Reality: Soul Care is messy!

From Gospel Coalition article entitled “5 COMMON SMALL GROUP MYTHS (AND THE TRUTH TO HELP TRANSFORM YOUR GROUP)” by Steven Lee
http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/five-common-small-group-myths-and-the-truth-to-help-transform-your-group

What expectations do you have of our Soul Care ministry specifically and small groups in general.
Over the next five days this blog will at these five different myths.

Myth 1. A successful small group will not be relationally messy.

While most people wouldn’t explicitly say so, they expect their small group be without relational messiness. They go in thinking that these people will be their best friends (more on that later), and when they find out they’re nothing alike they wonder if they’re in the right group. When someone in the group is passive aggressive or talks way too much about politics, you’re looking for the closest exit. Yet the reality is that small groups are composed of sinners all along the same journey of faith. They’re going to get messy relationally, which is precisely why we have the gospel of grace that shows us how we ought to be long suffering and humble toward one another (Phil. 2:1-11).

Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes in Life Together:

The serious Christian, set down for the first time in a Christian community, is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and to try to realize it. But God’s grace speedily shatters such dreams. Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves.

Truth: Small groups are where the grace of God overcomes all types of relational messiness through the blood of Jesus.