A spiritually crippling falsehood began to lose its grip on our congregation when we embraced small groups.
What I call the “Holy Place myth” is the idea that God’s presence is somehow greater in some places than in others. It’s why some Christians will tell a joke at the office they’d never think of repeating at church. It’s why others don’t think twice about lying on a loan application but still swear they live by the Ten Commandments.
The Holy Place myth fosters a false dichotomy between the secular and the spiritual by leading us to believe that there are some places where God hangs out and lots of others he seldom frequents.
A significant small group ministry undercuts this myth because when people begin to see God at work in their apartments and living rooms, they start to realize that a baptism can take place in a swimming pool, that Communion can be celebrated around a dining table, and that God is just as likely to answer their prayers in the front room as he is to answer mine in the front of the sanctuary.
With the demise of both the Holy Man and the Holy Place myths, our ministry was, for the first time, genuinely unleashed. People started bringing God to the workplace and into their neighborhoods rather than trying to bring everyone to the church building. And they quit insisting that I or another staff member had to show up in order for God to show up.
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