Redemption Groups are the Mars Hill system for leading people to redemption from their sin and suffering, kind of like AA for every problem, except it works! The way that they accomplish this training is to put you in a high speed, high intensity, actual Redemption Group, you literally get thrown in the deep end!
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This process biblically leads people to see their sin, to mourn over it, to confess it, to give it to God, to ask for forgiveness, to be forgiven. And finally to be redeemed!!!
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After the general sessions of teaching and training we would split into our Redemption Groups. The first several groups we each shared our stories, our hurts, our sufferings, our sins.
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One by one we were each prodded, probed and questioned about our stories, about our lives. We were led to see our sin; we were each led to a point where we couldn’t deny our filthy wretchedness. There was no comforting, no Kleenex passing, or defending one another.
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One of the big things I learned is that I cannot just throw truth at someone, because they won’t listen, I can’t tell them what their conclusions need to be, but I can learn to ask questions in such a way to lead them to come to their own honest conclusions. Our leaders were wonderful at asking questions that drew people out, they didn’t just tell people where their sin was, like I tried to do; they asked questions that brought you to a place where you had to either flat out lie, or fully confess and see the deep, deep root of your sin.
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I cried a lot, which is weird, because I never cry
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I told about how much God has blessed me in my life already. How I’ve never had any deep wounds or scars, how I’ve never had any great suffering. How no one has ever committed any great sins against me. How as a Pastor’s Kid I had heard people say that PK’s are either rotten devils or perfect angels, I had grabbed that idea and taken it deeply to heart; how I try SO hard to be perfect. Living in such a way that nobody ever saw me sin, never saw me slip up; never saw me doing anything unpleasant.
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The next day it was time for me to go through what Mr. B. began referring to as “The Wringer” which means that it was time for my group to LOVE me by completely stripping me of any remnant of pride and exposing me to the blatant ugliness of my sin. Let me just say, it doesn’t feel very loving until you are through, and you see exactly what they did.
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As they asked probing questions to which I had to admit truthful answers or else lie, I felt as if they were stripping me naked, like an onion, layer by layer. Although I already knew of my sin, I’m not sure I really comprehended the lengths and depths to which it went. I did not like confessing it to other sinful struggling people who I didn’t know, and who didn’t know me. I hated it. I tearfully confessed that I had a deep, deep idol… myself. I confessed that I paid homage to my idol by trying to rescue other people so that I could look like a good person, creating a perfect image of myself for other people, by trying hard to earn the praise and affirmation of anyone who would give it to me, by judging other people to make myself feel better, and by believing the lie that I couldn’t really go before God and let Him love me until I had myself together, all packaged up and tied up with a pretty bow.
I didn’t strive to resist sin because I loved God, but because sin made me look bad. I didn’t serve people to serve God, but to make myself look good. My life centered on looking good to family, friends, church, strangers, and even God.
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I had taken Christ off of the throne of my life, and had seated myself there instead. Although my behavior was commendable, my heart motives were sinful.
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[After the group session] I couldn’t hold back the tears of frustration as I walked down the hall and towards the stairs; my best friend ran up behind me and gasped when she saw my face. “Anna!” she said “I have never seen you cry before, WHAT did they do to you?!!!” I told her about being emotionally stripped naked, feeling completely exposed, and my frustration. The full reality of what she had said to me didn’t resonate until the following day.
On the following morning in group session, they finished picking me apart. (At least that’s what it feels like.) I realized at that point, the lengths that I had gone to in order to promote the best image possible; my best friend of four years had never seen me cry, I mean come on, I’m a teenage girl? That has got to be a feat of epic proportions! And just a few weeks prior I had removed nearly 100 pictures from my Facebook because I thought that these photos were unflattering, so I removed the tags. The depth of my vanity hit me like a 2×4!
Since the day that I invited Jesus into my life, I have known for a fact that I am saved and redeemed, but it was brought to my attention that I had somehow been deceived into believing that I needed to work my way through my sin to get to God. I had forgotten reality… I don’t have to do anything to earn His love. That, however, is not an excuse I can use to sin. In fact, my love for Him helps prevent me from choosing sin. Of course I know I will still sin, but when I do His grace abounds, and by His grace He works in me, chipping away at my imperfections until the day I die. That is how redemption works. The truth I need to cling to is that I don’t need to go and get all pretty before I can crawl into His arms. He died FOR my sin, He KNOWS my sin, but when He looks at me He sees His daughter, covered in His shed blood. He has forgiven me, He has redeemed me. Hallelujah, WHAT A SAVIOR!
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I can’t wait to see what God will continue to do in my heart, as I work my way through all that He is bringing to light in my life.
I would do the RGI again in a heartbeat, lugubrious as it was!
“It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until He has hurt him deeply.” – A.W. Tozer
