One of the real values of having people we can truly trust is the ability to be honest when we really, really need to.

Over and over again, I here this question.  Is it possible to trust again?  And what is sad is that the question comes from those in the church.  And just that last sentence makes me cringe.  It’s just not supposed to be like that.  Bu the reality is that we are in a period of history that doesn’t just allow us to vent, but also allows us to be heard.  The Internet has changed the conversation.

I get the question.  It was my own almost seven years ago as a group of men sat in a meeting that became the foundation for what would become Thrive Ministries.  I have the unexpected pleasure of being the one to say, “It’s just not possible.”

It’s interesting to be seven years removed from that question, now sitting on the other side of the fence.  It is possible to trust again.  It just takes work.  And there were many days over the last seven years that I wanted to quit.  It would just have been easier to remain on the outside of trust.  But this is not who I wanted to be nor who I was designed to be, my Heavenly Father constantly nudging me forward towards restoration.

Trust was only possible for me in a group of people willing to put trust on the line again.  This was a slow often painful journey towards learning forgiveness, reconciliation, facing my own wounds, and ultimately realizing that they didn’t define me.  They were simply events that could break me or shape me.  And as I lived in this intentional community, I began to realize that I had the space to let them shape me.  I had a group who would reveal love to me.

This is the footsteps of Jesus.  It’s the willingness to trust again.  It’s the willingness to run back to the Father with no preconceived notions but to be unexepectedly embraced in a way that is profound.  It is to discover my dignity rests in my Father’s love.  And with this love I can face anything.

Learning to trust again wasn’t about everyone else suddenly changing.  It was about me growing up into the person my Father had designed me to be.  And that was Jesus.  It was about me learning to love and be loved.  It was about me learning that I was not defined by my stuff, or what I did, or who I knew, or how smart I was.  It was about knowing the embrace of my loving Father and then sharing that love.  But to get there required trust.

Was it hard?  Absolutely. But it was worth it.

If you are a pastor struggling with small groups, we get that.  We’ve wrestled with it too.  How do we effectively engage the Great Commission, to go and make disciples?

The idea of small groups is not very old.  Basically unheard of in the seventies and much of the eighties, the idea of gathering people together in some form other than church began making its way into the Christian cosmos during the early nineties.  This transition was made possible through the work of Ralph Neighbour.  And much of that work centered on the idea of gathering people together for what essentially became Bible studies. Affinity groups, or people who have a lot in common, would gather together with the intention of going through some type curriculum.

And what typically happened was that people would learn the “right” answers to the questions the curriculum provided.  The assumption being that the right information would change people.  And there is valuable insight in these right answers.  But what would often get lost is the real answers that people were wrestling with and having very little wiggle room to deal with what it meant to be a broken human being.

The Alpha curriculum broken new ground by beginning with neighbors and friends, integrating the meal, asking fundamental questions that people have about the Gospel, and allowing people to actually talk about their answers in a safe environment.  But where did people go after Alpha?  Back to the small group.

And as pastors, or even well meaning leaders, attempted to gather people together, what often started strong with lots of participation, would die a slow death as people dwindled in numbers.  Lots of people would get interested in the beginning but over time someone would miss a meeting or two.  Others would get frustrated and stop coming because so and so wasn’t there.  And the inertia and momentum that had flourished in the beginning was lost.

Great leaders would give countless hours to the start and stop process hoping not to succumb to the burnout.  Occasionally a bright spot would emerge…but it was typically the exception, not the rule.  And when a pastor would step into a group, just to participate, people would grow strangely quiet, waiting for him to talk, assuming he knew all the right answers already.

When the Reveal study came out, people began to realize that our systems are not always designed to teach people how to grow to a healthy independence and ultimately interdependence.  And when people were growing they often reached a place that often left them frustrated.  Most were feeding but not learning how to feed themselves.

We believe that it doesn’t have to be this way.  We believe that Jesus modeled a very simple context for the small group, creating a missional context that engaged people in their own restoration and of the world around them.  It wasn’t about learning the right answers but also about participating in something intentional, meaningful, and ultimately designed for growth.

It was a small group of people who wanted to follow Jesus and engage God’s mission in the world.  It was active and living, dealing with real world and present problems.  It has purpose that was larger than the individual motives of the participant’s.  It was deeply rewarding, creating love and joy, peace and patience.  It engaged people in some of the fundamental problems of what it meant to be human and led them to the answer: love and trust.  It invited people to be Jesus because this is what we were designed to be.

If you are a leader or pastor looking for a way to transform your small groups into something intentional, missional and wholistic, we would like to talk with you.  Contact us today for a free digital copy of our leadership manual.

What would it look like to transform the word “church”?

When we started Thrive, it was our desire to discover not just what it meant to participate in a Sunday service but what it meant to be the church.  For many of us, church was something we went to, not something we were. This was the pattern we had grown up in.  Many of us had participated in this exercise for most of our lives.

But what often emerges from that experience is just the opposite of what it intended.  We learn to compartmentalize our relationships.  Sunday is for our church group and Monday is for our work group.  Nights and weekends are for our family group.  In some circumstances, we learn to mix the three through events and programs such as small groups.  But as much as we try, these experiences don’t seem to transform our world.

What our hearts are looking for is a way to integrate what we traditionally did on Sunday into the rest of the week.  Deep down, if we’re really gonna do this thing called following Jesus, we want a way to actively participate in transforming our lives into something that looks like Jesus.

And this isn’t just a small group.  It’s an intentional group of people who are looking to participate in something bigger than just themselves, in something divine.  It’s participating in something that can have a tangible impact on our whole life and the lives of those around us, our neighbors and friends, our coworkers and the strangers we meet on the street.  It’s discovering what it means to be Jesus to people.

This way of living doesn’t just happen.  It’s an intentional process of following Jesus. And Jesus knew that it happens in community, a tribe if you will, of people who are looking for and working towards the same thing.  This missional context is so simple yet so revolutionary.  Jesus got it right.  We needed people to follow with.  We need our tribe.

And over time, as we began sharing life together in our tribes, we discovered that what each of us were really looking for was a way to be the church together, to reflect God to each other.  But we needed a safe space to practice in.  We needed a shame free environment to be broken human beings working towards our own restoration.  We need people around us who can help us get back up when we’ve fallen, to reflect love when we really need it.  We needed time to heal, and to restore, and to practice working through our own brokenness.  We needed to see what was possible in others so we could do the same.  We needed a place to be “real” before we ever got the “right” down.

At Thrive, our desire is to help you discover what it means to be the church, and provide you with a context for doing that.  We’re charting the path so you don’t have to. We’ve developed a process for what it means to participate together in His mission of restoration and reconciliation.  We’ve develop curriculum that walks through the grand story of God in Scripture.  We’ve developed practices, exercises and assignments for stepping into the footsteps of Jesus.  We’ve created leadership materials that help guide the group but allows the Holy Spirit to speak clearly.  We’ve develop processes for engaging conflict resolution, forgiveness and reconciliation.

If you are looking for help in what it means to be the church, we can help.  Contact us today for a free digital copy of our Leadership Manual to begin evaluating what that looks like.

Do you know who your tribe is?  A tribe is that group of people you know you can trust.  It’s that group of people who know your story and love you anyway.  Your tribe is that group of people who have stood by your side as you discover what it means to stare your fears in the face and say, “No more!”

We get asked all the time, “What do you really do?”  The simple answer is, “We help people engage a mission of restoration and reconciliation by following Jesus.”  But a large part of that journey takes place in the context of a tribe, a collective group of people working towards the same mission.  It’s a group of people who have made a significant step in their faith to take Jesus up on his invitation to, “Come follow me.”

At first a tribe is simply a possibility.  We step into the space of trust with a trepidation that says, “I’m willing to give it a shot if you are.”  And suddenly there are twelve people who have gathered together to discover what it means to be human.  But over time people begin to share their story and we realize that no matter the differences in skin color, hair style, education, or beliefs, we are more similar than different.  We’re all broken, hoping for a better life, and wondering if this person named Jesus really can change the world.  Our world.

But over time, as each of us takes a risk to trust, to explore our own humanity, we discover that these people sitting next to us desire the same thing we do: restoration.  We laugh and cry and knod our heads in empathy as each of us explore our stories, our wounds, and our dreams.  We smile as we begin to see that restoration is possible.  Jesus shows up in profound ways that reveal a God more real than we could possible imagine.

An somewhere a long the way we’re struck with the sudden reality that these people sitting next to us are no longer strangers, but fellow travelers with the same intention.  “These people” becomes “my people.”  They have become a group of people who we can trust.  They are our brothers and sisters who have taken the risk to follow Jesus with us.  They’ve made the decision to practice love and trust in an intentional community.  We trust them with our stuff, our garbage, and even our dignity.  And they hold it.

We trust our tribe because together we have worked through the chaos of what it means to be human. We’ve found the space that exists on the other side of an argument or misunderstanding, and the relationship has become stronger because of it.

Most people are looking for a tribe.  We talk to people all the time who want to participate in something that is bigger than where they are currently at.  They like the idea of a group of people who they can trust and are working through their faith in an intentional, yet safe environment.  They want to connect with people who really want to follow Jesus.  For some reason they just don’t make it known.

So how do we find our tribe?

The simple answer is we ask. We find those people we know who want to follow Jesus like we do.  We take the first step and say, “I’m thinking about starting a group that wants to follow Jesus.  Are you interested in joining me?”  You’d be surprised at how people will respond.

And what we have seen is those people who are willing to take the risk, are the ones who end up in a tribe.  It just happens.  They take the risk to discover something better.  They invite people, assuming they want to participate.  And suddenly their creative energy makes it happen.

If you are one of these people, we want to talk to you.