NT GUIDELINES FOR SMALL GROUP MEETINGS – INTRODUCTION

Welcome back to Great Bible Truths with Dr David Petts. If you've been a regular listener to my podcasts, you may have been wondering what's been happening since January, when I finished my series where I was reflecting on God's goodness to me throughout my life.

Well, for first few months of the year I was working on turning the contents of those podcasts into a new book and preparing it for publication. The good news is that it's now available from my website and I've given it the title:

All the Days of My Life – a Story of God's Unfailing Love.

I'm already receiving many encouraging reports from those who have read it, and if you'd like a copy, full details are on my website.

Since then, I've been working on six podcasts for use in our church home-groups and have now decided to make them more widely available as a new series. You may remember a series I did in 2023 under the heading When You Come Together. I later turned that into a book with the same title. The podcasts I have now produced are based on some of the teaching in that book, which is itself based on Paul's teaching in 1 Corinthians 14 – especially verse 26.

This new series of talks is specially designed for use in small groups such as home groups. It contains six talks of less than 20 minutes each. We look particularly at 1 Corinthians 14 to see what God had to say about how Christians back then should 'do church', and seeing how this might affect what we do today, particularly in small groups.

As usual, the full text of each talk will appear on my website along with the recording. This should be helpful particularly to group leaders, who would also benefit from my book When you Come Together – God's Plans for when His People Meet (WYCT), which could be useful background reading, as also could Body Builders – gifts to make God's people grow (on the subject of spiritual gifts).

The first talk in the series will be posted at the same time as this, and the rest will follow shortly. To help you prepare for that, I'm making a few suggestions. But first let me say that it's not my intention that the notes and podcasts should be slavishly followed. They're just there to help you and your group to discuss and pray about what God's word might be saying about what should be happening in your meetings.

Things to do ahead of the group meeting – seven suggestions

1. Make space in your diary to prepare for the meeting.

2. Read the relevant scripture passages. See the list below.

3. Listen to the podcast and study the notes.

4. Encourage group members to listen ahead of time too.

5. Plan the format of your meeting and ensure that the podcast is played towards the beginning of the meeting to leave time for discussion and prayer afterwards.

6. Think about the discussion questions I have included at the end of the talk. (N.B. You'll find these in the notes. They're NOT in the recording).

Consider if you will have time to discuss all of them. If not, which are the most relevant to your group?

7. Pray for the leading of the Spirit when the group gathers.

Finally, here's a list of relevant background reading for each talk. You might like to keep a copy of this for future reference. Obviously, the Bible passages are the most important. For your guidance, WYCT contains a bit more than the notes, and Body Builders even more. But how much background reading you do is up to you.

RELEVANT EXTRA READING

1 CORINTHIANS WYCT BODY BUILDERS

Talk 1 12-13 Chs. 1, 3, 4

Talk 2 14 Ch. 5 Pages 131-140

Talk 3 14 Ch. 6 Pages 141-151

Talk 4 14 Ch. 7 Chapters 3 and 9

Talk 5 12-14 Ch. 8

Talk 6 14 Ch. 9

God bless you and grant you much blessing in your group meetings.