Lawless tells Super Saturday crowd, ‘Training matters’
Lexington—With the goal of gaining healthier ministries, nearly 500 people showed up last weekend for the annual Super Saturday at Immanuel Baptist Church in Lexington.
The first of six Super Saturday events statewide, it featured workshops led by Kentucky Baptist church and denominational leaders.
During the opening session, Chuck Lawless commended those in attendance for their willingness to learn and be trained. “Training matters; we must do what we’re doing today,” Lawless stressed.
“This task is bigger than any of us,” he added. “And the task before us is so great that we really cannot do this and make any sense of eternal difference in our own power.”
Lawless pointed out that the shepherd boy David, too, faced a great task—the giant Goliath.
The Philistine warrior’s armor is described in great detail in 1 Samuel 17, frequently pointing out how big Goliath is and just how small David is, Lawless said.
But, he added, “God is reminding us that the battle that is about to take place is not one that is fought with human means.”
Armed with only a sling and rocks, David slays Goliath. “The shepherd boy knows how to fight,” Lawless said. “The Lord must fight the battles for him.”
However, as David gets older and becomes king, he begins to rely on his own power, Lawless pointed out.
In 1 Chronicles 21, David takes a census in Israel to determine how many warriors he has on his side. Lawless said the problem is that David should know he needs only God on his side.
“David the shepherd boy trusts God; David the king relies on his armor,” Lawless said. “See the problem?”
Lawless further explored the topic of warfare, this time of the spiritual variety, during an afternoon workshop.
He warned that Christians will lose such battles when they rely on their own strength instead of taking on God’s armor. “If you read a book about spiritual warfare and you learn more about the devil than God, (the author) has reversed the scriptures. From beginning to end, the story is about God.”
Lawless outlined three primary attacks Satan uses to keep churches from growing:
• Contextual, such as community growth or decline, which is outside the church’s control.
• Institutional, which include a church’s people, leadership, history and conflicts.
• Spiritual, which involves unseen forces.
Among the spiritual attacks the enemy levels against churches, Lawless noted, are false teachings, which usually enter through subtle means. Many leaders don’t know what is being taught in classes but need to hold teachers accountable, he said.
Another is division. Satan still is working to turn believers against one another, but Paul wrote that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, Lawless pointed out.
Despite those words in Ephesians 6, some people are so angry with other church members that they won’t even sit near them—and yet they worship God, Lawless said. “The enemy is all over that.”
Satan also loves to attack families. If he can split up homes he can ruin ministries, Lawless explained. He added that when the devil wins in one generation, the scars come in the next.
Satan also encourages leaders to do church in their own power, since many people in the congregation won’t notice the difference, Lawless said. “We don’t have a lot of discipled people in our churches anymore,” he noted. “If the enemy can get us to do what we do in our own strength, it lacks the power of God, and the enemy will let it go on.”
Temptation is another tool the devil likes to use, which can easily defeat believers when they don’t know enough about the Bible to recognize lies and distortions of the truth, Lawless said.
Starting with the same tool he used against Eve—conversation—Lawless said Satan tries to persuade Christians that God didn’t say what He outlined in scripture.
“The longer you talk to the enemy the more likely you’ll fall,” Lawless assured. “The minute our mind starts wandering in the wrong direction, we need to run to God.”
Compiled from reporting by News Director Drew Nichter and State Correspondent Ken Walker.
Western Recorder issue date: August 24, 2010.
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Leading small group
requires connection
to God
By Drew Nichter
News Director
Lexington—When it comes to justifying the need for a small-group ministry, church leaders need to look no further than Jesus Christ, according to a Tennessee minister.
“Jesus gathered a group of people to do ministry with. It only makes sense that we do the same,” Scott Shoopman noted.
A connections pastor at The Bridge Church in Spring Hill, Tenn., Shoopman led a workshop on “How to Be a Great Small-Group Leader” at last weekend’s Super Saturday event in Lexington
Shoopman said his primary role is to coordinate the church’s small-group ministry. He cut his teeth on the concept years earlier as an associate pastor at Living Hope Baptist Church in Bowling Green.
There, he worked with Rick Howerton, who now is the small “groupologist” at LifeWay Christian Resources.
The first lesson in leading a small group: Stay connected to God, Shoopman said.
As an example, Shoopman shared about a leader of a married couples’ group who starts off the evening with the “icebreaker” question: How is your marriage, really?
As the question came around to one couple, it was revealed that they were hurting and possibly seeking a divorce, Shoopman explained.
As the leader, “if you’re not connected to God, you’re going to blow it,” he warned. “For that couple, as well as for the group (and) possibly for the ministry within your church.”
Being a small-group leader is “a heavy calling,” Shoopman added.
But as small groups continue to meet and grow closer together, a great leader should want these types of emotions to come to the surface, he said, so those who are hurting can be loved on and prayed for by the rest of the group.
One way that cannot happen is if the small group is too large, Shoopman pointed out.
The ideal size of a small group is four to 12 people, he said. In groups larger than 12, only those who are extroverted will speak up and there also may be several conversations going on at once.
“The thing about a small group is you want discussion; you want open dialogue about scripture; you want people to share about their lives,” Shoopman said.
“When you sit down and you begin to open up dialogue and discussion, it radiates Christ because that’s what He did with His disciples.”
That does not mean, however, that small groups should not be looking to add people, Shoopman said. But as they grow to more than 12 people, groups should then look to split, or “multiply,” he noted.
“The purpose of your group is not for the group to stay together forever. The purpose of that group is to do well together and after about 12-18 months, … you’re going to multiply,” he advised.
The multiplication factor requires a small-group leader to surround him or herself with a strong team. “The last thing you want to do as a group leader is to do it all,” Shoopman noted. “You’ll burn out really quick.”
No. 1 on the team list is an apprentice or co-leader, Shoopman said. “You’ve got to have another leader who can take that part of the group and go.”
Shoopman also recommended utilizing six small-group practices that create Christian community:
• Level the playing field—do this by sitting everyone, including the leader, in a circle facing each other and ask questions that everyone can answer.
• Share your spiritual story.
• Ask open-ended questions—because in an open-ended discussion, “oftentimes people will open their hearts up a little bit more,” Shoopman said.
• Keep a three-part agenda.
• Subdivide into subgroups of three to six—“You’ll cut your discussion time by at least a third by doing smaller groups, because they’re both getting to discuss,” Shoopman noted.
• Affirm one another.
Shoopman compared a small group to irises. If irises are allowed to grow without being split and cut back, they will grow out of control and eventually die.
“Groups are the same way,” he said. “This is an organism, not an organization. … And it will be just like a family unit.”
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