Sunday, September 4, 2011

Lies Churches Believe about Small Groups

I've really been wanting to find a small group that is interactive, in-depth, and fellowship-based. I've looked at a number of church websites and I find the same disturbing trends to be true. And they are all based on lies or old cultural expectations. Here are some lies churches seem to believe.

1) Small groups do not need to be interactive; therefore a DVD and a short discussion period will suffice.
2) No women have jobs outside the home. Not a single one. So a good time to have all your women's small groups is during the work day, so they have evenings and weekends free to serve their hard-working husbands. (OK...I may be exaggerating on that last part.)
3) All women enjoy crafting, so be sure women's events revolve around that. (After all, what good is a wife to her husband if she can't knit him a sweater?)
4) Women's identity is wrapped up in being a mother, whereas men have an identity apart from being a father.
5) All people in their 20s are single.
6) All married people have or will have children.
7) It is best to make groups very specific based on the above beliefs, rather than making all-inclusive groups that vary in gender, age-range, and stage of life. We don't need to worry about excluding anyone with our uber-specific groups, since all of our stereotypes are obviously true for everyone.*

* The good news is, we found a church that offers mixed-age groups that are on various biblical topics and are NOT DVD led. So I'm gonna try that out. Sadly for Dan, they all met during his work hours.

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