In relation to the last post on the importance of prayer for small group health, I came across this interesting end note in the same book:
“The reality of keeping the Bible study central without letting it overwhelm the other components of the meeting was brought home to me by an insight that my friends David & Lois Gardner shared with me. The Gardners were visiting the world’s largest church, Yoido Full Gospel Church, in the early 1990’ s. The church has over twenty thousand small groups, and the modern small group movement was launched in this church in 1964. Pastor Yonggi Cho’s personal secretary, American missionary Lydia Swain, shared with the Gardners and other foreign guests visiting the church that Sunday, that when small groups were first launched at YFGC, their format was two-thirds Bible study and one-third prayer. Using this format the groups did not go very well. The groups’ growth took off, however, when they shifted to one-third Bible study and two-thirds prayer.”
Small Groups, Big Impact
by Jim Egli and Dwight Marable