Ten people, ten reasons

Picture the ten people you would invite if you started a group next month. Now be honest about them. Is every one of those ten spiritually hungry? Or is there a cousin who would come because you asked, a neighbour who would come to argue, someone who would come because their spouse is coming and it is easier than explaining why not?

That is the group. Not the one in the training video — that one.

The mixed crowd is not a failure

There is a quiet assumption underneath a lot of anxious facilitating: that a healthy group is one where everybody wants to be there for the right reasons, and that a group full of mixed motives means something has gone wrong at the door.

Look at who followed Jesus. Some came for bread and left when the teaching got hard. Some came to test him with questions they already had answers for. Some came to trap him in his own words. Some came, stayed, and were still there at the end. He drew all of them, at the same time, in the same crowd — and he did not stand at the edge sorting them into groups before he began.

Your Discovery Group will be the same. That is not the group failing to be what it should be. That is the group being exactly what every real gathering around the Word has always been.

Why this matters more than it sounds

If you believe a good group is a pre-sorted group, you will start sorting. It will not feel like judgement — it will feel like wisdom. You will not invite the skeptic, because he will slow things down. You will quietly hope the man who came to argue stops coming. You will write off the woman whose mother made her come, because she is only here for her mother.

And you will be doing all of that with information you do not have.

The alternative is not lower standards. It is a smaller job. You are the one who scatters. Who grows is a different question, decided by someone else, and the next nine chapters are mostly about giving that question back.

Recite this

Ten people will come with ten reasons. Not one of those reasons is mine to approve.

Try it this week

Write down the names of the ten people you would actually invite. Beside each, write the real reason you think they would come — not the reason you wish they had. Do not cross anybody off the list.

I will write my ten names before ________________, and cross off none of them.