The support group

They come together every week, shuffling in around 7 o'clock on Monday nights at Rich's house. They look forward to it. Everyone gets his coffee and finds his regular seat. Joe brings doughnuts. It's a ritual they know the steps of by heart, having attended for two years now.

I was speaking with my friend R.T. who leads a support group, and I learned about the dark side.

First the good side: Support groups are where you can meet people who have the same struggles as you, so that you can get better.

Now the dark side: You forget that the whole idea was to get better.

The support group carries its own raison d'être, and that raison d'être is that we continue to be stuck. There is something intrinsically addicting about the structure of the group, perhaps. Here is the unconscious bargain: R.T. is the guru and we are the perennially needy and screwed up. We just keep sharing our new "struggles'---R.T. is so good at counseling us about them. An enjoyable time is had by all. Who knows, maybe someday we will shake our addiction. When God sees fit to set us free. Till then, let's meet again next week, same time, same place.

It isn't just support groups; it's the bane of the Christian life---talking about obeying Christ and not getting around to obeying Christ.

Watch out if Dietrich Bonhoeffer shows up at your meeting some day. He has a very low tolerance for this tradition. Here is what the German pastor had to say from his prison cell in the 1940s about waiting around for God's grace:

"First obey, perform the external work, renounce your attachments, give up the obstacles which separate you from the will of God. Do not say you have not got faith. You will not have it so long as you persist in disobedience and refuse to take the first step. Neither must you say that you have faith, and therefore there is no need for you to take the first step. You have not got faith so long as and because you will not take the first step but become hardened in your unbelief under the guise of humble faith.

"It is a malicious subterfuge to argue like this, a sure sign of lack of faith, which leads in its turn to a lack of obedience. This is the disobedience of the 'believers'; when they are asked to obey, they simply confess their unbelief and leave it at that (Mark 9:24). You are trifling with the subject. If you believe, take the first step, it leads to Jesus Christ. If you don't believe, take the first step all the same, for you are bidden to take it. No one wants to know about your faith or unbelief; your orders are to perform the act of obedience on the spot. Then you will find yourself in the situation where faith becomes possible and where faith exists in the true sense of the word . . ." (The Cost of Discipleship).

(At this point Joe drops his doughnut.)

When Paul was headed for Rome to meet with a support group of sorts, he said, "I long to see you, that I may impart some spiritual gift, so that you may be established" (Romans 1:11, NKJV). The goal is to be established, not to talk endlessly about being established. The goal is not the support group; the goal is freedom in Christ. It is sprouting wings and taking flight.

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