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Case Study: Van Dyke Church 5 Years Later

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If you’ve been following this blog for any amount of time, you are probably wondering:

Does this really work, or is this all talk?

Great question!

I’ve talked about the churches I’ve served and all of the churches I’ve coached. Today, I want to introduce you to one of those churches.

The Case Study

Back in 2011-2012, I had the privilege of coaching Van Dyke Church in Lutz, Fla.

(If you want to read the original case study I wrote about them back in 2012, CLICK HERE.)

Why am I using an example that’s five years old? Because I want you to see what happened then, and where things are five years later.

Believe me, it’s easy to create a lot of excitement for one six-week church-wide campaign or 40 Days series, but what happens after that series ends, the number of groups you retain and the way you support them is more important than starting dozens or hundreds of new groups for a campaign.

This is a marathon, not a sprint. We want to build things that will last.

Back to Van Dyke Church: In 2011, they had 1,800 adults in their weekend services and about 400 people in groups. After working with them for nine months, Van Dyke grew to over 2,000 people in groups. That’s 110 percent of their adult attendance. This is what Pastor Matthew Hartsfield says about the experience.

“Like most churches, Van Dyke Church had a small group ministry for years. However, group ministry was not deeply embedded in the culture of our church, and we never exceeded 22 percent of our adult weekend worship attendance in groups.

“That all changed when we started working with Allen White as a coach for our small group ministry. With his help, we created and launched our own sermon-based curriculum and developed a systematic approach to creating a small group culture of adult discipleship. Within one year, we saw dramatic impact:

• Our first launch we moved us from 22 to 56 percent in groups (1,000 adults)
• Our second launch took us from 56 to 89 percent in groups (1,600 adults)
• Our third launch went from 89 percent of adult weekend worship attendance to over 100 percent (over 2,000 adults).

“Today, four years later, we are still sustaining close to 90 percent of our adult weekend worship attendance in small groups!

“Allen’s coaching helped us create a small group ministry that generated results across the board:

• People get connected in community.
• People grow in their study of the Bible.
• People serve in mission together through their small group.
• People develop leadership skills as small group hosts.
• People become more evangelistically motivated to invite outsiders to small groups.

“Allen White was used by God in an essential way to help us move to an entirely new level of spiritual growth and impact as a church.”

While Pastor Matthew is very generous about his words regarding my coaching, I would say God had a much bigger role in this than I did. But, then again, the reason I was even coaching this church and so many others is because of what God taught me through the Exponential Group Launches in my own churches.

What made the difference for Van Dyke Church? They were committed to groups, but in 2011, they made some significant changes that produced exponential growth. Here’s what they did:

Tip #1: Focus on a Long Term Win.

Let’s be honest here. Launching one church-wide campaign or series for six weeks creates a lot of excitement, but often it doesn’t produce lasting results. For some strange reason, people get the idea that after the six weeks is over, they’re done. Where would they get an idea like that?

Notice how Van Dyke’s groups grew. They went from 400 in groups to 1,000 the first time around. But, they didn’t wait a year to do it again. In fact, the Fall 2011 series ended before Thanksgiving, and the next series began in January. Not only did they add another 600 people in groups, they kept the 1,000 who were in the Fall groups.

Before the Fall series ended, they announced the Winter series. Before the Winter series ended, they announced the Spring series, and ended up with over 2,000 people in groups, which means they had more people in groups than in their worship services.

If you’ve launched one church-wide campaign, then you lost those groups, you would be led to believe that doesn’t work.

And, you are right! It doesn’t work.

But, if you put in the effort the first year, whether you launch in the Fall or in January, your groups will continue, and you will add more groups each time. If you’re only doing one campaign every Fall or every New Year, even though you are committed to groups and campaigns, you have placed your church in an endless cycle of Ground Hog Day.

You know the definition of insanity, right?

The key is a sequence, not just one series.