Biblical Foundations For Small Group Ministry

by Gareth Weldon Icenogle

Publisher:

IVP

, 1994

Overview

Gareth Weldon examines biblical teaching and the ministry of the early church, offering guidance for setting up and running a biblically based small-group ministry program.

Contents

Top Highlights

“While the Christian world is increasingly bullish on small groups, the Christian small group movement has experienced very little theological depth. Small groups still tend to be a program or technique of ministry rather than a call to return to the roots of the very nature of what God created humanity to be. Most of the current small group activity in the church is not organic but technical and curricular. Churches do groups because they work. Deeper theological exploration is long past due in a church charging off into small group platoons without a declaration of war or a battle plan.” (source)

“Human small groups do not look within themselves or around themselves to nature for their meaning and purpose. Human small groups find their purpose only in God who leads them to serve one another and nurture creation with a God-shared knowledge and balance.” (source)

“Dysfunctional small groups breed more dysfunctional groups. Dysfunctional group leaders breed more dysfunctional groups.” (source)

“Small groups must be spaces of heaven where people move closer to God and one another.” (source)

“Small groups are microcosms of God’s creation community. Wherever two or more persons come together, they become an actual reflection of the image and likeness of God. Small groups are the basic arena for either imaging the redeeming presence of God or projecting destructive human systems. Every small or large gathering of humanity exists in this tension of manifesting an inhuman structure or embodying divinely redemptive relationships.” (source)

Product Details

• Title: Biblical Foundations for Small Group Ministry
• Author: Gareth Weldon Icenogle
• Publisher: IVP
• Print Publication Date: 1994
• Logos Release Date: 2001
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subjects: Church group work; Small groups
• ISBNs: 9780830891993, 0830891994
• Resource ID: LLS:40.40.20
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-28T20:18:11Z

About Gareth Weldon Icenogle

Gareth Weldon Icenogle (D.Min., Fuller Theological Seminary) is the senior pastor of West Side Presbyterian Church in Ridgewood, New Jersey. He teaches the Doctor of Ministry course in small groups at Fuller and speaks on small group ministry across the United States and internationally.