Flipping Spiritual Formation

By Doug Franklin February 24, 2010

For most of us small groups is our program for discipleship. We want students to join a group and begin to grow in their faith in the context of a caring community. For our students who have been attending small groups and are actively growing in their faith we offer them the opportunity to go on our summer missions trip. We do this because its a well known fact that missions flow out of a mature heart for God.

I think things are changing – Many students today have a heart for people in poverty and slavery. Students want to bring an end to AIDS and the lack of clean water. They no longer think Christ, first compassion second. They are burdened by injustice, not the fact that people don’t know Jesus. It’s not that they don’t care about Christ but their hearts want an end to the fixable. Clean water, poverty, hunger, lack of medicine; fix these things first and then share Christ.

This thinking must be engaged – what if we were to allow seekers to go on mission trips and then invited them to small group? What if we mirror students’ thinking with our programing?