The #5 Key Thing to Transformation

The key to freedom is in Jesus Christ and the enabling, transforming power of the Holy Spirit, right?

Uhhh...no, says RW, the #5 key thing to Jesus transforming us is in - community and small groups.

Number five—the fifth principle of how Jesus transforms us, transforms our lives—is (this is extremely important; most people don’t get this in America): Lasting change requires community.

You know that perpetual in your life, that habit that you can’t break, that you’d like to change, you’re never going to get well on your own, you’re never going to get freedom on your own, you’re never going to get release from it on your own, if you could you would but you can’t so you won’t because God wired us in such a way that we need each other in order to grow, in order to be transformed.

So the journey we take in all of these spiritual growth emphasis—these spiritual growth journeys, the experiences, the campaigns, whatever you want to call them—the key to them is not the preaching, the key to them is the small groups.

-Life's Healing Choices: Rick Warren's Imitation Sanctification
watcherslamp.blogspot.com

Compare:

5. RESTRUCTURE THE CHURCH: The early Social Gospel proponents had strong ties with Communism and Socialism and they emphasized restructuring Society into a collective model (see previous post). The New Social Gospel proponents also borrow from the communist cell model, revamping it into modern small groups. But the purposes remain the same. The following article is very illuminating on this topic.

“The Cellular Church: Letter From Saddleback: How Rick Warren built his ministry,” by Malcolm Gladwell, New Yorker, 9/12/05

(...)

“One solution to the problem is simply not to grow, and, historically, churches have sacrificed size for community. But there is another approach: to create a church out of a network of lots of little church cells—exclusive, tightly knit groups of six or seven who meet in one another's homes during the week to worship and pray. The small group as an instrument of community is initially how Communism spread, and in the postwar years Alcoholics Anonymous and its twelve-step progeny perfected the small-group technique. The small group did not have a designated leader who stood at the front of the room. Members sat in a circle. The focus was on discussion and interaction—not one person teaching and the others listening—and the remarkable thing about these groups was their power. An alcoholic could lose his job and his family, he could be hospitalized, he could be warned by half a dozen doctors—and go on drinking. But put him in a room of his peers once a week—make him share the burdens of others and have his burdens shared by others—and he could do something that once seemed impossible.

-CFR and the Social Gospel: Part 3
Collectively Bearing the Sins of the World
by Discernment Group
www.crossroad.to

Just some things to think about today. (Read more at above links if interested to learn how small group community is a sure way to breed volunteering, social action {social gospel?} and giving - i.e. productive P.E.A.C.E. Plan volunteers for RW and friends. Is that the transformation goal of this latest campaign?)

Related:

Unity and Community
www.crossroad.to

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17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.
2 Cor. 3