Here is the second of a mini-series on growing people through small groups in East Hollywood. (To read part one click here.) These reflections hopefully provide you a window into what it is like to join God in “growing faith where life happens” among the different cultures of LA’s working poor immigrants.
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The next two Sunday nights, despite renewed invitations, no neighborhood women came to our small group. We were very frustrated and sad. Why did it fail if we had clearly felt from the Spirit that the time was right?
Well, upon further reflection as a team, prayer to the Giver of the increase, advice from our coaches and mentors, and discussion with the women themselves, we realized that like everything else in this place, small groups will look different here!!
Our coach encouraged Phil that most missionaries try 20 different angles before they get 2 or 3 small groups going. He also challenged us to redefine small groups for our context, and stop trying to force them to fit into our middle class/suburban box.
For instance, we realized that planning a weekly get-together might be a step that happens AFTER the small group is already meeting and the fire is kindled in the hearts of these ladies for the Lord. How, you might ask, can you have a small group without a weekly meeting?
Well, that’s where our definition of small groups needs to be tweaked a little. A small group should be defined by the purpose, which is to grow people in faith in Christ. The success of this does not depend on regular planned weekly meetings.
We already know that most people in our neighborhood don’t plan their schedules more than a few days in advance, if that. In general, we receive invitations to parties a few days before they happen. A friend’s child was baptized: party Saturday, invite Wednesday. Last week another kid had a birthday: party Sunday, invite Thursday. This week we’ll be going to another birthday party on Saturday and just received the invite yesterday (Wednesday).
When I pull out my palm pilot at parent council meetings, everyone stares wide-eyed as I write in dates and times. I know part of that is because it’s an expensive and unknown piece of technology (I’ve actually “given it up” for a pocket calendar). However, I’ve noticed no one else there is writing any dates down! Ever! As President of the council, I realized fast that if I wanted anyone to be at the meetings, I had to call them all to remind them, not a week before, or a day before, but that very morning, an hour or so before the meeting.
When I asked one of my friends to come to the first small group on Sunday it was Wednesday of that same week. She said, “Meri, I have no idea what I’ll be doing that day. You know I don’t plan things that far ahead.” All the other ladies who said they were free and would be coming (three of them) just forgot, or had “something come up” that night. We are very used to making plans with people, having them say yes, and then having them not show up or cancel at the last minute. It is a very regular occurance here. There are a myriad of reasons why this is the case, and I don’t have time to go into all of them right now. In fact, I don’t know all of them anyway!
It is obvious to see that people in our neighborhood seem to do better with the spontaneous, rather than the planned. Ed and Katie had been trying for months to plan a get together with one particular family next door to eat dinner together and hang out. They kept cancelling, then Ed and Katie had to cancel. It seemed as though it would never happen! Then one evening the two couples were pulling in their driveways at the same time around supper. They quickly decided to go together to a restaurant to eat, on the spot! And another different family who was pulling in too, decided to join them. Three families, all with kids, eating together on the spurr of the moment, after months of planning had not succeeded.
Drop-in visits are completely acceptable and even welcome here. Phil and I dropped by one family’s apartment last Saturday night after dinner out (our dear friend had the boys) and asked them to borrow a DVD. We ended up going in, hanging out for an hour or so, looking at photo albums and swapping stories about our families. Their place was a mess, the t.v. was going, and food stilll out on the table, but we were welcome to stay and talk!
I dropped by my hairdresser’s apartment a few days ago and sat for an hour while she cut hair and talked to her and the 5 or 6 clients who funneled through…the topic woven throughout – the Bible!
Phil just stopped by a friend’s apartment the other afternoon and was welcomed in, even though the friend had been asleep! He stayed and talked about all kinds of things with that young man and his brother. The topics ranged from tagging crews to Church and the meaning of Christianity.
When I walked up to another friend’s place for a brief moment the other day she was in the dirty, tiny, hot laundry room doing her wash. We stood and talked for 45 minutes about her autistic son and the heartbreak she and her husband suffered as they navigated life with him. We prayed together and I left.
The grandmother who lives downstairs from us is teaching me how to crochet on Saturday mornings. We talk about prayer, God in struggle, passages from the Bible, and other things.
Our coach has been challenging us to view these all as small group moments! Upon reflection, we are actually feeling confident that the three Sundays of no-shows is not a sign that we mis-heard the Holy Spirit as much as misunderstood the M.O. of our own people in this neighborhood.
A couple with whom we’ve been studying the Bible used to cancel so many times on us that we felt like throwing in the towel. And only in the last four weeks, after six months of Bible studies, meals together, hanging out time, did they begin to value the worship time on Sunday mornings enough to show up at all (they’d only come once before that). But when they decided to do that, they haven’t missed a one in four weeks! They even took a roll in planning things for this Sunday morning’s gathering as we are out of town. Praise God!
For suburbanites, and middle-class America, it is accepted that showing up at a regularly scheduled small group is a sign of a seeker’s heart. Here, a seeker’s heart is found every day in small conversations, time spent in a laundry room or a living room with a beauty shop chair, play time in the concrete “back yard”, an hour of crocheting, or sitting on the stoop to get out of the stuffy apartment. We’ve got the venue already, and it’s our way of life! We don’t need to issue invitations, THEY are inviting US!
One thing is for sure, we are not letting go of our goal. Now I am more determined to bring a Bible with me, with a verse or two I feel God calling me to share with someone…I will know from those times who is receptive and which “small groups”, like the couple I referenced above, will grow into a commitment to regularly scheduled things. I have so many ideas of where these small groups might spring up and am excited to see which ones will become regular and growing. I’m going to start with my laundry room friend. Her husband and brother-in-law are already getting to know Phil. Also, my crocheting partner. We invited her to our small group and she declined. She confessed to me later that it was because she was hoping her daughter (who’s a very troubled young woman) might go, but her daughter had said she wouldn’t if my friend went too. Maybe these will be our next small groups… completely unplanned by us and completely granted by God’s grace.
We’ll let you know what our 20 or so attempts look like, and how the Spirit brings these “groups” together!