Fall 2022 promises to be the largest small group launch season you’ve ever seen. Now that COVID is behind you for the most part and the weather is warming up, people are gone. Don’t believe me? Go price an airline ticket right now. For more on this prediction, go here.
Now that you are convinced, partially convinced, or skeptical that this small group boom is a few months away, how do you prepare? What do you need to have in place? Here are some things to consider:
Maximum Groups Require Maximum Leaders
If you want to launch a group, you have to have a leader. No leader means no group. It’s as simple as that. This reminds me of a conversation back when our church was on-boarding a new children’s pastor. I said, “There are two parts to children’s ministry: (1) Recruiting the leaders, and (2) Keeping the leaders happy.”
Our new children’s pastor asked, “But, when do I get to work with the kids?”
I replied, “You weren’t listening.” He chose to invest his time and energy into leading the kids instead of leading the leaders. His children’s leaders weren’t happy and started quitting. We hired a new children’s pastor not long after that.
You could say the same for small groups. There are two parts to small group ministry: (1) Recruiting group leaders, and (2) Supporting those leaders. Don’t get bogged down trying to find groups for people. Don’t hold the hand of every person who fills out a sign up card for groups. To put it bluntly: this is a waste of your time. Put your effort into recruiting leaders, and then teach the leaders to gather their groups.
Don’t Worry About Connecting 100% into Groups
In the early days of church-wide campaigns, this was the rallying cry: Connect Your Entire Congregation into Community! Been there. Done that. What we discovered was that connecting 100% of a church’s adult attendance into groups is too small of a goal. The more significant metric is the percentage of your congregation LEADING groups.
Our family moved back to my hometown of Topeka, Kansas last summer. We attend the church where I grew up. I get to sit next to my dad every Sunday. It’s nice. But, the church is probably 10% of the attendance it was back in the day. On a good Sunday, there are about 50 people there.
When I showed up, the pastor said, “Well, we’re doing pretty good with small groups. We have one group. That takes care of everyone who wants one.”
I wanted to grab him by the lapels and yell, “You’re looking at this all wrong. You don’t want 50 people in groups. You want 50 people leading groups!” But, I refrained, primarily because he wasn’t wearing lapels, and I promised my wife that I wouldn’t wear my consulting hat to church. I just sit there biting my tongue (until I’m asked). This is also a good marriage lesson for some.
How do you launch 100 groups in your church?
You don’t need 1,000 people to start 100 groups. You need 100 people willing to lead a group. If you have a leader, then you have a group.
