| Jesus did not want anyone to know where they were, because he was teaching his disciples. He said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise.” |
| —Mark 9:30-31 |
During the last ten years of my career at the insurance company, where I worked for 30 years, I had the privilege of managing the engineering training department. My background in both engineering and psychology made me uniquely suited for that responsibility.
During that time, I was fortunate to learn a great deal about the philosophy and strategy for effective adult learning. I was able to experiment with a variety of educational development processes and validate their ability to convey necessary information in a way that would help the learner to retain the needed facts.
It became clear to me, very early in these experiments, that small group learning had some significant advantages in dealing with very complex material. By creating group projects that would apply the principles of a particular subject, the members of a small group could match the apprehending of the critical information to their individualized learning styles.
It should be no surprise to us that Jesus fully understood the importance of working with a small group. Calling twelve disciples—each one with distinct personalities, strengths, and weaknesses—allowed Jesus to share His truth in such a way that this truth would penetrate deeply into the minds and hearts of these twelve men. Then, they would be better able to share this truth with others.
Jesus would often draw his twelve disciples away from the crowd, so that He could teach them in the best possible setting. Notice the incident recorded in Mark 9:30-31:
Jesus did not want anyone to know where they were, because he was teaching his disciples. He said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise.”
Here, in a small group setting, Jesus shared very important news with His disciples. We see how necessary it was for Jesus to offer the most in-depth teaching and most private information with this carefully chosen small group of individuals. We can learn from this in forging the best possible process for promoting in-depth spiritual formation among our fellow believers.
Small groups have a great importance in the teaching ministry of any Evangelical Christian church. Groups of believers, gathering in small groups, can learn much more effectively the truths of God’s written Word. Yes, it is important to have pastors preach sermons. These sermons often convey broadly applied truth from God’s written Word. But, to get the most out of an in-depth study, people learn best in a small group where they can discuss and otherwise interact with one another, making the truth relate to, and come alive in, their own lives.
As we begin a new day, I urge every believer reading this blog post to join a small group for the purpose of studying God’s written Word. With a properly designed, educationally valid curriculum—based on the truth of God’s written Word—a believer will find the depth of his or her spiritual formation increasing at a much more rapid pace than it would without this small group involvement. And, after all, learning more and more about the God who loves us is certainly a very worthwhile experience.
Based on a blog originally posted on Tuesday, September 26, 2017
