Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. - Romans 12:2 (ESV)

One way to describe the goal of small groups is to refer to Romans 12:2. There is nothing better a leader could hope for than for the students to be transformed by the renewing of their minds, leading to a greater discernment of what God’s will is. Small groups are not just about conversation; they are about living. 

So how do we do it? One of the most basic things I try to do is to break down the students’ assumptions that they already know everything. The more I grow and learn, the more aware I become of my own ignorance. I don’t know what I don’t know. But I at least know that not knowing what I don’t know is one of the greatest possible dangers in my life. I need the solid guidance of an almighty and all-seeing God who can reveal things to me that I would otherwise never know. This happens in the spiritual disciplines, and the students desperately need them. 

But the students are not in that place. Students do not typically come ready and willing to learn. Many of them have grown up in church. As a result, they think they already know everything. Or, if they do not think they know everything, they do not know how to or whether they should care about learning. This means that one of our first goals must not be to provide them with answers but to provoke them to ask questions.

It is important to note here that we should avoid simply annoying the students. It is ugly and unfruitful. The students should not feel disrespected or looked down on. They are used to that. They are used to being told what to think and do and small groups can easily become more of the same white noise. They know it is there but they do not notice it. 

Instead, we want to respect the students and love them by seeking to discern where they have gaps in their understanding. Most students´ worldviews are grounded squarely in mid-air. Most are grateful and intrigued when they are made aware, and they want to know more.

Piquing Interest

How do we do this? There is a question of technique here. Most often, we tend to think of small group time as a chance to fill in gaps in the students’ knowledge or understanding. But a large part of the benefit of small group does not come from filling in the gaps but exposing them. Students who do not know that they have gaps in their understanding that materially affect how they live are not likely to be motivated to fill them in. For students, small group is not helpful so much for filling in gaps but helping the students to see the ones that are there. A lot of small group leading is piquing their interest.

We have the water of life to offer the students (cf. Isaiah 55). But until or unless they see that they are subsisting on the spiritual equivalent of poison, why should they be thirsty? It should be clarified that the students will not be saved by our piquing their interest. But that is beside the point of small group. The goal of small group is subservient to the goal of their living for God: the goal is to teach them to engage in discourse or productive conversation. And for that, piquing interest can be very helpful.

One example we can consider is Jesus’s conversation with Nicodemus in John 3. Jesus piques Nicodemus’s attention by stating what Jesus knew would seem outrageous to Nicodemus, that to enter the kingdom of God he would have to be born again. Suffice it to say that Jesus succeeded in piquing his interest. He does the same thing with the Samaritan woman in John 4. There is a lot about this conversation to commend it to us as an example for leading small groups. 

Half-jokingly, we can observe that Nicodemus came by night, which is also when students typically are most primed to have deep conversations. But we can also see that Nicodemus had his own agenda for the small group and Jesus had another. Students are similar. They have an idea of what to expect from small group, and mine is often different. Jesus starts out by confusing Nicodemus and confounding his expectations, which I also try to do with the students. Jesus also speaks about familiar things in an unfamiliar way to Nicodemus. Nicodemus understands what Jesus is talking about, but he cannot see how the way Jesus pieces it together makes sense. I try to do the same thing with the students. They understand some of what I am saying, but I try to avoid conventional language that they think they understand but really do not. So, I say the same thing, but in words that they would not normally have heard, and which often sound strange to them. Or I will say something that is not quite right as a suggestion, but which I think they will catch as wrong but will have a difficult time explaining away. And we are off to the races. 

Getting Past the Lingo 

Students who grow up in church learn a sort of church vernacular, a “Christianese” language, if you will, where they can hold a conversation about spiritual things without having any real spiritual knowledge. They have no heart relationship to what they are saying. They have simply learned by rote to mimic what they have heard and seen others say.

Jesus seems to have defied all of Nicodemus’s expectations of how their conversation would go. The first thing Jesus did was surprise him with a seemingly impossible principle. Then, as the conversation continued, Jesus chided Nicodemus for not understanding. Many students are in a similar place to Nicodemus. They have lot of knowledge, and they can talk about God and the Bible for a long time, but they do not really understand it. Like Nicodemus, they seem to have a lot of true information without true understanding. One of the great advantages of a small group is that it sets the stage for leaders to reproduce the kind of conversation Jesus had with Nicodemus on a regular basis.

Of course, not every student is similar in this way to Nicodemus. Some students have little to no church experience. They do not know the lingo and have no ability to fake it until they make it. These students often feel like outsiders because they are unable to talk like the rest of the students. Small group leaders can do much to level the playing field by not allowing churched students to skirt real conversation by using the right lingo. It is up to small group leaders to recognize a Nicodemus-like knowledge of God and the Bible in students: they know a lot of right words, but their understanding is still immature and undeveloped. 

Because students are young and immature by definition, small group leaders do not need to worry about seeing through a façade; leaders can more or less assume a façade is there in the majority of cases. A student may sound like he has the experience and wisdom of a fifty-year-old, but leaders know he is only fourteen. And all fourteen-year-olds have much to learn. Whether they know it or not, the leaders do, and so they do not need to be intimidated by the apparent theological and/or intellectual erudition of churched students. 

In some ways, leading a small group is like conducting a Turing Test. A Turing Test is an experiment designed to determine if a computer can pass as a human being to another human being who asks questions. Unregenerate students are a bit like computers in a spiritual sense. They can mimic certain responses and sometimes fool a Christian, but there is no spiritual life to them. When we lead small group discussions, one of the things we are trying to do is determine whether what the student knows is the kind of knowledge that an unbeliever can have or if it is the kind of knowledge that is only spiritually discerned (cf. 1 Cor. 2:13). This does not mean that we should jump to conclusions about the students’ state, but that we should be open to learning more from the student and not settle for a quick judgment about them. 

We are always trying to orient ourselves to where the students are so that we can lead them in the way they need to go. That is why a lot of small group is about exploration of the students’ worldviews. We have the privilege of talking with people in small group when their worldviews are being formed. That means things will be dynamic. They will not stay the same. Lord willing, small group leaders will be used by God to lead students in the way they ought to go and avoid a dangerous path.

Ultimately, small group leaders must remember that small groups are not for inflating heads with theoretical knowledge. Small group is about converting the theoretical to the practical. The students’ theoretical knowledge of many things needs to be exposed for what it is, and their real motivations and trusts should be exposed in small group to help them see the contrast between how God wants them to think and how they currently think. From there, the group is off to the races to the transformation of their lives due to the renewing of their minds, and also to discerning the will of God as they go through life.