“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed His love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins..” (1 John 4:7-10 NIV)
When God came down to this planet, He didn’t stand across the street and shout through a megaphone, “I love you!” He chose a small group and got with them eyeball to eyeball, to show that godly love is intimate love.
When it is honest, open, and loving at intimate levels, Christianity powerfully changes human behavior.
Any local church is a gathering of people with many, many wounds. They come out of a world where they’ve been beaten up from one week to the next. They need grace, love, and tender handling, and they need it from each other. Small groups give us the perfect opportunity to be “unshockable, democratic, permissive” (as Bruce Larson says) -- to be comforting, to be “shock absorbers.”
But more than that is needed. Christians who are unshockable and loving are the only ones qualified to also be corrective. People going through temptations and difficult times especially need the loving closeness of a few brothers and sisters [in Christ] who will hold [each other] accountable.
In a small group of peers the idea is, “Where you’re strong and I’m weak, you’ll help me. Where I’m strong and you’re weak, I’ll help you. We’ll all learn about Jesus from each other.”
-- Ray & Anne Ortlund in “Renewal: An Influencer Discussion Guide”
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