Housegroups - The Leaders Survival Guide

Housegroups: the leader's survival guide
Editors Ian Coffey and Stephen Gaukroger
Crossway Books. 190 pages. £4.99
ISBN 1 85684 148 0

This book ranges over the many issues and problems which face the housegroup leader, with useful and not excessive illustration and anecdotes.
I thought that the chapters by Stephen Motyer ('Teaching the Bible in small groups') and Dave Cave ('Communicating truth to today-people') were excellent, offering a wealth of advice and suggestions, with a consistent awareness of the problems which surface in housegroups.
Two things nagged at me as I finished this book: the last chapter (a fantasy reconstruction of all the worst possible scenarios in a house-group) threatened to make a mockery of all that the authors had been saying of the need for these groups. I also wondered whether some authors didn't overdo the 'we must be vulnerable with each other' line. That said, this book goes a long way in overthrowing a 'coffee-Bible study-prayer-go' approach to housegroups, and opens up the exciting possibilities for effective spiritual work.
Housegroups is a book that makes you think, rather than doing it all for you. It will be a useful resource for many ministers and leaders as they think through the goals and practicalities of a vital ingredient in the life of the local church.

Lewis Allen

© Evangelicals Now - November 1996
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Main Articles

• Penetrating public life - interview with Juraj Kusnierik
  How the Central European Foundation seeks to introduce biblical Christianity in Central Europe
• Billy the Kid in Wales
  An account of the Billy Graham visit in 1946 to South Wales
• Whose life is it anyway?
  The sanctity of human life
• God's providence and unreached peoples
  Lessons from the AEF work among the Tsimihety people in Madagascar
• Hakuna Matata
  God's hand in a visit to Western Kenya
• Stepping into Arab culture
  The paramount need for love and understanding when dealing with Arab Christians
• Pastoral style - especially for Baptists
  Advice on bearing and behaviour for pastors

Other articles

• Jesus for a new generation - How to reach Generation X - an extract from the book Jesus for a new generation
• Luther's Commentary on the Letter to the Galatians - Precious pronoun - an edited extract from Luther's Commentary on the Letter to the Galatians
• Taught To Serve
• Housegroups - The Leaders Survival Guide
• Defender of the Faith - the Church and the Crisis in the Monarchy
• Doing Theology for the People of God
• 1 Corinthians (Welwyn Commentary Series)
• Serving God? Serving Mammon?
• Shut up Sarah
• Down to Earth
• Biblical Interpretation Past and Present
• For Such A Time As This