I am running out of interest in this book as it gets more and more mundane, but I am still determined to finish it. This chapter was the most boring of all so far because it just explained the obvious and did not offer any new or renewed insights.
The chapter can be summarized with four main points:
- Comeback leaders recognized and responded to a need for biblical unity and community in their churches.
- Comeback leaders used the small group system to identify and train new leaders.
- Comeback churches added, replaced, or started new classes or groups.
- Comeback churches created more space to expand the number of small group gatherings.
Of the four things listed above, we have done well on 1 & 3 and poorly on 2 & 4. We had two small groups last year and I had hoped to double that to four this year, but we just didn’t have the leadership to make it happen. We are still just spread too thin. But as I got to think about it, we actually do have four small groups meeting. We have two women’s groups, a men’s group and a seniors group. And that is really why it became unfeasible to add more groups. Besides not having enough leaders, there weren’t enough nights in the week! So instead of starting three additional groups as planned, we’re just starting one on Wednesday night, which makes 5 groups I guess… which is a lot for our size, now that I think about it.
