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This is certainly higher praise than I have anticipated for Three Is Enough Groups. My longtime friend, Genny McIntyre, left this as a comment for me:
Hi Todd,
Great to hear the audio of your presentation! This is the most practical, “real” tool I’ve seen in more than 26 years of striving to live out my faith in a meaningful way the workplace. Thank you for allowing God to lead you in this new direction–and for this wonderful blog.
I am thrilled about Genny’s comments because, while I’ve not thought to say it, I’ve wanted TiE to be real and meaningful. I’ve said in lots of settings that discipleship and mission (serving others) cannot be something we add to an already over busy life. We have to make our actual existing life real and meaningful as the soil for following Jesus and serving others.
Today I was thumbing through Dallas Willard’s The Divine Conspiracy looking for a reference. I came upon a section titled “The Glory of My Job” (p. 285). Dallas writes that what we do for a living—and that can be anything—is the clearest way possible to focus upon apprenticeship to Jesus and service to others. Check out the pages following 285 for a wonderful discussion that captures work as the place we learn from Jesus.
Though it is in Dallas’ words, here is a main reason I’ve started TiE:
“…if we restrict our discipleship to special religious times, the majority of our waking hours will be isolated from the manifest presence of the kingdom in our lives”.
For most of us the vast amount of our waking hours revolves around work. TiE Groups is one way to make them both real and meaningful.
Peace
About twenty years ago I started a Bible study at my office which met before work. It barely had more than three people in it. But it wasn’t like Three is Enough because of the lack of focus on serving.
I wish I could go back and do it again. Instead of just praying and talking about us and the Bible I’d want to talk about serving: like, what doable things were we doing to make the office a better place to work for our coworkers? I love how ’serving’ is one of the three activities of Three is Enough groups.
Herein lies a challenge, there are many non-traditional workers – telecommuters, home based businesses, etc. where it may not be so simple to apply some of these practical tools. Though, I believe it is doable and adaptable to most life circumstances. I’ve even challenged my oldest daughter who is going into High School next year to consider getting involved in a campus based small group instead of a church based small group because of this concept that you quoted from Dallas Willard. We must not restrict our discipleship to special religious times, but rather learn to be cooperative friends of God in the daily-ness of our lives.