Sin is a heart issue that often manifests itself in external behaviors. To kill sin we must get to the heart of the matter. I have found it helpful to ask personalized gospel-centered questions to uncover the deep-rooted idolatries of my heart. Because we encounter temptation and sin in different ways, personalized questions can be very helpful in leading us to repentance and faith in Jesus.

How can we formulate these questions? Here are a few things to consider when probing the heart:

Personality Type

Are you naturally an introvert or extrovert? Do you get angry easily? Are you a Type “A” individual, constantly focused on completing your to-do list? Are you passive or shy? Knowing a person’s personality will help you penetrate their heart.

Consider someone who is a naturally strong-willed achiever. They might have the tendency to treat their spirituality in the same way. It becomes more about what they can do for Jesus than what He has already done for them.

Ask questions that are specific to their personality:

• Are you trusting in your own strength or in the strength of Jesus?
• Are you striving for God or resting in God?
• Are you fighting well against finding your worth in your work to finding your worth in Jesus?

Reccurring Outside Influences

What are the reccurring situations and circumstances that offer the most temptation? Are there people who you struggle to love? Are there times when you work late or are alone for extended periods of time?

Consider the person who has an unruly neighbor. One who is constantly nagging or creating trouble for the family. Ask questions in light of the situation:

• How are you loving “Bob” well?
• Do you see “Bob” as a problem or a person made in the image of God?
• Are you asking Jesus to grant you patience and genuine love?
• Do you know where Bob could use prayer? Have you offered to pray for him?

Tendencies Toward Sin

Where have you struggled in the past? What are the areas of habitual sin? We all have vices. Sin that gets the best of us is the sin we must fight hardest against.

Consider the man who is gluttonous. He might be fighting well, but still has a strong temptation to find fulfillment by indulging in too much food and drink.

Ask sin-specific questions that do not promote legalism:

• Are you being intoxicated with grace or with alcohol?
• Are you being satisfied with Christ or with food this week?
• What is consuming your thoughts: Food or Christ?

These questions evolve with our relationships. The more you know the men or women in your Fight Club the easier it is to prod at the heart and uncover the sin beneath the sin. Make a habit of asking one another personalized, gospel-centered questions. As you do, you will cut sin off at the root and turn to see Christ in the height of his glory!

It is important to note that just asking questions isn’t enough. Our questions must turn the corner and point others to the truth of the gospel. Only surfacing sin without bringing the hope of the Gospel produces wounded Christians. It is necessary to know your sin but only so that you can fight your sin and trust and enjoy your Savior.

From JT Caldwell at GospelCenteredDiscipleship.com

1. Strengths for Success
   • Make your fight clubs relationally driven not programmatic.
   • Reinforce the necessity of gospel-centered DNA as many ways as possible (sermons, articles, blogs, www.gospelcentereddiscipleship.com, tweets, trainings).
   • Groups that meet regularly experience much deeper gospel change (At least every other week is key)  .
   • Address fight club pitfalls regularly from pulpit/seminars. They can turn into gossip clubs, cheap grace clubs, legalism clubs, non-existent clubs. Show how and why the gospel leads to different, better groups.
   • Talk about fight clubs as an integral part of your church, i.e. Our church is about Sundays, City Groups, and Fight Clubs.
   • Do Fight Club stories from the front, where people share how the gospel has shaped them in community.
2. Challenges We Face
   • Default mode of the heart (legalism and license). Pastor, teach, pray, equip for gospel-centered living. Never weary of it. It is your life calling.
   • It gets messy when people are getting that deep and close. Be prepared for a spike in counseling support.
   • People tend to slip off from making Text-Theology-Life central in FC meetings, which is how you keep the gospel central. Otherwise, you end up relying on second-hand gospel sayings and old Bible verses, not fresh words from the Spirit and promises from God. When this happens, the gospel loses its center of gravity and discipleship its joy. When people start, not with how the Spirit is changing them through the Word, but how they are struggling in life, they inevitably begin to leave the gospel to end, displacing it from the center. Start with the Word, keep it central, and allow it to shape your time, not your life experience to shape your time.
   • Infrequency of meeting lead to loss of value, gospel-centrality, and godly discipleship.
3. Indefinite Duration of Groups
   • Indefinite because they are based on friendships not community. They are selective relationships of trust, gathered around Jesus that should endure.
   • If a group must break apart, honesty, confession, repentance, and encouragement should all inform that process, those relationships. Running away from people who are different is running towards convenience not Christ.

From Justin at GopspelCenteredDiscipleship.com

1. Know God

• Cultivate a steady devotional and prayer life.
• Participate in gospel-centered accountability, like a Fight Club.
• Serve with the strength God supplies (2 Peter 4:11).

2. Know Your People

• Pastor your Missional Community. Don’t just lead discussions.
• Take notice when somebody disappears and make sure they are loved well.

3. Know Your Neighborhood

• Know the culture and relate to it well.
• Know your neighbors and invite them into your community.

4. Don’t Go Alone

• Share leadership by appointing leaders for hosting, meals, prayer, and mission.
• Participate in monthly leaders’ meetings.
• Participate in monthly coaching meetings.

5. Say Who You Are (And Who You Aren’t) Every Week

• Graciously deconstruct the small group/Bible study/social group approach and reconstruct your Missional Community.
• Reaffirm your Missional Community practices each week.

6. Get Out of the Living Room

• Be on mission every month as a community.
• Celebrate life and good culture.

7. Live the Missionally

• Read and apply the 8 ways to be missional.
• Live out loud. Let gospel talk be ordinary talk, not obnoxious but genuine.

8. Eat, Laugh, Pray, and Serve Together

• A healthy group does all four.

9. Share Your Stories

• In the living room.
• On the blog.
• In social media. Use Twitter or Facebook to facilitate community (not replace it).

10. Come to Serve (Not Just Be Served) on Sundays

• Missional community doesn’t stop on Sundays.
• Always be the church.

From Jonathan Dodson with Nate Navarro on TheResurgence.com

• Is there someone to pray for?
• Is there someone needing counsel?
• Is there someone to encourage?
• Is there someone to hold accountable?
• Is there something to celebrate with someone?
• Is there a need to be met?
• Is there a leadership call to make?
• Is there a conflict to be resolved?

From Rick Howerton at Small Group World

1. view themselves as fellow and equal journiers longing to know God really and are committed to building a micro-Christian community together
2. will utilize the spiritual gifts, learned abilities, and resources they have been given on behalf of one another
3. are committed to the weekly small group meeting where we learn from one another, pray for one another, and see God work miracles when “two or three are gathered.” (Matt. 18:20)
4. will hold them accountable to do the spiritual disciplines as they birth spiritual maturity in us
5. purposefully and passionately direct one another to God and His Words found in the Bible when concluding how to deal with a difficult life issue, make a major decision, or determine the rightness or wrongness of a moral dilemma

1. loves the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love’s their neighbor as they love themselves (Mark 12:30 – 31)
2. understands that life is messy and that the leader will leverage the synergy of the group to help carry the load and remind the struggling group member of the hope that is in them in the messy times
3. is espousing and instilling a biblical world-view
4. is available as a sounding board and willing to give wise counsel when requested
5. will make sure that no known financial, emotional, or spiritual need will be glossed over but that the group leader will coalesce the spiritual gifts, abilities, and resources of the group members to meet those needs

From Rick Howerton

1. is their confidant, co-laborer, and friend
2. is available and honored to answer practical questions about small group leadership
3. is praying for them daily and proves so by connecting with the small group leader periodically via phone or face-to-face so they can hear that prayer
4. understands that the small group leaders they are responsible for one another, can learn from one another, and become better by being together, so they welcome them into their home from time to time to discuss group life, encourage one another, and celebrate what God is doing in each of their groups
5. is willing to come to the group meeting and speak into the conversation when the small group leader has been unable to resolve conflict, a doctrinal discussion has become a foolish and divisive debate, when the group is in rebellion and unwilling to consider multiplication, etc…

From Rick Howerton

Every Small Group Pastor needs to know that their Senior Pastor…

1. believes so strongly that small groups are vital to the church’s goal of transformed lives that small groups is included as one of the church’s core values
2. will be her/his advocate to the Finance Team so that there is adequate budget monies for the training and equipping of the small group coaches, leaders, and all other players on the small group team
3. requires every staff member to be in a small group and is encouraging those in the ministry they lead to be in one too
4. is in or leading a small group and talking about it when teaching and preaching
5. will consistently (at least every 30 days) remind those who are attending the worship gathering that it is vital that they join a small group and how to do so

From Rick Howerton

First, my church strives after the glory of God in all things with a strong emphasis on the Scriptures and Gospel-Centrality.

This works itself out in a commitment to expository preaching

In addition, this has led us to a focus on discipleship

First, there is a membership process; this comes directly out of our belief in the Baptist distinctive of “Regenerate Church Membership.”

Next, members are integrated into a small group, which is the primary means of discipleship and community in our church.

Finally, in the context of Gospel-Centrality, there is a focus on being as diverse as the community around us.

Second, our church is adamant about the primacy of the local church

Shepherd’s Training

The elders invite these men that they have identified into the 2-year program; it is not open to everyone. He is then paired with an Elder or leader in the church, along with one other trainee. This leader focuses on personal development and maturity with him. In addition, there is a focus on accountability and the character necessary for an elder. He meets with this Elder/leader every other week to go through these things and to work through memorizing the Pastoral Epistles. In addition, he also meets every other week with all those in the program and all the trainers. Each “semester” during the 2-year cycle focuses on a different aspect of pastoral ministry and leadership. The every other week meeting focuses on the portion of the Pastoral Epistles that was to be memorized that week. One of the Elders then leads through an exposition of that passage and the other elders add thoughts on the passage as well. Next, all the trainees are required to read a book for the week, examples of books read are Baxter’s “The Reformed Pastor,” Dever’s “Nine Marks of a Healthy Church,” Spurgeon’s “Lectures to My Students,” and Bonheoffer’s “Life Together.” Each week, two of the trainees deliver an oral book review of the book for that week and then ask questions of the book that the elders answer and discuss. Finally, the night ends with one of the elders lecturing on an area of pastoral ministry and then discussion of that topic among the elders and trainees. The topics range from “why we employ small groups” to “regenerate church membership.” In addition, during the semester the trainees write two position papers on topics of interest in pastoral ministries. The topics of these papers are things like, view of spiritual gifts in ministry, use of alcohol in ministry, view of divorce and remarriage, and view of church government. Finally, each trainee is to work on a ministry project in some area of church life.  The goal is to lead to the training of future elders and church planters through life on life training. This is the best way to evaluate whether a man possess the qualifications of an Elder and if they are ready to take on a role such as that.

Finally, in the focus of church primacy, my home church does church planting and missions “in house.”

This focus on the primacy of the local church does not mean that my church does not seek to be aided by the convention structures, but it means that they do not farm out missions’ work or church planting to an outside organization.

Finally, how does my church focus on missional living?

First, there is a focus on the small groups being missional. They are all to carry out community projects in our “We Love North Raleigh” campaign

Second, as has been mentioned, we focus on missional living through church planting

In addition, the church has worked hard at overseas and cross-cultural missions

is not necessarily one which is doing some kind of specific ‘evangelism’ programme (though that is to be recommended). Rather:

1. If its members love and talk positively about the city and neighbourhood.
2. If they speak in language that is not filled with pious tribal or technical terms and phrases, nor disdainful and embattled language.
3. If in their Bible study they apply the gospel to the core concerns and stories of the people of the culture.
4. If they are obviously interested in and engaged with the literature and art and thought of the surrounding culture and can discuss it both appreciatively and yet critically.
5. If they exhibit deep concern for the poor and generosity with their money and purity and respect with regard to opposite sex, and show humility toward people of other races and cultures.
6. If they do not bash other Christians and churches.

Then seekers and non-believing people from the city (a) will be invited and (b) will come and will stay as they explore spiritual issues. If these marks are not there it will only be able to include believers or traditional, ‘Christianized’ people.

That’s from a recent post from Tim Chester. Each of those are qualities I want our Engage Groups to demonstrate. Chester closes with some reflections on those 6 characteristics.

1. How does your community measure up against these criteria?
2. If we find ourselves changing the language we use when unbelievers are present then we should probably change it all the time. Think about how you might talk about evangelism when unbelievers are present.
3. Tim Keller says the members of a missional community ‘love and talk positively about the city and neighbourhood’. List ten things you love about your neighbourhood.

Those are good points to think through and they provide quite a challenge to me as I look to growing more Engage Groups in the future.