suffered for them. There seems to be an even greater unity now in the Chapel service itself, as the small group members make up a core of growing Christians that are the foundation of the Congregation.

On the first Sunday after this year’s small groups started, we three facilitators were asked to give a short report in the Chapel service. Bob Johnson stood to give his report about his group, and what they had experienced. Then I gave my report. Both of us were "bragging" about how the Lord had moved among us and how well things had gone, and how excited we were about being involved it this. Then came Bert’s turn. He stood up and said (with "tongue-in-cheek" of course) "My group is better than your group!" Ever since then, we have first of all been careful to give God the glory for the things He has done, and secondly, we have engaged in an ever-so-tiny amount of teasing about whose group is "the best".

And now it is all drawing to a close. The other groups finished last week. Mine has one more Monday night to run (because I made a four-unit study into a six-unit study). Many of the Workampers are starting to move on now. Some of us will remain to the end of the season, and, in my case, a little beyond. Many of us, both in the groups and as we see each other outside of the groups, have talked about not only how much we have grown, but about how much we have seen the other members grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. And the sharing has been magnificent! What stories we have heard about how folks have found the grace of God, and how he has worked, and is working in their lives.

The thing that has meant the most to me is the encouragement. I can be very easily discouraged, and I probably would not have made it this far with the book, (a little more than half finished now) had not the other small group members embraced it and encouraged me and held me up in prayer as they have.

As I have stated in the past, it is evident to me that there is something more going on out here than just a bunch of Christians who happen to be running around in RVs. I have heard many who have reinforced my conviction that God is calling us out, and placing us out here to serve the spiritual needs in the greater RV community. What I have seen Him doing this summer is equipping these who are called out to go from this place and carry this ministry with us as we go.

And the fellowship that we have experienced, that sense of Christian Community that brings us back to this place, is indeed, as the old song says, "like to that above"

It is kind of like Bob Johnson said one night when we were talking about heaven in his group, and about how Jesus had said "in my father’s house are many dwellings" (John 14:2). Bob stopped talking for a moment, and looked around the room at each one of us. Then he said, in the low-key, matter-of -fact yet dramatic way that is so characteristic of him: "I hope we’re all in the same condo!"

Thanks for sharing this moment with me today.