“How is it with your soul?”

In 2018, my wife and I were changed forever through an amazing group of young adults. We gathered in our home every other Monday to grow as disciples in close community. We asked simple, penetrating questions that we learned from theologian John Wesley’s discipleship method: How is it with your soul? What are some victories or struggles? Do you have any sin to confess? How can we pray for you? We had discovered John Wesley’s “Class Meeting.”

We discovered the freedom of vulnerability — honesty with God, ourselves, and each other. The Spirit led us as we walked together, encouraging one another. Lives were changed. Some found freedom from pride or anger; others found clarity for decisions; and all were turning from sin and finding strength to follow Christ. We followed Wesley’s advice to “bear all things,” even sin or struggles. Wesley taught that we should expect difficulties because we live in a broken world. The class meeting was a place to allow these difficulties to come to the surface and be dealt with in a loving environment. And another thing happened: This old officer learned how simple and powerful discipleship could be when we adopt this transformative style of small group community. 

“What is this Scripture saying to us?”

In 2021, I joined a weekly virtual small group as part of a discipleship course at Wesley Biblical Seminary, led by Dr. Matt Friedeman. Though we were strangers from around the world, we quickly became a close-knit community. We sought transformation and holiness together through Scripture reading and sharing.

Once again, we used a simple yet powerful discipleship practice in Wesley’s style of answering questions and vulnerability. This was a method called “5Q,” from Friedeman’s book, “The 5Q Method of Discipleship.” We asked the same five questions (5Q) each week: What is this Scripture passage saying to us? How can we praise God from what we read in this passage? What specific change is God inviting us to in this passage? What can we thank Him for in this passage or from the past week? What are we believing in Him for today, and how can we pray? 

Week by week, the Spirit moved. We were reminded that God works through transparent, Spirit-led community. Once again, I discovered a new, simple way of leading a powerful discipleship effort. This felt so organic, like Christ with His disciples: asking questions, reflecting, and changing. It was odd at first. No one came prepared; we just listened to the Lord and reflected on the Word. No one taught except the Teacher, who guided us through His own Word. And the change happening in us was making us people of action. Friedeman says, “Jesus taught with action, for action. He didn’t teach them to make them smarter or even more spiritual … but to be people of application, of doing, of change.” Just as Jesus sent His followers into action and to the poor, 5Q emphasizes the same.

“Could we have found the anchor of discipleship for a corps?”

I shared 5Q with our class meeting small group in Tampa, and immediately, one of the members started using it in her youth groups. I began a 5Q group at the shelter downtown. In our next appointment, we used it at the shelter, for corps cadets, and for Wednesday night fellowship. The results? Corps cadets and soldiers, others from the corps, the shelters, and the streets are invited into this community of discovery and vulnerability. Everyone seeking the same transformation and holiness. And after it’s been taught to soldiers, our hope is that they begin to invite others to read the Word together as a 5Q group at work, school or in their homes with neighbors. 

How powerful can simple questions be when asked and answered in community? God is making holy people through four questions from Wesley and five questions about the Word. When leaders feel safe to be vulnerable with their people, others also are encouraged to be open and honest. We can finally be real — vulnerable in our struggles and joyful together in our victories. We need each other. In small group discipleship, even our leaders get to be just one of the loved and prayed-for members of a community. The priesthood of all believers can be truly experienced in these small groups, and spiritual gifts can be more easily utilized in these settings.

“Do I have any sin to confess?”

Around 2023, a group of friends and I began to change into a Wesleyan discipleship small group without realizing it. We used social media all the time to goof off, to complain about life, or to share funny stories from the day. But then, one of us began to go through a tough struggle, and that person was vulnerable with the guys. We prayed for each other and encouraged one another, and each of us began to share, and each of us began to change.

We were becoming a band (but not the kind with brass instruments and timbrels). John Wesley had different levels of small groups. A deep, transformational drive toward holiness of the attitudes of the heart was called a “Band Meeting.” Wesley’s bands were also built on the foundation of transformation and vulnerability, and this process, once again, centered around answering questions together. The questions were similar to the Class Meeting for mixed groups of 8-10 people. But Band Meetings, for 3-5 men or 3-5 women, asked questions like: How is it with your soul? What are your temptations, struggles and successes? How might the Word and Spirit be speaking in your life or delivering you from temptation? Do you have any specific sin to confess? Is there anything you desire to keep secret? Band members place their hope in the Lord and the promise of healing found in James 5:16, “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.”

For my brothers and me in this group, this weekly questioning, sharing and praying, encouraging one another to walk in obedience and confession, has been transformational. We cannot walk alone. In the preface to “Hymns and Sacred Poems,” Wesley said, “‘Holy solitaries’ is a phrase no more consistent with the gospel than holy adulterers. The gospel of Christ knows of no religion but social; no holiness but social holiness.” We should not allow pride to conceal our weakness and struggles from our brothers and sisters and so miss the healing method which the Holy Spirit prescribes to His disciples. Nor should leaders model a solitary walk, leading them to be isolated followers of Jesus. There is no such thing!

I urge you to find three to four men or women that you can walk closely with as a band. You will be blessed beyond measure. Church, I urge you to consider transformative Wesleyan small groups as your anchor for discipleship, 5Q groups or class meetings. Other methods may be weighing you down. These transformative small groups were the essential practices of the mighty wave of discipleship enjoyed by the early church. Where these went away or were replaced by other, more comfortable, or complicated, or information-based discipleship programming, the church began an immediate decline. May the Lord revive us again!

Photos via MistyVirginia, jcarroll-images, LostINtrancE, Shemelina, Portra, Svetlana Shinkar, Julia_Khimich/Getty Images | This article was originally titled “Small Groups the Wesley Way: How We Should Disciple” in the July 2026 issue of The War Cry.