Frank's Blog
Frank Chiapperino is the Senior Pastor at Hope Summit Christian Church and founder of Small Group Help.
Tag >> resources
Posted by: Frank Chiapperino in resources on
Aug 09, 2010
 Christianity Today and SmallGroups.com are offering a new free tool to help small group leaders with ideas, resources, and leadership insights. Their goal through this digizine (digital magazine) is to equip and support small group leaders while offering extra encouragement to those passionate about group ministry. The best part is that they are offering this for FREE. They haven't released it just yet but you can get a sneak peak right here. Click on the magazine cover below to take a look: 
Posted by: Frank Chiapperino in resources on
Jul 09, 2010
A new Barna study takes a close look at the active profile of those that participate in small groups, Sunday school and house churches and other church activities. The recent study pulled together nine interesting insights: 1. Women drive most faith participation, with the exception of home churches or house churches. A majority of weekly churchgoers are women (53%). Small groups that meet for prayer or Bible study (60%) and Sunday school programs for adults (59%) are also more likely to be attended by women. Similarly, a majority of church volunteers (57%) are females. Home churches are the only type of participatory religious involvement in which most attenders are men (56%).
2. Religious activities are typically missing single adults, especially those who have never been married. Just less than half of Americans are unmarried; however, the Barna study found that two-thirds of those who attend church, go to small groups, and participate in Sunday school are married; and 69% of church volunteers are married. Furthermore, single adults who have never experienced matrimony – that is, they are not currently divorced, separated or widowed – represent fewer than one-fifth of the adults involved, with worship attendance and volunteerism the least likely to attract these never-attached adults. House churches fared better in this regard, reflecting a 50-50 split of married and unmarried participants.
3. Older adults also dominate faith involvement. Conventional wisdom suggests that older adults are more likely to participate spiritually, and the Barna research confirmed such thinking. Two-thirds of small group attenders as well as house church participants and three-fifths of church volunteers and Sunday school goers were ages 45 older. The most age-balanced activity was church attendance, with 56% of the spiritually active population being age 45 or older and 44% being ages 18 to 44. (Nationally, 52% of the population is 45-plus.) One of the challenges for churches that rely on small group strategies is that they are the “oldest” form of participatory faith expression (median age of 56) and they are least likely to include parents of young children. 4. Regionally, Americans’ faith involvement falls along stereotypical lines. Residents of the South make up half of the nation’s small group attenders as well as a majority of its Sunday school attenders. Still, Southerners were among the least common house church participants. Those hailing from the Northeast were unlikely to be active in terms of small groups, Sunday school or volunteerism, while those in the West were among the largest share of house church participants. Sunday school was also comparatively uncommon in the West. Midwestern residents were about “average” on each of the five activities.
5. Catholics are not particularly active beyond worship attendance, while evangelicals participate in many different forms of “group faith.” While Catholics make up one-quarter of all the nation’s worshippers each week, they are only one-tenth of small group attenders, Sunday School participants, and church volunteers. An even smaller proportion of house church attenders (6%) are Catholic. Protestants associated with an evangelical denomination are the largest share of involved believers, including activity in small groups, volunteering, and Sunday school. Interestingly, those associated with a mainline denomination represented an above-average percentage of church volunteers and house church participants.
6. Attenders of larger churches involve themselves in the broadest spectrum of faith activities. Americans who typically attend a church of at least 500 adults were among the most likely to also attend small groups, and house churches, and to volunteer. Those attending a medium-sized congregation (101 to 499 adults) were among the most likely to attend small groups and Sunday school classes. No notable patterns emerged among smaller churches.
7. African-Americans represent a significant share of those involved in participatory faith. True to their community-oriented religious heritage and experience, blacks help to power the group religious expressions of the nation. While blacks are 13% of the nation’s adult population, the segment accounts for one-quarter of America’s small group participants (27%) and three-tenths (30%) of its house church attenders. They also comprise a healthy slice of Sunday school attenders and church volunteers. Whites were comparatively less engaged in small groups and house churches, while Hispanics tend to abstain from small group involvement.
8. Personal Bible reading is most common among small group attenders. In comparing a personal spiritual activity with participatory involvement, the study showed that two-thirds of church attenders (67%) said they had read the Bible outside of church in the last week – whether their church was a conventional or house church. Small group attenders were more likely to read the Bible personally (84%). Bible reading levels among church volunteers (77%) and Sunday school attenders (77%) were sandwiched between the other forms of group engagement.
9. Many religiously active Americans lean toward conservative political views, though there is more diversity than expected – especially among house church attenders. Churchgoers, small group attenders, and church volunteers are likely to be either politically conservative or moderate. House church attenders are unique in that one-quarter of such participants describe themselves as political liberals and nearly half are registered Democrats – uncharacteristically high levels compared with other faith activities, perhaps connected with the above-average proportion of black adults who report house church attendance. Further demonstrating their non-conventional and independent inclinations, one-quarter of house church attenders said they are not registered to vote, twice the national average. Click here to read the entire article and to dig deeper into the research details.
Posted by: Frank Chiapperino in resources on
May 28, 2009
 Kem Meyer, Communications Director at Granger Community Church, is going on a blog tour for her new book - Less Clutter, Less Noise. I recently asked her this question:
Our church seems motivated most to attend events and activities when things are announced from the platform. When there's no major push from the pulpit, using other forms of communication, how does one get the congregation excited and eager to participate in other things that are happening in the church? Click here to learn the answer.
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.
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.
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