More to Life Groups: The Class Meeting

Introduction

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Virtual Reality Church: Saw this CNN special of the spread of virtual reality churches. A pastor that travels the US in a trailer to tell people about the church but on Sunday morning he stands up in the living area of the trailer, puts on his VR helmet and goes to church. There are thousands that are a member of his church. Their avatars gather in pews. Do you know what an avatar is? Not the blue things that was in that movie. Avatars are something that represents you. And you can like dress them up now. Interesting that so many gamers and people that would never go to church are attending this. But just something feels off. Then something clicked in the interview. The reporter asked the pastor what he thought about the VR church versus the real church. He said this, “Well I think relationships can be much more authentic because people can hide behind an avatar. There is a level of anonymity that makes people feel more comfortable. See this is just so far from what I think God designed us to be. We are relational beings. We are created for relationship. And listen I am not trying to be that “get of my lawn” curmudgeon about technology. But this is not what the christian journey is supposed to be!

And before you feel too proud of yourself for being in a real church this morning and not at VR church....we are all walking avatars. We hide behind some shell of ourselves. We only let others see the version of us we want people to see. Our best qualities and none of our flaws. Our successes and none of our failures. Our good days and none of our bad ones. We are this walking avatar that we have created. AND NO ONE KNOWS US. Heck we dont even know ourselves.

That is where I believe small groups come in. It is the means of grace, the avenue through which God breaks through our own self-reliance, our temptation to try and be our own God. Today and next week we will explore Wesleyan discipleship groups and listen these are simple and revolutionary. And they are nothing crazy…just biblical discipleship. Pay attention to their likeness to the way that Jesus did it.

Disciples:

The 12 disciples, called together to live and learn. Why 12? Well there is theological and cultural reasons here but think about the practical. It is a learning size. Typical for any teacher of the law to have a following of disciples like this. They would repeat back to each other teachings....they would ask questions and process things together. They would learn from hands on experience.

Think about this question that Jesus asks them one night…Who do people say that I am? Who do you say that I am?

I always imagine them sitting around a fire with this text. I don’t know why. Eating and thinking through the events of the last couple of days. Probably, talking about the shock on people’s faces as Jesus fed 4 thousand with just a few loaves of bread. Probably blaming each other for doubting that Jesus could do it. Peter with a mouthful tries to convince the rest that he knew Jesus had it the whole time....then Jesus asks, what are people saying about me?

The right answer

Who do you say that I am?

Well you’re the Messiah, the son of the living God.

The right answer again.

But Jesus is not interested in just right information....We know this by the relationship with Peter. Peter (and the 12) will spend the rest of their journey learning what it means to follow Jesus, the messiah.

The implied question here is the point of transformation....How does your life reflect that I am the messiah, the son of the living God?

The class meeting:

And this is the focus of the class meeting. We call the class meeting, More to Life groups, by the way…better branding:) The whole point of the class meeting in John Wesley’s time was to provide space for people to internalize and grow in grace.

The beginning:

Early Wesleyan/Methodist societies were formed as a gathering of corporate worship and preaching, but this was not the core of the rapidly growing movement of the 17-1800s. In order to be a Methodist, membership within the Class Meeting was required at one point in the revival movement. According to Wesley, the meeting involved 12 people, men and women, equipped to encourage and “more easily discern whether they are indeed working out their own salvation” (John Wesley, General Rules, 9:69-70). The class meeting became an access point for evangelism and hospitality, reaching the unchurched in masses. Then, for the serious work of sanctification men “banded” with 2-3 men and women with women, to position themselves in intentional accountably relationships. The Band groups, as they were called, we will talk about next week, but for our purposes here the Class Meeting requires our attention.

These groups existed to encourage one another in love, to provide accountability, and to not just talk about the Christian life but to actually live it as well.

nineteenth-century American Methodist preacher:

“In these class-meetings many seekers of religion have found them the spiritual birth-place of their souls into the heavenly family, and their dead souls made alive to God.” - Peter Cartwright

“We have no doubt, but meeting of christian brethren for the exposition of scripture-texts, may be attended with their advantages. But the most profitable exercise of any is a free inquiry into the state of the heart.” - Francis Asbury and Thomas Coke

The class meeting was the heart of the Methodist revival. In 1776, Methodists accounted for 2.5 percent of religious adherents in the colonies, the second smallest of the major denominations of that time. By 1850, Methodist comprised 34.2 percent of religious adherents in the U.S, which was 14 percent more than the next largest group. And it is not hard to say that the most important growth factor was the class meeting....

A different kind of group:

Not your momma’s sunday school class. Listen, we have a strong sunday school program here. I am not telling you that our sunday school classes are not important. We should continue to support and resource these classes. What I am saying is let’s be clear that, in general, there is something very different about these groups. Mostly, Sunday school classes are centered around a teacher/lecturer/curriculum. It is information download where we go from one curriculum to another.

Son and daughter of God....how are you living this way?

Formational: Consistently meeting together and accountability is formative. We are now considering our walk in Christ all throughout the week. We are learning to pray for our group. We are learning to have spiritual conversation that is honest. We are learning to listen!

Transformational: Son and daughter of God....how are you living this way?

Evangelistic: home groups, invitational to other people

So what are we doing?

Since last September we have been working with potential leaders and hosts of these groups. During the table in the fall, spring, and another fall we have met preparing groups to start these groups. We now have seen the start of 7 groups with over 70 people included. Currently, there are 3-4 groups that are set to potentially start in January. We are not just trying to start a program, that is why you have only heard me mention these communities. We are soaking this thing in prayer and asking God to use us…and it is happening. We want to invite you to be a part of it. I am not going to go all Wesley on you and collect ticket stubs but I do want to challenge you here…if you desire to follow after Jesus, you must be in community. There are other ways to do that but I believe there is something here that is profound as I will share with testimony in a second. And if you cannot carve out an hour and half every week for this then you don’t want it bad enough! Sign up in the back.

Friends, lives are being changed. Testimony of restoration of marriages. People learning how to pray. Folks finding a whole different depth to the Christian journey. This fall an older gentleman stumbled into our Wednesday night group and said “I just felt the Holy Spirit in the room in a way that I have never felt in small groups.”

Let me close with a testimony from Zach Harlan. Some of you may know his story. He has been through a lot and made some mistakes. Currently he cannot attend church as part of his probation. So he and his wife,, Kendra, lead one of these groups in their home. He wrote this to share with us:

After my life changed for the worst, it changed for the better. Amid the embarrassment and shame, and the feelings of guilt and despair, was abundant grace and community that provided the first and most important steps in the renewal of the faith that holds my life together. Through an assignment for court-appointed therapy, I recently wrote my life story. In doing so, I became aware of the importance of community and accountability in my life, my choices, and in my behavior. I looked back at all of the peaks and valleys of my story and discovered an interesting recurrence. I found that in the peaks there was always a community providing checks and balances in my life. Conversely, amid all of the valleys I experienced isolation. Be it physical or emotional, I found that my deepest spiritual deficit was always paired with a sense that I was alone. No one really knew me- or cared to. I believed that people loved me, but only because I presented myself without any baggage. My struggles were unique, and therefore a burden to others. My sins were mine to bear. Even after I got married and had children, I felt that I was saving them from pain and heartache by withholding my struggles and presenting myself as positive and self-assured. It wasn’t until my truth was thrust into the spotlight that I came out of isolation and into a community that KUMC provided, and welcomed me into. Since then, honesty, vulnerability, and transparency have been crucial to my recovery, and rediscovery of the life that Christ wants for me. The More to Life group has provided me and others an outlet to rediscover Christ in our lives. We share the triumphs and the failures that we experience weekly, and are given the chance to be fully known and loved by a community of our peers. The group has provided a sense of spiritual, emotional and even physical community that I have been craving. I now have an outlet to pray and praise, and serve alongside my wife. Instead of leading parallel lives, our lives are interconnected and she is my greatest accountability partner. The same can be said for our More to Life group of twelve. The way we share and support one another is community as Christ intended within the church body. We are not intended to be a group of parallel lines, but a cord of many, woven and intersecting with one another. We are honest, vulnerable, and transparent, fulfilling a promise to look after one another in love.”

Not living as an avatar. But allowing people to know us fully and to know them fully. This is the promise we have in following Christ. If anyone wants to save their life…they will lose it. We do that better as a team. Let’s pray.