The Apostolic Few

They used to joke in Lexington, Mass., that new residents didn't need to join a country club--they already had the Hancock Congregational Church. The gibe was unjust, but for a time it almost seemed as if Sunday worship services were lost in a crowded weekly calendar of dances, card parties, and other social affairs. Then, in 1948, a young engineer named Albert Wilson persuaded his new minister at Hancock, the Rev. Roy Pearson, to support a group of couples who would gather periodically for the study of Scripture and the mutual exploration of Christ's message for modern times.

It was a step that killed most of the cracks about the "Hancock Country Club." Today, the church has ten such groups of dedicated parishioners and their friends who meet for serious religious study in one another's houses. Dozens of other churches in the area have imitatively organized their own small study groups. Such gatherings, says Dr. Pearson, now dean of Andover Newton Theological School, show people "trying to be the church as the church ought to be."

"Christ's Strategy." Across the U.S., thousands of Christian laymen in the past decade have joined in forming such groups, and the small, informal "cell" of an "apostolic few" is becoming a significant new form of American religious life. "Small groups," says Dr. Clyde Reid of Union Theological Seminary, "are here to stay." Inevitably, some of the cells consist of faddists and the clique-minded; but most seem to be made up of dedicated Christians who have found that in company with a few fellow believers, they can learn about theology and the Bible and grapple with the concrete problems of living as a Christian in a secular society. Says Lutheran Pastor William R. Snyder, president of the Minneapolis Ministerial Association, and an ardent believer in the efficacy of such cells: "This is the way of the future for the church. We're only using Christ's strategy. He spoke to his 5,000, but he also spoke to his two or three."

These new Christian cells meet almost never on Sunday and rarely in church. In Chicago's Loop, there are three groups of business executives who meet monthly for lunch, prayer, and blunt, secret discussions of how Christian ethics apply to their office lives. Both the Senate and House of Representatives have groups of Congressmen who meet once a week for a prayer breakfast; so has Texas' House of Representatives. The thousands who belong to the cells of the Roman Catholic Christian Family Movement meet weekly for their discussions and Bible study in one another's houses.

Small Personal Decisions. Perhaps no U.S. church has embraced the cell concept more warmly than St. John's Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, which sponsors 21 "koinonia" (Greek word for fellowship) groups. "It seemed to me," says St. John's pastor, the Rev. William Snyder, "that the church had to find a more effective means of communicating the Gospel than merely proclaiming it from the pulpit on Sunday morning." St. John's cells meet weekly for breakfast or dinner, followed by prayer, a Scriptural reading, and group discussion. Although most cell members are active leaders in the parish, Snyder notes that "we have some people in our koinonias whom we never see in church on Sunday."

The small groups have made no breathtaking change in U.S. Christianity, but they have contributed to countless thousands of small personal decisions--the Texas lawyer who decided to control his temper and show more courtesy to clients, the North Carolina storekeeper who gave up cheating customers to earn extra profits. As a result of small-group discussions at Hancock Congregational, one man decided to give up a profitable career as an electrical engineer to become a teacher. In Chicago, the frank ethical discussions of a Christian businessmen's group convinced one member that his employer was forcing him into practices that did not square with his faith; rather than continue, he quit. Says the Rev. Robert Pitman, who has encouraged the growth of cells at his Canal Street Presbyterian Church in New Orleans: "The purpose of Christianity is not to build cathedrals; it's to build people."

"A Pious Coating." Clergymen rightly fear that this spiritual construction is sometimes no better than jerry-building. Many study groups have no clerical advisers, and can wander beyond their depths in the ocean of modern theology, or woodenly interpret Scripture in the surface fashion of Great Books clubs. Even more worrisome to pastors is the prospect that small groups may develop into self-centered elites, experimenting with such arcane religious practices as faith healing or speaking in tongues. The Rev. Martin Marty, associate editor of the Christian Century, sees much cell activity as "a sort of pseudospiritual practice on the part of a few separate groups," fears that too many groups "are very often trying to justify a certain way of life by spreading a pious coating over the top of it."

On the other hand, most of the lay people who belong to the cells find that the experience of sharing problems and ideas with an equally concerned gathering of their peers has immeasurably deepened their Christian faith and convictions. Says Floyd Martin, editor of Houston's Chamber of Commerce magazine and a member of one cell associated with St. Stephen's Episcopal Church: "Faith is hard to communicate in a congregation but easy to communicate in a small group. The smaller the group, the more personal and intimate the sense of involvement. Our purpose is not to form a church, but to bring men and women into a relation with God."

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