Is Your Group Too Safe

Is your group too safe? Before you answer that question, let me explain a bit. I’m sure you’ve heard people talk about the need for small groups to be “safe places.” When we talk about safe groups, we are really speaking of a place where trust is highly valued and doggedly pursued. A place where a person can be who they really are without having to worry that everyone will bail because of it. That’s a good kind of safe. But a group that doesn’t take risks? That’s too safe.

What about a group that week after week sits in a circle answering questions from a study guide but never sees the truth of God’s Word violently collide with the life they live ? That, my friend, is too safe. A group that doesn’t make time to live the curriculum they study? Too safe. A group that chooses to ignore relational conflict rather than engage in the centuries old practice of biblical restoration? Too safe. A group that has found what they were looking for, so they close the doors of community? Too safe. A group that would rather talk about the love of Jesus than live the love of Jesus? Too safe. A group where everybody is fine and no one shares their deepest struggles? Again, too safe.

In his book, “Your God Is Too Safe” Mark Buchanan writes, “The safe god asks nothing of us, gives nothing to us. He never drives us to our knees in hungry, desperate praying and never sets us on our feet in fierce fixed determination. He never makes us bold to dance. The safe god never whispers in our ears anything but greeting card slogans and certainly never asks that we embarrass ourselves by shouting from the rooftops. A safe god inspires neither awe, nor worship, nor sacrifice. A safe god woos us to borderland and keeps us stuck there. He helps us escape reality.”

God is not safe, and He hasn’t called us to live safe lives of comfort and protection—just ask the disciples. Take a risk. Be vulnerable. Reach out. Make the kingdom of God tangible to the world around you. Speak the truth. Allow the Word of God to penetrate more than your ears. Let it run wild in your life. Tell your group that you want this to be more than a two hour a week activity. Communicate the desire you have that your group won’t stop at changing your lives, but that through it, God might change the world. Do you believe He can? I do. I want my group to be a place that takes risks and launches out of the land of comfort into a place where we are absolutely dependent on God to do big things that only He can do and where we lock arms with each other, and don’t let go. How about you?