Spurring On in Shared Church Meetings

• Peter is hanging out and eating with non-Jews. Now he suddenly pulls back from them.
• Esther, by speaking up, may save her people. But in doing so, she may lose her own life.
• Philemon suffers loss when his slave runs away.

What need do all three have in common? To be spurred on.

Paul challenges Peter over his two-faced behavior when conservative Jews from Jerusalem show up in Antioch (Gal. 2:11-14). Because Esther may have “come to royal position for such a time as this,” Mordecai urges her not to remain silent (Esth. 4:12-16). And Paul, having seen the runaway Onesimus become a Christ-follower, presses Philemon to welcome him back. (Philem. 17).

Encourage vs. Spur On

Spurring on, says the author of Hebrews, should happen when we meet with fellow Christians. Like encouragement, it is a major element in one-anothering—part of the mutual give-and-take of shared church. Encouragement and spurring on overlap. Yet the New Testament seems to distinguish between them. Encouragement aims to restore eroding trust (Jn. 14:1; Acts 14:22), whereas spurring on seeks to refuel love and right doing (Heb. 10:24). One shores up faith; the other renews practice.

Where the NIV uses spur on, other versions translate the Greek word as motivate, stimulate, or stir up. To many, a set of spurs may seem like an instrument of pain and cruelty. Yet to those who know and love horses, spurs—used in the right way—are simply intensive tools to move the animal into action.

In her website, Stacy Westfall (a trainer in horsemanship) says “a spur is nothing more than a motivator . . .  something that encourages your horse to make a change in its behavior. . . . When used correctly the horses don’t really mind spurs at all.  The key here is ‘used correctly.’  It is important for you to know your own limitations.  Don’t use spurs if you know you might jab when you don’t intend to.  And remember, using spurs when your horse doesn’t understand is like talking louder to someone who doesn’t speak your language; it doesn’t help.”

Like horses, we Christians often need to change our behavior. Living in bodies made of dust, working among the “thorns and thistles” of the world, we quickly drag our feet or balk. All too easily we “become weary in doing good” (Gal. 6:9). Even young people, Isaiah said, “grow tired and weary” (Is. 40:30). No wonder, then, that each one of us needs prodding to keep on plodding.

Churches Need It, Too

Churches can come up short on love and good deeds. So, they—like individuals—need to be roused and redirected. According to Jesus, the church in Ephesus had left the love it had at first. He spurred them on to “Repent and do the things [deeds] you did at first” (Rev. 2:4,5). He told the church in Sardis to “Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God” (3:2). And because the lukewarm Laodicean church was producing defective deeds, Jesus spurred them on to repent (3:15, 19).

Having served as a pastor, I know that some of the most effective spurring on comes from one’s peers in the trenches. Suppose a believer who works all week as an accountant for the government has nearly given up on shining the light of Christ because of a twisted emphasis on separation of church and state. Imagine the impact of hearing another government employee tell how God has shown her effective ways to live out her faith in a public agency without running afoul of the law.

A few days ago, I spoke with Nita Kotiuga, who serves as pastor of spiritual growth, connectedness, and prayer at the Westview Bible Church in Quebec, Canada. She told me about the Sunday-morning testimony of a man who suffers from chronic back pain. He told the congregation, “I have such a temptation to take that extra pill. I know I’ll get addicted. It is so easy for me to become an addict.”

Here was a man, whom the Westview church family holds in high esteem, confessing how easy it is to become an addict. After he spoke, two people came up to him and said, “You know, I’m addicted to painkillers, and I’m in the process of weaning myself off.” Clearly, his words had spurred them on to continue the battle.

Spurring On in the Sunday Meeting

Nita told me, “These were two people we would have never thought of in this regard. In church, you can feel like everyone else has their life together and I’m the only one who’s wrestling. This happened in the sanctuary on a Sunday morning. It was a beautiful, holy moment of God.”

For many Christians, what takes place “in the sanctuary on a Sunday morning” is the only church they experience. In Curing Sunday Spectatoritis, I quote Steve Cordle, who reports: “The stark reality is that more of America’s church members stay away from home groups than attend them. Joseph Meyers writes that in the vast majority of churches, no more than 35 percent of the congregation participates in a home-based small group.”

If it is true that 65 percent of church people do not take part in small groups, where will they receive any regular spurring on by other believers? And where will fellow Christ-followers receive spurring on from that 65 percent? Is it possible that discipleship today too often lacks horsepower because so few church meeting formats provide a place for spurs?

Shared Church on Sunday Morning?

The other day, a woman who recently began participating in our home group made a telling comment. She has regularly attended a variety of churches for decades. “But in church,” she told us, “I could never ask my questions and hear answers about the Christian life.”

Today shared church—the sort of one-anothering seen in the New Testament church—is more likely to take place in small groups that meet in living rooms than in main congregational meetings. Yet few Christians ever call those home gatherings “church.” Instead, like the woman in our small group, when they say “church," they mean the large assembly that usually gets together on Sunday.

Many Never Take Part in a Small Group

So although what happens in a home cluster comes closer to the practice of first-century Christians, a great many believers never experience that kind of involvement. According to Joseph R. Meyers, in The Search to Belong, “Books on small groups, tapes, seminars, and models abound, yet few of us achieve more than a 30 to 35 percent participation rate.” If accurate this translates to 65-70 percent whose experience of church is something far less participatory.  

Aaron Earls, writing in the website, “Facts & Trends,” pegs the small-group participation rate a bit higher: “In a typical month, less than 6 in 10 churchgoers attend some type of small Bible study group at least once. This means that over 40 percent of those who are in your church building at least on a monthly basis never go a small group.” 

Jesus clearly intended that his followers share in the give-and-take of one-anothering: “A new command I give you: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (Jn. 13:34-35).

The dynamics in a congregation of 150 or 300, of course, differ greatly from those in a group of 8 to 12. But as already noted, a large proportion of believers never take part in a small group. How, then,  can they experience one-anothering in the only form of church life they know?  

One-Anothering Possible in Congregational Meetings

The interviews with church leaders in Curing Sunday Spectatoritis make it clear that some level of body life can take place even in the larger congregational setting. For example:

Panels. One pastor, after his sermon, invites questions from members of the body. Sometimes he organizes a panel of mature believers to help him respond to what people ask. Those on the panel may join him up front or speak from roving microphones.

Shared Preaching/Teaching. In another church of about 300, the pastor shares the preaching/teaching ministry with a dozen or so church members who are gifted and able to serve in this way. “My goal,” he says, “is to have someone from the congregation preach once a month, without pulling in a guest speaker from the outside.”

FaithStories. Nearly every Sunday a church in Minnesota includes “FaithStories” in their congregational meeting. Each one usually runs about five minutes. In addition to the examples included in Curing Sunday Spectatoritis, these stories  cover a wide range of topics, including reports on: How Christians are living out their faith on the job; How a new mom received encouragement from the church’s meal’s ministry; How God worked in the life of another mother to heal her after she lost two of her children; How the Lord delivered a man from his involvement in a cult. Those presenting their stories are carefully coached as they develop what they will say and how they will say it. This avoids the objections raised against what, in other times, were called “testimonies.”

Sermons with Dialogue. Some pastors have carefully developed the art of preaching that draws the congregation into conversation. They prepare a significant part of the message ahead of time and present it without interruption. But with the skillful use of thought-provoking questions, these pastors invite the people to take part in a dialogue. Anyone may ask about something they do not understand, contribute an insight, express a doubt, or read a related Scripture.

By means of these and other ways to structure the main church meeting, a leader can open new opportunities for those who will never join a small group. This frees them to become contributors instead of passive consumers. They get to know the names and stories of others in the congregation. And after tasting body life, they may even choose to join a home group.

An Experiment

In The Other Six Days, R. Paul Stevens invites churches to “Consider an experiment that has been undertaken in several churches. The culture of a local church can be partially changed in fifty-two weeks by refusing for one year to give ‘air-time,’ speaking time, to visiting missionaries, denominational officials and professors from denominational colleges in the Sunday service. Instead each week an ordinary member should be brought forward and in five minutes interviewed along these lines: 'What do you do for a living? What are the issues you face in your work? What difference does your faith make to the way you address these issues? How would you like us as a church to pray for you in your ministry in the workplace?'”

Ephesians 4:11-12 calls church leaders “to equip God's people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ (NLT).” God’s people include not just those in small groups but also those whose only church experience occurs in the main congregational meeting. Church meetings, even fairly large ones, can be structured to some degree as shared-church gatherings that allow that kind of body-building work to take place.