When a group leader launches a new small group, they’re curious. They want to know if they’re going to have a successful group. They don’t know if their group is going to stick, if people will come back, or if they’ll take steps of faith together.
How do you know if your new small group is going to “work”? How do you know if they’re going to stick together and grow and have dynamic stories of life change?
Is it that you have solid biblical discussions right off the bat?
Is it that for the first few weeks everybody shows up?
Is it that they’ve already started talking about the group serving together?
Is it just that sense of “peace,” that fluffy feeling in your stomach, that you sometimes get?
I submit something different. I saw the #1 marker of success in the small group that my wife and I lead, and I saw it last night. How do I know we’re going to have a successful group?
They stayed at our house until almost 11:00.
And we started at 6:30.
Relationally, we’ve already made deep connections. When we say, “Amen,” we’re not done. Our group isn’t defined by our study alone. Our group isn’t defined by the fact that we meet on Tuesday nights. Our group isn’t defined by our life stage or our kids’ ages. Our group is defined by significant relationships, built around the stories God has written with our lives and the story He’s writing with us together as a group.
We’ve built authentic community quickly. It just took us a few weeks, but God’s woven us together beautifully. We’ve made a priority out of getting to know each other at a level deeper than the surface. And it’s working. Late into the night every Tuesday night.
If your group hangs around after you say, “Amen,” you’re doing something right.
Without significant relationships, your group won’t last. Mark my word.
