My friend Brian Hofmeister has been reviewing some methods ministry for small groups in the church in a series of posts.  I have been thinking about this quite a bit lately as we are restructuring groups in our church and it has been a good refresher.  Here are the highlights of his review:

101 - Church Groups: The 101 version of small groups is run by the church. A local church promotes participant interest, recruits leaders, distributes curriculum, and schedules the meeting time for each small group. One church will loosen the reigns from this while another tightens, but the general rule is that Church Groups are run by the church.

• The Good - It's an easy system in that joining is as quick checking the box "sign me up."
• The Bad - dependency, discouragement, and force-fits.  Some leaders become dependent on staff, becoming more of a "middleman" than a leader.  Other leaders become discouraged, wanting to achieve bigger goals and set bigger plans than what is being handed them.

201 - Context Groups: A 101 group makes its first move to 201 when it pulls and responds to the needs of individual members within their gathering. To become a full-fledged 201 group however, leaders and members need to successfully form a new group amongst peers outside the church. A Context Group is a group that is formed from and for people in your everyday social context.

• The Good - Context Groups get to build off of relationships that already exist, and at a time and place where the relationships are already happening. Not only is this friendly on the day planner, it merges the sacred and the secular for people.
• The Bad - The set-back to Context Groups is their tendency to import the Church Group structure.  What works in the church doesn't always works amongst friends, and therefore Context Groups will fall short without some creative customization. 

301 - Multiplying Groups: Small Groups hit the 301 marker by birthing a new group. Regardless of whether the newborn group is a 101 or a 201, remarkable vision, leadership development, and fruitfulness has been achieved when one group can start another.

• The Good - 301 Groups are great for accelerated spiritual formation and broadening the reach of Jesus' church. 
• The Bad- Setbacks come for 301 Groups when multiplication happens prematurely, or when ongoing support networks are absent. 

401 - Mid Size Groups: With 20-50 in attendance, they're too big to be called a small group, and too small/informal to be called a church by most standards.

• Small Groups 401 offer very solid outlets for in-house leadership development and multiplication, as well as the strong potential for planting churches. 
•  It's tough to find a home, or other venue, that can facilitate 20+ people.  Very few small group leaders express the interest, or the time it would take, to accept the challenge of upgrading to a pastor's role and quadrupling their group size.

To dig into the details click here to visit Brian's blog.

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