About the Author

Author - Bill DeanBill Dean is both a church pastor and a university professor. His upcoming book, Walking Together: Relationships that Transform, focuses on the role of relationships in spiritual growth. This blog is a continuation of that conversation and a place to interact.

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Why I Blog about Formative Friendships

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I bet that you visited this site because you are interested in the idea of belonging to a small discipleship group.  You assume that I am something of an “authority” on relational discipleship, and that I have been for years a part of a thriving small group, or perhaps the director of a small group ministry.  Wrong on all accounts.

I am by personality a loner, an introvert who has always been inclined to solve my problems before I talk to anyone about them—even my wonderful wife, Joan.  I grew up in a religious environment where asking too many questions or airing too much dirty laundry was fraught with the possibility [ More ... ]

Linked Across Barriers

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We have had a most unusual weekend.  Joan and I attended the General Conference of the Evangelical Methodist Church (you can look up the details at http://emchurch.org if you need them).  There were three striking things that happened that brought the world into perspective.

First, at the Communion Service on the first day, there were three presiding general superintendents: one for the US who spoke only English, one from Mexico who spoke no English, and one from Myanmar (Burma) who spoke some English. Each offered prayer in his mother tongue without translation–after all, the audience to our worship was God, for whom languages are no problem!

Second, the Myanmar [ More ... ]