“Love the Lord your God with all your heart . . . Love your neighbor as yourself.” Mark 12:30-31 (NIV)

Small groups aren’t just beneficial—they’re biblical!

Jesus started his public ministry when he was 30 years old. The first thing he did was get baptized. And the second thing he did was start a small group; he went out and gathered 12 guys to be his small group. For the next three years, he traveled and ate and ministered with them.

Even Jesus needed a small group—and he was perfect! You need one even more than he did to make it in life.

Why? You need a small group because they’re relational.

That’s important because life is all about learning how to love. And you can’t love unless you build relationships. Small groups are the laboratory for learning relational skills. They’re a laboratory for learning how to love.

You can’t have a conversation with a crowd. But in a small group you can ask questions and share wisdom. In a small group you can pray in specific ways for each other, get support, and share the ups and downs of life.

One of the problems in our culture today is that we live among strangers. People aren’t learning relational skills anymore. We don’t know how to make conversation—and worse, we sometimes don’t even try. Electric garage doors have made us all strangers! We don’t ever have to engage with or even meet our neighbors.

We’re not very good at relational skills because we don’t put ourselves in situations where we learn them.

Jesus said the most important thing in life is learning how to love, and it’s called the Great Commandment: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart . . . Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:30-31 NIV). That means the most important thing for you to do on earth is to learn relational skills—loving God and loving other people. And to do that, you must get to know people personally. 

You don’t have to know everybody in the church for it to be your church. But you do have to know somebody.

You need a few people who know when you get sick or when you leave the hospital, when you get a raise or when you get laid off, when you can’t pay a bill or when you need a ride to the airport. They know you. They celebrate with you. And they show up when you need them.

You learn to love others like that—like Jesus loves us—through a small group.