A strong small group is a real gift, and you should keep it. It still cannot do everything the church does. Dr. K. Edward Copeland, pastor of New Zion Baptist Church in Rockford, Illinois, makes the case in two steps. First, the church is a family God assembles, and it includes people you would never have chosen. Second, within that family God gives pastors who watch over your soul in person. A group you build yourself can give you friendship and accountability. It cannot give you either of those two things.
The question usually arrives with good reasons behind it. Lisa Fields, founder of the Jude 3 Project, describes a group of men who had formed their own men’s group. They were studying the Bible, pursuing holiness and holding each other accountable, and they found it more effective than church. If church is community plus Bible study, and they already had both, what was left? Their argument depends on how they define church.
What the Group Gets Right
Copeland starts by agreeing with the men. A small group where people hold each other accountable is, in his words, what you are supposed to do. He has a group that began when its members were 14, and they still pray for one another and keep each other honest. His verdict on that kind of group is plain: “That’s good and great. But God has a particular pattern.” The trouble comes only when the group is asked to be the church.
What a Church Actually Is
The men treated church as a delivery system for fellowship and teaching. Copeland pushes back on that definition: “Church is a little bit more than just community.” He points to Ephesians 2, where Paul describes believers as being built together into a temple, and to the Bible’s repeated picture of God’s people as a family. A building has a design its stones did not pick. A family has members who did not choose each other.
That leads to the first distinction a reader needs: who does the choosing. In a small group, you choose. You gather people with your interests, your outlook and your temperament. In the church, God does the calling. Copeland puts it directly: “God has called out some people to be your brothers and sisters that you would not have picked.”
Why would that matter so much? Think about the commands the New Testament gives believers toward each other. Bear with one another. Forgive one another. Stir one another up. Copeland’s point is that these commands assume friction. You cannot practice bearing with someone you selected because they were easy to be around. A circle of like-minded friends quietly removes the people God would use to teach you patience, forgiveness and the fact that faith is not all about you.
Fields adds a biblical example she credits to her pastor in Virginia. Jesus called both Simon the Zealot and Matthew the tax collector, men from opposite political extremes, and they had to do life together. Copeland draws the conclusion: “There’s an apologetic in that diversity.” Outsiders look at a congregation of people with nothing obvious in common and see no natural reason for them to be together. The only explanation, Copeland says, is the blood of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit. A group of friends, however faithful, cannot offer that evidence, because everyone in it was picked.
This is not an argument against small groups. Copeland notes that congregations often have small groups and even affinity groups inside them. His claim is narrower: “The church is more than an affinity group.” The group works best as one room in a larger house.
Why God Gives Pastors
The second distinction concerns leadership. If the church is a family God assembles, does God also provide for its oversight? Copeland’s answer comes from Ephesians 4:
“And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:11–12).
Notice the grammar. Christ is the giver, and pastors are the gift. Copeland explains the word translated perfecting as having to do with setting things in order, which can include resetting a broken bone but also arranging what is out of place so it works as it should. On his reading, that is why pastors exist: to oversee, to administrate and to keep the doctrine healthy and sound.
Two other passages show why this oversight is local:
“Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you” (Hebrews 13:17).
Peter tells elders, “Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof” (1 Peter 5:2). Both letters were written to particular first-century congregations, and Christian traditions organize church government in different ways. Still, the shape of the responsibility is clear in both. A shepherd is accountable for a specific flock, one that is among him, and he will answer for souls he actually knows. Copeland applies this to himself after many years of pastoring: “I’m never so grown that I don’t need a soul watcher.”
Watching a Pastor Versus Being Watched Over
Excellent teaching is available online for free, so why does the shepherd have to be local? Copeland answers with an analogy from his own life. He has workout apps on his phone, and he has still injured himself at the gym, because no one was there to correct his form. Now he works with a trainer who explains an exercise, demonstrates it and then watches him do it. “The reason we need pastors is the same reason we need coaches.”
The analogy works because instruction and correction are different things. A squat is a squat on any screen. A trainer sees how it looks in your body, with your limits and your habits. Copeland turns this into a question every reader can ask: “Am I watching a pastor or do I have a pastor watching over me?” A small group has the same weakness as the app, because “you don’t know your own blind spots” until you get hurt. Online teaching has a second limit. A preacher on your screen is ministering in his own context, and what marriage, evangelism or discipleship looks like where you live may need someone who knows that place.
Here the analogy breaks, and the break teaches something. You hire a trainer to serve your goals, and you can fire one. A pastor, according to Hebrews 13:17, answers to God. The relationship also runs both ways. Copeland says members have a part to play: praying for their pastor, offering support and even accountability, remembering that pastors are human too. Fields names the shift as moving from consumer to contributor.
She also draws a distinction she credits to a friend, that “it’s a difference between being known of and being known.” Settling for leaders we only know of sets us up for devastation. “Because when we know of people, we have caricatures.” A caricature cannot correct you, and it will eventually disappoint you.
What a Pastor Is Not Supposed to Be
Once a reader sees why pastors matter, the next mistake is to expect too much of them. Fields describes a pattern she has seen among people who grew up with absent parents: “A pastor becomes an absent parent.” She names the cost plainly: “And that’s a lot of pressure to put on a person who already has their own family.”
Copeland has felt that pressure from the pulpit. Early in his ministry, he says, he absorbed a great deal of misdirected anger from people who were not really angry with him. His correction comes from 1 Timothy 5:1–2, where Paul tells Timothy to treat older men as fathers, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers and younger women as sisters. The family work of the church belongs to the whole congregation, small groups included. Pastors equip and give themselves to the Word and prayer, and the members do the one-anothering together. “It can’t all be the pastor,” he says, and then: “The pastor cannot replace my father, but my pastor can be my pastor.”
What if a Pastor Has Already Hurt You?
This is the strongest objection, and Fields identifies it as the real reason many people prefer watching a pastor from a distance: they have been hurt or abused by pastors. She has written about being devastated by a leader herself. Church hurt is real, and the failures of leaders are grievous. They are also not the failure of Christ.
Copeland’s response is that “the existence of bad examples does not negate the necessity for good examples.” People still eat out after bad meals, and still believe children need parenting even when their own parents fell short. Scripture is honest about bad shepherds. The prophets condemned leaders who misled God’s people, yet God promised something better: “And I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding” (Jeremiah 3:15). Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep” (John 10:11). Scripture answers bad shepherds with good ones.
That argument has a limit. It shows that the need for pastoring survives a betrayal. It does not mean you owe trust to the person who hurt you, or that you must rush back. If a leader’s abuse is still happening, getting safe and getting help come first. Fields says healing requires intentionality and some facing of fears, which is different from being hurried. Copeland adds a question about criteria, not blame: When you chose that leader, were you looking for a biblical standard, or for popularity?
How to Choose a Pastor by Character
Fields lists the reasons many people actually pick a church: it is close, it ends on time, the worship team is good, the kids ministry is strong. Character often never enters the decision. Copeland adds that even when people think they are evaluating the leader, the only question is often whether the person can preach.
His alternative: “You need to pay attention to their doctrine as well as their conduct.” Paul held himself to that double test, reminding Timothy that he had known “my doctrine, manner of life” (2 Timothy 3:10). The qualifications in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 are mostly about character and home life. Does this person love their spouse? Do they have a good reputation? Paul requires that an overseer have “a good report of them which are without” (1 Timothy 3:7). Copeland suggests a practical test: listen to people who have been in the congregation for years and can tell you why they love their pastor, without claiming the pastor is perfect.
He then separates the preacher from the pastor. One of the best pastors he ever knew was such a weak preacher that Copeland once fell asleep listening to him. “He wasn’t a great preacher, but he was a great man.” Copeland still asks whether the sermon is healthy doctrine. He is saying that modeling should weigh heavily: “You’ll be better off with a brother who is showing you how to swim as opposed to the one who is alliterating, how, why you should swim.”
Fields states the same principle from the listener’s side: “Your transformation is not based on their communication skill. Your transformation is based on their example.” She connects this to 1 Peter 3, where the verses leading up to the call to give an answer for your hope concern how believers treat spouses and each other. Relationships prompt outsiders to ask about faith. So the questions for a leader follow: How do they treat their spouse? Do they forgive? Are they a reconciler? Copeland says this is what formed him most in his own father, a faithful preacher whose prayer and forgiveness under pressure taught him more than any sermon.
The Risk of a Self-Built Church
The men Fields described were growing, and their group was good. Copeland’s warning is about what happens later. A curated group and a list of favorite online teachers can work for a long time. Then a hurt comes that no one in the circle can see, because no one outside it was invited close enough to see it. People who are not connected to the wider body, he says, may be setting themselves up for dangerous hurts that take a long time to rehabilitate. The small group is where you stay strong. The church, with its unchosen family and its present shepherd, is where you get caught when you are not.
Quick Answers
Does my pastor need to know me deeply? Not necessarily. Fields notes that in larger churches, leaders cannot know every member in a deep way. The point is to be under a leader you actually know and can observe, not one you only know of.
What if I cannot find a church with a pastor I trust? Copeland suggests asking the Holy Spirit to help you keep looking until you find a place where you can be a contributor, not just a consumer.
Should my small group stop meeting? No. Copeland expects small groups inside congregations. Keep the group and connect it to a church.
