| Jefferson and Simone are the pastors at the Mutirão Church in Altamira. Saturday morning 17 leaders showed up at their house to learn about Discovery Groups. We opened the meeting with time for everyone to air questions, criticisms, or what they hoped to get out of the morning. Since all questions were well received this raised the trust level, that this was a safe place to share doubts. This group has been experimenting with acquiring prayer partners for their groups. One question that struck a nerve was, “How many groups should I commit to pray for? When I only commit to praying for one group, my friends who are starting other groups think I don’t like them.” Prayer requests and communication among this group often happens through instant messages and social media.
I asked the group to suggest some Bible verses about prayer. They separated into small groups, each one taking one of the bible teachings.
1. Each group designated a facilitator leader.
2. The facilitator’s task was to
a) Not teach,
b) Draw out discussion from everyone in the group,
c) Write down at least three things their group discovered about prayer from their verses,
d) Share their group’s learning with the larger group in 3 minutes and,
e) Answer questions from the larger group for 2 minutes in a way that invites more questions and discussion.
(Some of these went over 20 minutes as everyone was fully engaged, helping the group to learn about structure and boundaries).
3. The group’s task was to hold the facilitator / leader accountable to his/her job.
This is so different from a leader teaching, and a group reacting to the teaching based on their own understanding (yawn). These participants were charged with a shot of adrenaline.
One scripture that stood out that morning is Romans 8:26.
Romans 8: 26-28 MSG Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans.
“If we get a request to pray for a Discovery Group, and we groan, is that a prayer according to this scripture?”
We had to leave that discussion and move on, but it leaves people wanting more as opposed to being thankful that the meeting is finally over.
Look at the faces below, and you’ll see what I mean.
It’s the difference between “When will this be over” AND “We have to stop because time is slipping away and we still have more to address.”
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