Rows Changed My Life
Group life is essential for discipleship. But let's not underestimate the formative power of attending corporate worship.
A humorous meme went viral recently on social media, compiling video clips of various church leaders echoing similar talking points: “Circles are better than rows.” The implication is that church leaders are copycats who use similar cliched language. The fact that pastors in varied parts of the country sound the same when talking about the importance of small groups shouldn’t bother us very much. Leaders learning from and implementing best practices of other leaders is good, actually.
However, the actual idea that “circles are better than rows” is an idea worth interrogating. It’s a well-meaning idea that I’ve heard in every church I’ve been a part of, a desire to move people from mere church attendance toward a deeper, relational discipleship in the life of the church. This is a good goal, an important goal, for churches. Christianity was meant to be lived out, not in isolation, but in true community. The wonderful small group we are a part of in our church has made our transition from Tennessee much easier. This is a group that has been meeting for decades! And yet they welcomed us in and have been a rich source of spiritual life for us. I think group life—in whatever form it takes—is essential.
Yet I’m bothered by the “better than” construction. Circles are better than rows. Group life is better than the dusty, old chore of filling a pew. I think this underestimates the formative power of the habit of weekly corporate worship.
I wrote about this a few years ago for Christianity Today:
Up through my teenage years, I thought of church as a bit boring. Sure, there were some life-changing, soul-stirring messages at summer camp or a special service. But for most of my life, including my years as a pastor, I did pretty much the same thing every week: singing familiar hymns or choruses, standing up and reading Scripture, listening to a sermon.
Ironically, one of the axioms of my childhood evangelical faith was this: Church is more than the service or a building; it is the called-out people of God, living on mission every day. Church, I was told, will not get you to heaven. Only a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ will do that.
I still believe this, more strongly now than ever, but I also believe that in some ways church does—or did—save me. It didn’t save me in the ways you might expect: a spectacular Sunday service, a homerun sermon, or a gripping worship set. God’s primary tool to transform my heart was not the conference speaker or the travelling revivalist or the worship concert. Those events were important, but now I realize that, more often, God changed my life using routine worship services in which I sang hymns I didn’t quite understand and heard messages I didn’t quite grasp.
In dark and stormy seasons, what comes into my head first? The lines of hymns I learned as child in church. The verses I memorized on Wednesday nights in my Awana class. The passages of Scripture we stood and read aloud.
I’m convinced, more than ever, that we grow, not mostly from the big events of our lives, but from the many micro, repetitive, mostly forgotten rhythms over a lifetime. When you see a godly man or woman, you are not looking at someone whose life was primarily shaped by one big event—though that may have been a catalyst—but by a long and repeated series of events. James K. A. Smith says it this way:
There is no formation without repetition. Virtue formation takes practice, and there is no practice that isn’t repetitive. We willingly embrace repetition as a good in all kinds of other sectors of our life— to hone our golf swing, our piano prowess, and our mathematical abilities, for example. If the sovereign Lord has created us as creatures of habit, why should we think repetition is inimical to our spiritual growth?
Don’t get me wrong. Circles can and should be a part of this repetition. The cumulative impact of a weekly intimate gathering around the word and prayer with a handful of families is its own rite and practice. The vulnerability in a small group, the identification of needs, and the rich friendships look like “one-another” ministry so often seen in the New Testament. But group life is complimentary, not superior, or in competition with, corporate worship. We miss the discipleship happening when we sit there, listening to preaching, singing in worship, and partaking of the bread and the cup. Here’s more from my CT piece:
These rituals train our hearts. We sing to ourselves songs, hymns, and spiritual songs. We hear the same gospel preached to us, over and over again. We lift the cup to our lips and the bread to our tongues remembering, again, our place at the King’s table. Through these practices, God takes our hearts and seals them for his courts above, to paraphrase another hymn writer, Robert Robinson.
So, yes circles are important. Not enough church attendees are involved in small groups. They are missing out on rich, important discipleship. But let’s not overstate the case for groups at the expense or in competition with corporate worship which the New Testament is pretty adamant about. Circles AND rows. I leave you with this quote from the great John Stott:
I have had the privilege of preaching the gospel on every continent and in most countries of the world, and when I present the message of the simple gospel of Jesus Christ with authority, he takes the message and drives it supernaturally into human hearts.
My latest piece for Providence Magazine on wisdom in a political season.
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