Confessions on Restructuring

Being in the Uni-YA group in Hope Church, one reality that the LGs often faces is the frequent restructuring of LGs across the different groups. This means that LGs may see new people coming in, old people going out, or even see the whole group broken up to join other groups. Sometimes, the situation necessitates the need to restructure, like new people joining from other ministries, or people graduating etc etc. I think in this post, I want to give some thoughts over this system. My stand may not represent the official stance of the church regarding restructuring, or may not reflect the viewpoint of my leaders, neither does it seek to undermine their authority, though it may be a bit provocative and I may be seen to be shooting myself in the foot for some of my views. 

Now, what do I think about restructuring? As a basic principle, I think I often want to start from the purpose why we gather as a LG, or even as a church. The bible is very heavy on this idea, but often, we don't find a lot of anchoring verses (which I think explains why sometime people do not view involvement in a local church that seriously although they may genuinely love God). Perhaps the best verse I can think of currently, and perhaps the most popular verse as well comes from Acts 2:42-47:

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teachings and to fellowship, to the breaking of the bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions and give to anyone who had need. Everyday they continued to meet together at the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favour of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were saved.

I believe that a group of people in the LG/church comes together to learn the Word of God together, to fellowship and to encourage each other in their walk with God, to meet each other's needs. Essentially we function as a spiritual family. And it is in a church setting that we are able to grow and be nourished by God, that we receive the covering of the church leadership and people who were willing to shepherd and disciple us.

But we have yet addressed the issue of restructuring. If one reads the book of Acts, God allowed the breaking up of the beautiful picture of the fellowship mentioned in Acts 2 so that the gospel could be spread beyond Jerusalem. (Read the bible). In some sense, God forced a restructuring of how the early church would operate by dispersing the people around. The result was obvious. We see people like Philip reaching out to the Ethopian eunuch. We see the church growing in places like Antioch and from there, to the rest of Asia and eventually into Europe. So biblically, I think God will at times force the church to reorganise itself so that the Kingdom could advance forward.

But I think at such a macro level, people will still have issues with restructuring, because a restructuring affect the relationship of human beings within the setting of a spiritual family.

As a basic principle, now moving to the question on the rationale for restructuring LGs, I think a few things we as leaders in the church should always take note (these are not mutually exclusive but I just try to categorise them to gain greater clarity):

1. Pastoral needs should always come first. In the church, we are in the business of discipling human beings, God's creation. Eventually, we want to meet needs in the LGs and sometimes, when the needs are unable to be met due to different reasons, then we will need to consider if we want to do a little bit of reorganisation to ensure we meet the needs of our sheep. This may mean that you will have to move people around because there is not enough shepherds in the other group. 
2. Ensure continuity and stability. This is sometimes not possible, based on personal experience, but I think as far as possible, we should make sure people stay together. I don't think the reason of comfort zone should be brought out as a reason to split people up as this is a really lame excuse. Yes, moving people out of their comfort zone will make them grow, but how much would you want to move people out of their comfort zone? We need to know that in the LG, people develop relationships and friendship which are held delicately by the structure. Not that people do not value these relationships, but these relationships may not even be forged without the structure of the LG in place. Different people have different thresholds for moving out of their comfort zone also, and how many times do we see people leaving church because of such frequent restructuring? Instead of listening to their concerns, I sometimes think as leaders, we move too fast split people and we split people up more frequently than necessary. 
3. Listen from God. I seriously think that sometimes we act like God. We think just because we are appointed into that position, we know best on how to organise and structure our group 'because we have God's anointing'. I am, by no means, saying that this applies to all of us but we need to acknowledge that we fall into that trap at times. I am just wondering if we have observed what God is doing in the LGs enough and if we have listened to His voice enough to decide on the best course of action with regards to restructuring. Or do we just react to situations, like just because a group is big, therefore we have to split the group, on the reasoning (very human reasoning) that it is difficult to meet needs in a big group. Then again, how big is big and how small is small and what is really ideal? When we act upon human reasoning, we sometimes fail to see and observe what God is really going to do with group. More than often, when we start doing this, we will start extracting bible verses to support our case. 

I voice these things to be taken note for very good reasons. I do observe that relationships built up during one's stint in a LG are often the catalyst for spiritual growth and vibrancy. Different people react differently to restructuring and sometimes, we need to acknowledge that as spiritual leaders, we have not listened to their concerns enough, have not done enough to address their concerns, or even have not seek God enough to act on our decisions. We sometimes just pray to God for His blessings before we actually got His blessings. In some sense, we became too 'organisational'. And normally when we allow people to voice out their concerns or God to speak to us, we have already made up our mind or it is too late. I am speaking very generically here and it may not reflect the experience of everyone but we will need to acknowledge first of all that a restructuring is first and foremost an emotional experience for those who are being restructured. 

So where do we move from here? If you ask me, I am not really sure. The nature of a university ministry (and the younger ministries) is such that restructuring is more than often necessary as each group would have different number of people moving on and joining in. How about groups like the YG? I think the YG journey is interestingly preoccupied with restructuring during its formative years, for various reasons. Today, we can see that the structure has stablised. Therefore, one question which someone asked me recently is whether is there a need to restructure in YG and split people up if the LG can function effectively for the Kingdom of God and if the LG can even move on to other ministry (like adults) together. 

My preliminary thought is that it is possible. I grow up in an environment where restructuring is a norm, but it is not necessarily obvious that restructuring should be a norm. The one reason why this is so is because it takes time for a LG to grow and develop intimacy in the relationship to be effective. My experience as a LGL, both in NUS and YG, has shown me that even if people already know one another, it takes about a year or two to actually stablise and build meaningful and open relationship with one another so that the LG can move to a performing stage. Then my own question is this, if a LG can function effectively and its restructuring will cause more loss to the Kingdom, then could it remain the way it is? Again, I think we have often failed to hear enough from God on this issue. 

My concluding thoughts? I seriously think that we need to consider carefully the ways of restructuring in a church. Everything we do in a church will become beneficial if God is in the picture and if we are able to lean not in our own human understanding. While sometimes secular management theories may work, but God's wisdom is sometimes foolishness in the eyes of man. And because a church consists of people, we need to consider carefully their feelings and desires and the relationships in the LG instead of sometimes having leaders to impose our views and decisions on them and expecting them to submit 'because it is commanded in the bible'. People will submit but I don't think in such a manner. For me, I am generally ok with restructuring but to end off, I see stability as an important factor that we will need to consider. In short, I have no answer to this issue of restructuring, except that it has to be God-driven thing.