Turning a church “with” small groups into a church “of” small groups
Posted by Word Alive International Outreach | | Posted on 10:14 AM
Turning a church “with” small groups into a church “of” small groups
by Lance Witt
Becoming a church of small groups is a popular topic in some church circles these days. But what exactly does that mean? I define it three ways.
First, a church of small groups can’t accomplish its mission without groups. Groups are so central to your church’s vision that you couldn’t accomplish it without them. It’s not just a complimentary part of your vision; it’s essential.
Second, small groups are seen as a primary delivery system of the church mission. When the church looks at what God wants to do through it in the community, a church of small groups asks, “How can we do it through small groups?”
Third, small groups are in the DNA of your church’s philosophy of ministry. Your church must have a biblical conviction that groups – and building community – are important.
So how do you do it? How do you go from where you are right now to a church of small groups?
Let me give you nine steps in this journey.
Develop your own clarity and conviction about small groups. As the pastor, you need to come to a time when God convicts you that your church needs to move toward this. I had a time like that. I was a senior pastor of a growing church. Yet there was a gnawing sense that something was wrong. We weren’t doing a good job of developing leaders. We weren’t doing a good job of really reaching our community. I personally wasn’t living in community. I knew I couldn’t live like that forever. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my ministry just keeping the machinery of the church going.So for the next year I started really looking at what God was doing around the world. I read everything I could get my hands on. I discovered two things. First, everywhere God was at work prayer was part of the fabric of how they did church. Second, God convicted me that small groups were how these churches “did church.” It wasn’t a program. It was how they did church. That became a biblical conviction for me. I’d encourage you to spend some time in God’s Word really wrestling with what the Bible says about community. You’ll need that biblical conviction if you’re going to make this transition.
Realize this is messy and will take time. To move from a church that is just intrigued with small groups to a church that has small groups at its core will take time. It’s a very long and messy process. In fact, as you make this transition, you’ll have to spend a lot of the leadership capital and relational credibility you’ve amassed in your church. If you’re new to the church and haven’t earned this capital, you might want to wait. It’s not that anyone will disagree with you about the importance of community. But you’ll have to mess with how people do church to do this. So move slowly. You’ll also have to show savvy leadership, knowing who to influence and how to influence them. You can’t do that quickly.
Build a consensus within the church. You have to manage the change process in your church. Most churches (although this is a vast generalization) have three different leadership components. The systems and structures of the church are often led by either the senior pastor or an elder group. The strategy and philosophy of how ministry gets done in a church is often owned by the staff. The more tactical details of ministry are typically set by lay leaders. You’ll have to build a consensus among all three of these groups if you’re going to transition to a church of small groups. You’ve got to get them to buy in. As you try to build consensus, try to do these two things.
Identify the formal and informal leaders of the church. Then spend some time with those leaders discussing your vision. Maybe look into having an all-day retreat to do so.
Know the difference between alignment and attunement. You can force organizational alignment. You can tell people that you’re going to do small groups in your church. Attunement, on the other hand, is all about the heart. You want to create both organizational alignment and buy-in from the heart level. Getting buy-in is harder, takes much longer, and is far messier. It’s also the only way to make lasting change.
Build small groups within your own context. Distinguish between the wine and the wineskin. Remember when Jesus changed the water to wine in John 2? What was more important, the wine or the wineskin? The wine, of course. I missed this early in my journey with small groups. The wine is helping people develop true community. The wineskin is how you do small groups. It will look different from church to church. You need to understand your own context. Don’t just pick up someone else’s formula for small groups. Look at your own context first. Adopt a model but adapt it to your congregation.
Cast a vision. Somebody has to be the megaphone that inspires people to be a part of small groups. It would be great if this was the senior pastor. If it’s not, you’ll always be climbing uphill. But someone has to do it. Someone has to pain the picture of what it looks like to be in true community. Someone has to tell the story of what God is doing through groups in your church.
Develop a vocabulary in your church for small groups. When God first moved me and the church I served toward small groups, one of the first things we did was script out answers to some of the questions we expected to get on small groups. This ended up being great. It meant we were all saying the same thing. You need to make sure everyone on your team is saying the same thing about groups in your church. Try to use the same wording if possible.
Create space for groups in your church’s schedule – and on the campus – for groups. Most of the events in our churches compete with small groups, not compliment them. We did this for awhile at Saddleback. We had 12- and 13-week on-campus discipleship classes. Truthfully, though, our people were not going to come to these classes and small groups. If we wanted to get people into small groups, we had to do things differently. So we shortened the classes and encouraged groups to attend the classes together. Sometimes we used the on-campus groups to jump-start small groups on the topic. Take a look at what’s on your schedule and make sure you don’t have other programs dragging people away from small groups.We also realized that our campus needed to be a catalyst not a container. We didn’t mind using a room on campus to help get groups going, but we wouldn’t let them continue on campus for a long time. At Saddleback, we didn’t have a choice. We didn’t have enough room to have all the groups on campus, but it’s a good idea to move them anyway. Otherwise group leaders see the room you’ve given them as their room – and they don’t believe they can meet God without it.
Develop a coaching infrastructure. There’s a big correlation between support and sustainability. Early on at Saddleback we did a great job of getting most of the people in our congregation involved in groups, but we didn’t do so well in supporting those groups. This happened with many churches that did 40 Days of Purpose. They had a huge spike in the number of small groups through the campaign, but then that number dropped off dramatically afterwards. Why? Generally, there was no infrastructure. If you’re trying to teach the congregation that small groups are where you go when trouble floats into your life, and then you strand the leaders after they get started, you’re sending mixed messages.You don’t have to do this with staff either. You can build this coaching infrastructure with volunteers as well.
Dedicate more resources to group growth and group resources. If you believe in small groups and believe they are integral to the fulfilling the mission of your church, your budget should reflect that. In most churches, the weekend service costs far more money than their groups do. That won’t happen in a church of small groups.
It can be a long journey from being a church with small groups to a church of small groups. But true biblical community is worth the work. These nine steps can help you get there.
by Lance Witt
Becoming a church of small groups is a popular topic in some church circles these days. But what exactly does that mean? I define it three ways.
First, a church of small groups can’t accomplish its mission without groups. Groups are so central to your church’s vision that you couldn’t accomplish it without them. It’s not just a complimentary part of your vision; it’s essential.
Second, small groups are seen as a primary delivery system of the church mission. When the church looks at what God wants to do through it in the community, a church of small groups asks, “How can we do it through small groups?”
Third, small groups are in the DNA of your church’s philosophy of ministry. Your church must have a biblical conviction that groups – and building community – are important.
So how do you do it? How do you go from where you are right now to a church of small groups?
Let me give you nine steps in this journey.
Develop your own clarity and conviction about small groups. As the pastor, you need to come to a time when God convicts you that your church needs to move toward this. I had a time like that. I was a senior pastor of a growing church. Yet there was a gnawing sense that something was wrong. We weren’t doing a good job of developing leaders. We weren’t doing a good job of really reaching our community. I personally wasn’t living in community. I knew I couldn’t live like that forever. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my ministry just keeping the machinery of the church going.So for the next year I started really looking at what God was doing around the world. I read everything I could get my hands on. I discovered two things. First, everywhere God was at work prayer was part of the fabric of how they did church. Second, God convicted me that small groups were how these churches “did church.” It wasn’t a program. It was how they did church. That became a biblical conviction for me. I’d encourage you to spend some time in God’s Word really wrestling with what the Bible says about community. You’ll need that biblical conviction if you’re going to make this transition.
Realize this is messy and will take time. To move from a church that is just intrigued with small groups to a church that has small groups at its core will take time. It’s a very long and messy process. In fact, as you make this transition, you’ll have to spend a lot of the leadership capital and relational credibility you’ve amassed in your church. If you’re new to the church and haven’t earned this capital, you might want to wait. It’s not that anyone will disagree with you about the importance of community. But you’ll have to mess with how people do church to do this. So move slowly. You’ll also have to show savvy leadership, knowing who to influence and how to influence them. You can’t do that quickly.
Build a consensus within the church. You have to manage the change process in your church. Most churches (although this is a vast generalization) have three different leadership components. The systems and structures of the church are often led by either the senior pastor or an elder group. The strategy and philosophy of how ministry gets done in a church is often owned by the staff. The more tactical details of ministry are typically set by lay leaders. You’ll have to build a consensus among all three of these groups if you’re going to transition to a church of small groups. You’ve got to get them to buy in. As you try to build consensus, try to do these two things.
Identify the formal and informal leaders of the church. Then spend some time with those leaders discussing your vision. Maybe look into having an all-day retreat to do so.
Know the difference between alignment and attunement. You can force organizational alignment. You can tell people that you’re going to do small groups in your church. Attunement, on the other hand, is all about the heart. You want to create both organizational alignment and buy-in from the heart level. Getting buy-in is harder, takes much longer, and is far messier. It’s also the only way to make lasting change.
Build small groups within your own context. Distinguish between the wine and the wineskin. Remember when Jesus changed the water to wine in John 2? What was more important, the wine or the wineskin? The wine, of course. I missed this early in my journey with small groups. The wine is helping people develop true community. The wineskin is how you do small groups. It will look different from church to church. You need to understand your own context. Don’t just pick up someone else’s formula for small groups. Look at your own context first. Adopt a model but adapt it to your congregation.
Cast a vision. Somebody has to be the megaphone that inspires people to be a part of small groups. It would be great if this was the senior pastor. If it’s not, you’ll always be climbing uphill. But someone has to do it. Someone has to pain the picture of what it looks like to be in true community. Someone has to tell the story of what God is doing through groups in your church.
Develop a vocabulary in your church for small groups. When God first moved me and the church I served toward small groups, one of the first things we did was script out answers to some of the questions we expected to get on small groups. This ended up being great. It meant we were all saying the same thing. You need to make sure everyone on your team is saying the same thing about groups in your church. Try to use the same wording if possible.
Create space for groups in your church’s schedule – and on the campus – for groups. Most of the events in our churches compete with small groups, not compliment them. We did this for awhile at Saddleback. We had 12- and 13-week on-campus discipleship classes. Truthfully, though, our people were not going to come to these classes and small groups. If we wanted to get people into small groups, we had to do things differently. So we shortened the classes and encouraged groups to attend the classes together. Sometimes we used the on-campus groups to jump-start small groups on the topic. Take a look at what’s on your schedule and make sure you don’t have other programs dragging people away from small groups.We also realized that our campus needed to be a catalyst not a container. We didn’t mind using a room on campus to help get groups going, but we wouldn’t let them continue on campus for a long time. At Saddleback, we didn’t have a choice. We didn’t have enough room to have all the groups on campus, but it’s a good idea to move them anyway. Otherwise group leaders see the room you’ve given them as their room – and they don’t believe they can meet God without it.
Develop a coaching infrastructure. There’s a big correlation between support and sustainability. Early on at Saddleback we did a great job of getting most of the people in our congregation involved in groups, but we didn’t do so well in supporting those groups. This happened with many churches that did 40 Days of Purpose. They had a huge spike in the number of small groups through the campaign, but then that number dropped off dramatically afterwards. Why? Generally, there was no infrastructure. If you’re trying to teach the congregation that small groups are where you go when trouble floats into your life, and then you strand the leaders after they get started, you’re sending mixed messages.You don’t have to do this with staff either. You can build this coaching infrastructure with volunteers as well.
Dedicate more resources to group growth and group resources. If you believe in small groups and believe they are integral to the fulfilling the mission of your church, your budget should reflect that. In most churches, the weekend service costs far more money than their groups do. That won’t happen in a church of small groups.
It can be a long journey from being a church with small groups to a church of small groups. But true biblical community is worth the work. These nine steps can help you get there.
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