NorthStar Church Blog

I pray you’ve hung in there through a week’s worth of historical anecdotes about small groups. Learning the stories and biographies of Christians who faithfully lived out their faith in generations past ought to inspire us in our own walk with the Lord—I know it has inspired me. Now, let me tell you why small groups matter so much to me.

In 2016, my wife and I were in a difficult season of life. I had just gotten sober after a decade-long battle with alcoholism. We were enduring financial and legal hardships as a result of my addiction, and we had three children, including a newborn. Yet, in the middle of it all, the Lord was stirring in our hearts.

We began looking for a church, and NorthStar is where we landed. We desperately desired biblical community for several reasons: (1) we wanted to grow in our faith within the local body of Christ; (2) we needed support as we navigated the trials we were facing; and (3) we wanted our children to grow up surrounded by godly friendships.

I remember praying during those early days, asking God to give us Christian friends. Before long, we found ourselves in a married couples’ small group, and I was pouring out my heart to strangers in living rooms as we worked our way through books of the Bible. Before we knew it, we were having guys’ and girls’ nights, our kids were enjoying playdates together, and we were discovering that everyone else’s life was messy too.

Even more importantly, prayers were being answered. We were growing closer to God. Fruit was being produced in our lives. And somehow, by God’s grace, I was still sober.

Eventually, we began leading small groups ourselves.

One day, I came home to find that my wife had bought a framed picture that still hangs in our bedroom today. It simply says, “I still remember when I prayed for the things I have now.” Even as I write these words and remember that season, I am overcome with emotion—or perhaps a better word is gratitude.

I cannot say enough about the importance of being plugged into a small group or about the work God is able to do in the hearts of people who gather together out of devotion to Jesus Christ. Whether viewed through the lens of church history or personal experience, I hope this week has demonstrated that truth.

My prayer is that, wherever you are reading this today, you will have the opportunity to encourage someone in the Lord—and to be encouraged by someone in the Lord. We were never meant to follow Jesus alone.

God bless.

Yesterday we talked about John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, and the small-group structure of bands and classes that he established. Today, we’ll turn our attention to his mother, Susanna Wesley—one of the most remarkable women in church history—and the small group she hosted in her kitchen.

Susanna was truly a hero of the faith. She was born in 1669 as the youngest of 25 children to Samuel Annesley, a minister in the Presbyterian Church, and his wife, Mary White. By the time she was a teenager, she had learned Latin, Greek, French, Hebrew, and English and was able to read and interpret the Scriptures in their original languages.

She married Samuel Wesley, a clergyman in the Church of England, and devoted herself wholeheartedly to the Christian education of their household, including their sons John and Charles, who would later become the founders of Methodism. Each child received a thorough (one might even say methodical) classical and theological education from their mother. So profound was her influence that John Wesley once remarked, “I learned more about Christianity from my mother than from all the theologians of England.”

Indeed, Susanna composed instructional commentaries on the Apostles’ Creed, the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, and other foundational Christian teachings for use in family worship. Her extensive correspondence with her adult children—much of which still survives—reveals that she continued to disciple them through thoughtful theological instruction woven into ordinary family conversation.

In 1710–1711, while her husband Samuel was away for several months on church business, Susanna experienced a renewed sense of calling after reading a book about Danish missionaries serving in India. She wrote in her journal:

“If my heart were sincerely devoted to God… I might do somewhat more than I do. I thought I might live in a more exemplary manner in some things; I might pray more for the people, and speak with more warmth to those with whom I have an opportunity of conversing.”

As a result, she began hosting Sunday evening gatherings in her kitchen to read prayers and sermons with her children. What began as a simple family devotional soon attracted neighbors and parishioners, and before long, the little gathering had grown to nearly 300 people. In fact, more people attended Susanna’s kitchen meetings than the regular Sunday morning service.

She wrote in her journal:

“Our company has increased every night, for I dare deny none that asks admittance. Last Sunday I believe we had above two hundred, and many went away for want of room.”

Naturally, these meetings were viewed with suspicion by leaders within the Church of England, who disapproved of such nontraditional gatherings. A formal complaint was eventually sent to her husband, ordering that the meetings be stopped. Susanna’s response has become one of the most courageous statements of Christian conviction in church history:

“If you do, after all, think fit to dissolve this assembly, do not tell me that you desire me to do it, for that will not satisfy my conscience; but send me your positive command, in such full and express terms as may absolve me from all guilt and punishment for neglecting this opportunity of doing good, when you and I shall appear before the great and awful tribunal of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

No further attempts were made to stop the gatherings, and they continued until her husband returned home.

The impact of those kitchen meetings on young John and Charles Wesley is difficult to overstate. Long before Methodism became a movement known for its bands and classes, they witnessed firsthand the power of ordinary believers gathering around God’s Word in the context of authentic Christian community. Their mother’s quiet faithfulness helped shape a legacy of small groups led by men and women who longed to see lives transformed through Christ-centered community.

Hopefully, by now, we are beginning to see how small groups emerged out of a desire for personal piety in the Protestant states following the Reformation. Of course, this idea was not new; it was simply a return to the biblical model practiced by the early church, for that was the very spirit of the Reformation. Another key figure to whom we owe much of the modern concept of small groups is John Wesley, the founder of Methodism.

Wesley was deeply influenced by the Pietist movement and had direct contact with several of its leading personalities (including Spener’s godson—see yesterday’s devotional on Spener). In fact, many historians would even classify Wesley himself as a Pietist, though that reality is often overshadowed by Methodism’s lasting contribution to the religious landscape of the American frontier.

John Wesley remained an Anglican minister throughout his life, but his interactions with the Pietists inspired him to organize small religious societies called “bands” and “classes” that met weekly to cultivate practical Christian growth. Each band consisted of five or six people, most of whom were members of the Church of England. They did not intend to start a new denomination. Rather, they sought to put “methods” (hence the name Methodists) into practice as a way of strengthening everyday Christian living.

In December 1738, John Wesley drafted a set of rules by which these small groups would operate:

“The design of our meeting is to obey that command of God, ‘Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed…’

To this end, we intend:

1. To meet at least once a week.
2. To come punctually at the appointed hour, unless prevented by some extraordinary reason.
3. To begin, with those who are present, exactly at the appointed time with singing or prayer.
4. To speak, each of us in turn, freely and plainly, of the true state of our souls, including the faults we have committed in thought, word, or deed, and the temptations we have experienced since our last meeting.
5. To end every meeting with prayer suited to the condition of each person present.
6. To have one person first describe the state of his own soul and then ask the others, in turn, as many searching questions as necessary concerning their spiritual condition, sins, and temptations.”

In these rules, we can clearly see the prototype for many practices that are common today, such as accountability partners, confession, and the intentional questions often asked during small-group discussions. Their influence is still evident in our own evangelical churches, even if the specific practices have evolved over time.

It is also worth noting that Wesley grounded the Methodist bands in James 5:16: “Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed.” At the heart of the Pietist movement was the conviction that Scripture must be put into practice—that we would “be doers of the word, and not hearers only” (James 1:22).

In yesterday’s devotional on the origins of the Pietist movement, we mentioned one of its leading figures—Philipp Jakob Spener. Spener is important for at least two reasons: (1) he is credited as the father of the modern small-group movement, and (2) his 1675 book, Pia Desideria (“Pious Desires”), is regarded as the defining text of the movement.

Spener was a pastor who oversaw the ministerium in Frankfurt during the latter half of the 1600s. Upon his arrival in the prominent German city, he was shocked by the spiritual condition of its churches and longed to see genuine, heartfelt reform. As a result, he began organizing small groups (called collegia pietatis, or “gatherings of piety”), where committed laypeople met with clergy twice a week to discuss the sermon, study the Scriptures, and pray together. In his own words, he wrote, “It would perhaps not be inexpedient (and I set this down for further and more mature reflection) to reintroduce the ancient and apostolic kind of church meetings.”

It is important for the modern reader to understand that, at the time, such gatherings were considered a controversial innovation. For example, during Queen Elizabeth I’s reign in sixteenth-century England, the Anglican Church outlawed and persecuted religious gatherings (called conventicles) that took place outside the Established Church. Even in Spener’s own city of Frankfurt, the collegia pietatis were viewed with suspicion and criticized by the institutional church. Nevertheless, these groups gave rise to a movement of “heart Christianity.” Their followers came to be known as Pietists because of their devotion to Christ and their pursuit of personal holiness. Their legacy is still evident today whenever believers gather in homes during the week for small groups or Bible studies.

Spener’s other major contribution to Christian history was the publication of Pia Desideria in 1675. In it, he challenged the dead orthodoxy of his day by proposing six principles for church renewal:

1. A more extensive use of the Word of God—not only in the gathered church but also in small groups throughout the week.
2. The priesthood of all believers—ministry should not be reserved exclusively for ordained clergy but shared by all God’s people.
3. An emphasis on practice over mere knowledge—Christian truth should be lived, not simply learned.
4. Truth is not established through theological disputes but through repentance and holy living.
5. Clergy should actually be Christians. (There’s a novel idea!)
6. Sermons should edify the church rather than showcase the pastor’s learning.

In many ways, Spener’s message can be summarized in a single phrase: wholehearted devotion to God. As believers embraced these principles, the Holy Spirit began transforming the hearts of men and women, and what many historians have called a “Second Reformation” began to unfold. Practices that were once viewed as unconventional—such as small groups meeting in homes—eventually became a normal and vital part of the Christian life for countless believers around the world.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, there arose a movement in Western Europe known as Pietism. It was a renewal movement led by Lutheran clergy that aimed to further the progress of the Protestant Reformation. Whereas the Reformation had called for a return to sola scriptura (Scripture alone) and the abandonment of empty sacramentalism, the Pietist movement stressed the importance of the believer’s devotional life—a personal experience of God in daily living.

The founders of Pietism emphasized the importance of a conversion experience (being “born again”), reading the Scriptures for oneself, studying the Bible with other believers, accountability, and practical Christianity. The fact that these ideas seem so commonplace to us today is evidence of the profound influence the Pietist movement has had on modern Christianity. However, this was not the case for much of Christendom in the 1600s, after the original impulses of the Reformation had begun to dissipate.

In the generation following Martin Luther, Europe was embroiled in war and religious strife. Ironically, this conflict led to sweeping institutional changes that enforced religious uniformity through civic authority. The Pietist movement argued that affiliation with a state-sponsored orthodoxy is not the essence of true religion. As one historian put it, “Pietism reiterated the motif that the Reformation of doctrine, which had been initiated by Luther, must be consummated by a new Reformation of life.”

This week in Digging Deeper, we will examine the Pietist movement and, in particular, one of its defining characteristics: small groups. Today, we largely take small groups for granted, but before the Pietist movement of the seventeenth century, private house meetings were often regarded as schismatic—and, in some cases, even illegal—and were viewed as an affront to the established church in places like England and Scotland.

We will also discuss some of the key figures of the Pietist movement, such as Philipp Jakob Spener, who is recognized by church historians as the father of the modern small-group movement. My prayer is that, as we dig into this fascinating chapter of church history, we will gain a richer understanding of (1) the origins and value of these practices, (2) the guiding work of the Holy Spirit throughout church history, and (3) the central focus of it all—our Lord Jesus Christ.

So, lock in, because this week’s Digging Deeper will be a week-long study of small groups and the faithful men and women who sought to experience God more deeply through devoted Christian community.