Having trouble figuring out how to unlock small group ministry impact? Maybe you’re just beginning to think about prioritizing small group ministry. Maybe you tried once and couldn’t get it off the ground. Or maybe you’ve tried multiple times to launch small group ministry and just can’t figure out how to make it work.
No matter what your experience has been, there are at least 5 very important keys to unlocking small group ministry impact.
1. Increase ministry acceptance by leveraging the influence of your senior pastor. Face it. Ministry impact almost never develops momentum without the endorsement of your senior pastor. Further, in most churches only those ministries championed by the senior pastor will attain enduring significance.
2. Decrease competition by streamlining the belong and become menu. This is an essential ingredient. Until you’ve narrowed the focus and streamlined your menu, you shouldn’t be surprised when your people can’t figure out their next step. It has been demonstrated conclusively that the more choices on the menu, the fewer purchases or selections are made.
3. Increase awareness by increasing the frequency of promotion. Keep in mind that unconnected people are often infrequent attenders. If you’re only occasionally talking about the importance of being connected in a small group, you shouldn’t be surprised if more than 50% of your unconnected adults never really understand the importance of a small group or know about the next connecting opportunity.
4. Decrease hesitation by eliminating inhibitors. An inhibitor is anything that causes alarm bells to go off inside the heads of unconnected adults. Lifetime commitments (anything longer than 6 weeks), topics that appeal only to seasoned Christians, and fears about the kind of people who will be in the group are just three of a number of damaging inhibitors. If you want to make it easy for unconnected people to say yes to a small group, you must eliminate inhibitors.
5. Increase response by creating great first steps out of the auditorium. Another very important key, many unconnected people stretched far out of the their comfort zone just to step into your auditorium. Some drove by your location for several years before they got up the nerve to attend one of your services. Others actually made it to your parking lot more than once before they ever got out of their cars. If you want to connect these people, creating great first steps out of your auditorium is essential.
