3. Review your calendar of connecting opportunities for 2020 and make sure you’re offering a well-timed selection.
We build in an annual church-wide campaign every fall. We also schedule at least two other major small group connections and one or two opportunities to choose from a strategically selected set of on-campus group experiences that lead to off-campus groups. In all, we try to always have an upcoming opportunity that will connect people who have attended NEXT.
4. Choose a church-wide campaign for the fall ministry season and begin the planning process for it.
The right church-wide campaign run the right way will maximize the number of people connected in new groups. Although a church-wide campaign may fit on the calendar in other seasons, the fall is the best time.
5. Take a serious look at offering at least one 6 week on-campus experience that leads to an off-campus group.
What we call a Short Term group, offers a smartly selected topic that will appeal to unconnected people. For example, we use Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage to draw unconnected married couples. They’re seated intentionally with other unconnected couples like them (we actually segregate any couples who are already in groups to their own tables). The material almost leads itself but the most natural leaders always emerges by the 3rd week. In week 5 we begin suggesting that if they’d like to continue to meet together off-campus, we’d like to help them.
This article on how connect more people for small groups originally appeared here.
