“Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other
so that you may be healed.” – James 5:16a
Undefended, Vulnerable Sharing:
Over twenty years ago, I heard Becky Pippert speak. In her talk that day, she shared about an experience she’d had of attending an AA meeting with a friend of hers. In the meeting, people shared the worst, most ugly things about themselves. Somehow through their undefended, vulnerable sharing and their growing dependence on God (their Higher Power), these people were seeing extraordinary transformation happen in their lives.
Later that same day, Becky attended a church small group meeting. In any eye-opening contrast, the sharing that occurred seemed very superficial from what she had just experienced earlier that day. One woman confessed that she should be writing more letters to people in her life. That was the worst thing she (or anyone in the group) shared. Becky candidly thought to herself, I don’t think Jesus died a horrific death on the cross because you’re not using the postal service enough.
Becky knew the people in the group. She knew there were much worse things going on in their lives than what was being shared. It disheartened her. It all seemed backwards.
The church is supposed to be the safe place where people are sharing and confessing the worst parts of themselves, and receiving the love, grace, forgiveness, and truth that heals.
Instead, sometimes the church becomes a place of hiding. It becomes a place that isn’t safe to live in undefended vulnerability. If people feel the need to hide, they can’t get the help they need and they are forced to eventually look elsewhere. Because of this, they may never experience God at the depths that could be possible.
Something in Becky’s story stuck with me. What she described was what I desired to see more of – honest sharing within the church that brings about transformation and healing. I didn’t know how to bring that about, but I wanted to try.
A Courageous Men’s Group:
This last month, a men’s group that I led over the past year and a third came to a close. We ended with celebration, recounting the ways we had grown and affirming what we love about each other.
In some ways this group felt like a holy experiment. I believe God drew a group of men together who were ready to do a church small group more like an AA meeting (in regards to its depth of sharing).
The very first night of the group, each man was asked to stand up in front of the others and share the thing (or things) that he didn’t want the group to know about him.
And by God’s grace, they did share the things they didn’t want the group to know about them, the worst things…and it changed everything.
Their honest vulnerability set the tone for the whole experience we had together.
Over the course of the group, we learned more effectively how to be with each other in transformational ways. Men were able to share things they’d never told anyone before, ask for what they needed from each other, and even cry in front of each other, because it was safe and they knew they would be met with love, truth, grace, and appropriate challenge in the right timing, without anyone trying to fix them or offer them trite answers to their complex problems. Relational connection and non-sexual intimacy grew and deepened among men! We learned how to be courageously honest and engage in conflict with each other in ways that were life changing. And God took us all on a journey of seeing ourselves more honestly and acknowledging the underlying issues that drive our external (sometimes sinful) behaviors.
I’m so proud of these men. It was inspiring and hope-inducing seeing young leaders within the church sharing so honestly and authentically, knowing that their growing transparency will bless the people they lead.
Through their undefended, vulnerable sharing and their growing dependency on God, every man in the group was transformed in some way…some in huge ways.
Thank You:
Thank you so much for making a group like this possible. Based on the high caliber of these men, the influence they have, and powerful ways they live out their faith in redemptive ways, your investment in them is definitely going to pay huge dividends for all of eternity.
Please keep holding them in prayer.
In His Love,
Randy
PS There is something funny about putting pictures of tulips with a write-up about a manly men’s group…but that’s what this month’s experience included. Sometimes life cracks me up!
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