Life Transformation Groups (LTGs)
Neil Cole recently visited us at Mosaic and told us about the exciting things God is doing amongst his movement of churches and the most basic and fundamental and important idea that he shared us with (and he repeatedly talks about in all his books) was their "LIFE TRANSFORMATION GROUPS" or "LTGs"
I know many of you are thinking of doing this in your accountability groups of 2-3 so I thought I would write down a summary of what is involved so that you can do one if you want to. We thoroughly recommend them and I will be following the principles of an LTG in my accountability group this year. Please write down any questions or queries on this blog so we can learn together. I’d very keen to get some feedback and do an evaluation around Easter Time.
Life Transformation Groups (LTGs) have 3 components (which fit very nicely with our “Mission, Growth, Care”)
D: Divine Truth = Repetitively reading 25-30 chapters of the bible each week (e.g Galatians 5 times, John once through, Romans twice through, Genesis split in half, Isaiah split into 3 etc). The aim is that NOT everyone finishes the reading within the first week (so you spend about 4 weeks in a book until everyone finishes it in the same week).
N: Nurture Relationships = Confessing sin’s to one another (see 11 questions below or 6 questions below them).
A: Apostolic Mission = Begging God for Lost Soul’s (2-3s friends each).
The groups should be done in 2s or 3s and if they go to 4 people the group should multiply into 2 groups. Cole suggests that any more than 2-3 and you lose a vital dynamic. He also suggests that you need all 3 elements for them to work and if you compromise any of the elements they’ll lack the life-giving power he has seen. There is no leader to the group.
For more information on the groups
- Read http://www.cmaresources.org/ltg (which includes a sample PDF and a few articles on them and you can order lots of cards in bulk)
- Read “Ordinary Hero” by Neil Cole (previously called “Search and Rescue”) which is all about the groups and his story
- Read relevant chapters from “Organic Church” by Neil Cole (chapters 2 & 13 I think) which summarises a lot of the ideas in “Ordinary Hero”
- Listen to http://www.cmaresources.org/node/284
- Watch http://www.cmaresources.org/video/disciples-making-disciples_n-cole
- Google “Life Transformation Group” and you’ll see how lots of other churches use them
Character Conversation Questions
1. Have you been a testimony this week to the greatness of Jesus Christ with both your words and actions?
2. Have you been exposed to sexually alluring material or dishonored another with sexual thoughts this week?
3. Has the desire for money, material possessions, or status at any time controlled your thoughts, conversations, or behavior?
4. Have you damaged another person by words, either behind their back or face to face?
5. Have you been honoring, understanding, and generous in important relationships this week?
6. Have you given in to an addictive behavior this past week?
7. Have you continued to remain angry toward another?
8. Have you secretly winced for another’s mis-fortune so that you might excel?
9. Did you finish the scripture reading and hear from God? What are you going to do about it?
10.Have you been completely honest with me?
11.______________________________
(Your personalized accountability question)
6 More General Questions (which you can do instead of the 11 or to switch things up for a time)
1. How have you experienced Jesus in your life this week?
2. What is God teaching you?
3. How will you obey what you’ve heard from Him?
4. What sin do you need to confess?
5. Who did you talk about Jesus with last week? Who
will you share with what you’ve learned this week?
6. Were you able to finish your reading this week?
Comments
Hi Adrian,
Thanks for the question. A couple of thoughts
(1) Regularity of Accountability.
There is nothing prescribed but I would say “small and frequent” is probably better than “long and infrequent.” Why do I say this? Because you catch things quicker and you can really hold each other to account more regularly and therefore things can’t slip as quickly.
So, I meet weekly (without being legalistic…we probably meet 2 every 3 weeks on average) with my accountability group for an hour on friday mornings (7.30-8.30am).
We are going to trial the LTG idea. Previously we have done a mix of (a) catch up (b) prayer (c) accountability questions similar to Neil’s (d) AOB so the LTG will bring us some helpful clarity/focus/change.
(2) Neil Cole’s set-up
At the moment in Mosaic we talk about “3 places to belong” being
(1) Accountability groups (2-3)
(2) Mission Groups (3-20)
(3) Sunday Gatherings (50+)
In Neil’s churches they only have (1) and (2) and not (3). Why? Because their churches ARE the equivalent of our Mission Groups (in terms of size). So they don’t really do bigger than 20 people (as soon as a church gets to 30 people they multiply it). This therefore makes it easier to have LTGs and Church without it feeling too much.
My suggestion is that in our context what Neil calls LTG we call accountability and I think we want to keep that. 2-3 people meeting for the purpose of “iron sharpening iron.” That is vital to the Christian life.
Maybe the question you have is “how regularly should we meet for our LTG/accountability.” I would encourage weekly or fortnightly.
I think we can particularly learn from Neil’s LTGs in that they have (a) an evangelistic focus (praying for friends each week) that our Accountability groups often don’t have and (b) they have a bible focus.
In my experience of accountability I have (a) not regularly prayed for non-Christians (and therefore the group is quite inward focussed) and (b) not read the bible together (and therefore the group is more of a mutual support and care and prayer group without much reference to the word of God).
So in short, broadly speaking Neil’s LTGs functions in the same way as Mosaic’s accountability. Mission Group is for a wider group of people (and normally includes both sexes) and longer than 1 hour and will involve more “social and eating and hanging out” time that an LTG/accountability group probably won’t afford.
Just thoughts….happy for people to suggest other ideas/thoughts
Adrian Byrne
If I understood Neil correctly, their LTGs meet weekly as opposed to our accountability groups which I think generally meet monthly at most. Am I right to assume that they don’t have an equivalent of our mission groups in addition, and hence the LTG is kind of a combination of the two? I’m struggling a bit to see how to do justice to a LTG on top of mission group, but can see a lot of benefits. Any suggestions gratefully received!