The small group that I attend recently started meeting again after an extended winter break. Sometimes breaks are healthy things and they help us realize how important spiritual growth and community in the church really is to us. However, some people are resistant to engaging in relationships and immersing themselves in group life. For whatever reason, some just don't understand that you can't program community and spiritual growth for everyone (and I use both of those things intentionally because I believe they go hand in hand).
There is something organic that happens in our churches, specifically when it comes to relationships. These natural relationships result in communities, and when these people that exist in authentic community with one another it is a catalyst for spiritual growth. While we can't "program" relationships in our churches we can encourage them by being more intentional with our time.
I can't tell you how many times I've heard people say, "I just don't have time for a group right now in my life."
When you are plugged into a small group that you really call home; you understand what community is. Community as God intended it. But no matter how many churchwide campaigns and big sign ups we do to promote our groups, still not everyone gets it. So what gives? How can we help those who do not get it to understand how valuable biblical community is? I think there are three things we can do to help.
Talk To God About It
Before Jesus chose his disciples he prayed. "One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles." (Luke 6:12-13). Do we know who He wants us to be in community with? We should be asking God who He wants us to invite to our groups. Then actually taking the step to invite them.
Connect With Them
When Jesus found His followers He went to their world. Where they lived, where they worked, He went into their reality. He took the time to invest in a real relationship with the people he built community with. Without a relationship, without a real connection, without a personal invitation, why would someone join your small group? I think by not expecting people to come to us and by being more intentional with the way we build relationships, God will provide us with opportunities to extend some very meaningful invitations. Then, and only then, will we see our groups grow.
Redefine Community
When I study the Bible I do not remember Jesus inviting followers to a meeting. When I see the disciples gathering with their Master, I see Jesus gathering people for a purpose. Our small groups gather for a purpose. When our groups are just a Bible study with questions that are asked, just to simply get a "correct" answer, then our time together becomes meaningless. Our groups should be places where people connect with God and each other. I know that I want to live life with my small group, to be like family, to live in real community.Hopefully we can make our small groups a place where people want to live life together. Each of us, at every gathering, have the opportunity to help someone else find what we have. That supernatural thing that we have to share is biblical community. If we do this together our groups will be busting at the seams!
There are lots of tools out there to help you manage a growing small group ministry but few combine two essential components - affordable and effective. I recently connected with Matt Harrell over at MemberHub and it seems they have a solution that group leaders and pastors should consider. They even have a free 30 day trial for you to testdrive, but I wanted to ask him two key questions to help us understand what they do:
1. How does your product help the group leader and why will they love using it?
The key to MemberHub it empowers the group to connect online in a safe, private environment and it supplements the face-to-face time. The group leader is empowering the rest of the group to continue conversation, share ideas and encourage each other throughout the week. Many times only the group leader has everyones email. Now each member will have access to the hub's mailing list and can reach everyone in the group by just knowing one email address. Likewise they can see each other's profile so they can share contact info. So it makes the group leader's job easier because they don't spend time doing admin stuff like updating a spreadsheet or sending out reminders manually. The can just set up calendar events to send out emails and text messages automatically. We have a church in Florida that uses MemberHub for all their small groups as a form of digital discipleship. They actually create a new discussion in each hub and embed a video into the discussion with a list of 5 questions. Then the group members watch the video and all reply. Then they discuss. So in this case MemberHub is being used as a small group entirely online.
2. How does you product help the group ministry point person (groups pastor) and why will they love using it?
As far as the groups pastor, the benefits are similar but just on a higher level. With MemberHub for Organizations, a groups pastor can create a hub for each small group. So the groups pastor is empowering the group leaders and members to manage themselves. But he's also able to reach multiple groups at once with emails and text messaing, move people in and out of groups, and manage custom information about the members in those groups; for example, spiritual gifts. It centralizes the groups pastor efforts in managing the groups and keep him from having to use multiple tools (spreadsheets, mailing lists and word docs). Logistics, planning, member information AND communication is all in one, central place; thereby saving time and preventing the feeling being unconnected and/or unorganized.
Sounds like MemberHub has some great solutions for your group ministry - and it is worth checking out since they have a 30 day free trial.
If Jesus was invited to start (or join) a small group, and refused, it probably have a lot more to do with the way we run and lead our churches than how we manage our small group ministries. A small group ministry can reflect Jesus if it's leadership models Christ like behavior. I have seen it time and again in our groups at CCV:
•We have small group leaders passionate about reaching children and families so they start inter-generational small groups that invite their neighborhood.
•Leaders excited about helping the poor organize our entire group ministry which puts together hundreds of gift bags with winter clothing and non-perishables.
•Entire men's groups volunteer to strip, mop, and wax the floors of a local soup kitchen.
•Some small groups feed the hungry and volunteer to distribute food once per month at a local food pantry.
•We have a woman's group that feeds needy single moms dinner for an entire week as they learn parenting skills to aid them as new mothers.
•Other groups are passionate are about reaching their friends and host "fight nights" where they invite their neighborhood friends to meet their church friends and watch boxing or UFC fights.
All of these things are dependent upon how much your church will limit or restrict it's leaders. In the great commission Jesus told us to reach the world, but he also instructed us to teach disciples to obey everything he had commanded. Teach them the bible, show them how to evangelize and turn them loose. If you do that, along with directing and encouraging them in their areas of passion, then you set your church and the kingdom up for a win.
Posted by: Frank Chiapperino in resources on
Mar 02, 2009
Eric Metcalf recently posted a S.W.O.T. (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis of group life in the US. CLICK HERE to take a look, it is worth checking out.
Posted by: Frank Chiapperino in community on
Feb 26, 2009
There is an interesting conversation going on that Dave Treat started on the Willow Creek Group Life blog. There is some discussion about the aging of small group ministry and some say it may even eventually just die so I had to make sure I weighed in on the discussion around some key things I think group ministry provides for the church. Here is what I posted:
To say that group ministry is dying is saying you don't understand the purpose of group ministry and you don't know how to implement it in your environment. Every ministry model has it's weaknesses. Small groups are no different. They have their weaknesses and I wont pretend to hide behind them, but there are some benefits to small groups that cannot be ignored.
1 - Healthy Community: if your goal is to foster community in a church. The power of a healthy community cannot be ignored. We have already established that small groups provide discipleship opportunities for intentional leaders, but there are lots of other benefits that churches experience from a healthy small group community.
2 - Help Big Feel Small: It is no secret that there is one major fear people have in going to a large church: no one knows them! Small groups change that experience. Every Sunday my wife and I sit with a couple from our small group and I see over 100 others that do the same each week (and that's just the people I know).
3 - Pastoral Care: Group ministry is the front line of pastoral care in the church. Group leaders and members are the first responders to crisis in a large congregation. There are many emergencies that occur in our church that I am the last to hear about because our small groups have jumped in and handled the situation before word of it even made it to me.
4 - Evangelism: We have to stop thinking of small groups as "Bible Studies." We have groups at CCV that facilitate relationships that result in evangelism. New people have been attending our church as a direct result of the following affinity groups: softball, kids play group, volleyball, dog walking, tennis, scrap booking, and others.
5 - High Priority Communication: Do you need to get the word out fast about something important in the church? Leverage the small group ministry network. On numerous occasions we have done this about an important change in the church or even aiding with communication for a capital campaign to build a new facility on our campus.
6 - Volunteer Network: I can't count how many times we have utilized our small ministry to rally the troops to get a job done.We would not have been able to staff our kids program when we experimented with our Saturday night service if it weren't for entire small groups volunteering to serve on Saturday nights together.
I kind of look at this whole situation kind of differently. Small groups will continue to exist in all of our communities - with or without churches. I just hope that churches pay more attention group ministry because without this vital ministry, churches are the ones at risk, not groups.
Click here to read what Dave and others had to say about the topic.
