Group Dynamics

April 8, 2021

10 Steps to Being a Great Group Member

By Cheri Liefeld

As ministry leaders, we spend time training our group leaders and helping them succeed. But 90% of the group is made up of group members who are not leaders. Our small groups will only be as great as the people attending and their involvement. Have you ever wondered what it takes to be a great group member? Here are ten steps to being a great group member.

Communicate. Basic communication with your leader and your group. Respond when they reach out. Engage in group texts. Let them know you will be there, and if you have to miss, please let them know. They would rather have a heads up instead of a “no-show.”

Show Up. In my experience, only 1/3 of people who sign up for small groups make it to the first meeting. The others are missing out. Be the one that overcomes first-night jitters and joins. Then keep showing up. It is hard to fully experience the small group and build the relationships you desire if you attend sporadically. Fight the urge to stay home when you feel tired. Once you get there, you’ll be glad you did. Showing up is a simple key to success both in your group and your life.

Listen. Show your group you value them and want to get to know them by being present and actively listening. Yes, people overshare, but haven’t we all at some point? Fight the urge to look at your phone or drift off. Remember how you feel when someone is present and engaged as you talk. Listening is one way to honor your group. This creates a safe space for people to wrestle and grow in their faith.

Join the Conversation. We want to hear from you. This can be challenging for those who are shy or don’t have a friend in the group. Be courageous and share your thoughts. You have something important to contribute to the group. Nod your head, especially on Zoom groups, to show you are engaged and listening. Be willing to be vulnerable. When we can be ourselves, honestly share our struggles, and celebrate our wins, we grow closer to each other.

Do the work and be prepared. We all experience busy weeks, and there will be times we don’t complete the homework. Let that be the exception, but still show up. Honor your group by being prepared, ready to engage and contribute to the discussion. It can be discouraging for a leader to ask a question and be met with silence because no one read the book or watched the video. It’s like hosting a potluck, but only one guest brings a dish. Dinner isn’t quite the same. You get out of the group as much as you are willing to contribute.

Encourage others. We live in a challenging season; everyone could use a bit of encouragement. Affirm other’s contributions. Ask how they are doing. Follow up on a prior prayer request. Little acts of kindness tell others you value them, and that is how great friendships begin. Text someone in your group each week. Write a note of encouragement. Send someone money through Venmo for coffee. These gestures are contagious and will spur others on to do the same (Heb 10:24-25). You won’t regret it.

Serve Your Group. Offer to bring a meal when someone is sick. Reach out if someone is absent to see if they are ok. Invite someone to coffee to hear their story. The Bible says to outdo ourselves in honoring and loving others (Rom 12:9-10) and to serve others, faithfully using our God-given gifts (1 Pet 4:10).

Take Initiative. Offer to bring snacks or plan a social event for the group. Be courageous and pray at the end of the group. Ask how you can support your group leader. Offer to lead when they want to take a week off. This type of support is meaningful to your leader. When we take next steps, relationships start to grow.

Pray. Take time each week to pray for your group and your leaders. Pray over their requests and for their families. Ask God to bless your group and create community among you. One of my leaders said of their group members, “I love how they pray for each other and support each other on their own. It is so beautiful to see how they have a supportive community within the group.”

Which of these resonates most with you? Which would be an area of growth for you? Try one of these steps this week and see how it impacts your group.

Cheri Liefeld is the Director of Small Groups at Eastside Community Church in Anaheim, California. She was previously Director of Women’s Ministry at Mariners Church. She is a writer and loves to gather people around the table. You can read more at adventuresinthekitchen.com.

Group Answers Podcast

April 7, 2021

Group Answers Episode 199: Tips for Leaders: Leading Couples Groups

By Chris Surratt

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:16 — 44.7MB) | Embed

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On this episode of Group Answers, Brian and Chris kick off a new podcast series, Tips for Leaders, with tips on leading couples groups.

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Group Leadership

April 2, 2021

Restarting Groups (and Lawnmowers)

By Ken Braddy

Tools. I love them.

If you want to make me happy, drop me off at a home improvement store for a few hours. I can walk up and down the aisles absolutely mesmerized by the myriad options to get any job done.

I must admit that I am not much of a handyman. That’s not to say that I can’t fix things, but normally it takes me longer because I never seem to have the right tools at hand. If I have the right tools, then inevitably I cannot locate them. Most of the time, though, I find myself making a run to the big box home improvement store to buy one or two specialized tools to complete a repair job at the house.

During this off season, my lawnmower decided to stop running. It wouldn’t start, no matter what I did. I kicked it. I ordered a tool to help me adjust a setting in the engine (I did it wrong and really messed it up). Do I throw it away, or do I look for some help? After trying every repair trick I knew to get it to restart, I decided to find some help. I found a repair shop, and the owner tuned my 10-year-old lawnmower. He replaced the oil and the blade, changed out the air filter, and replaced my old spark plug. He reset the engine to factory specs. Now she runs like a new mower! That may be the best $99 I’ve spent in a while.

Restarting Bible Study Groups

The church has a big job ahead of it this year. It’s time to begin the process of restarting Bible study groups for all ages. Like my old lawnmower, there is no need to toss out Sunday School (insert whatever name your church calls your Bible teaching ministry)—it probably just needs a quick tune-up. We want to be sure that our teaching ministries are running at peak efficiency. I needed some help because I lacked the right tools and know-how. When I found the right person, he solved my dilemma and now my lawnmower can provide service well into the future.

As we look at the needs of churches this year, Lifeway has developed a series of webinars to help churches of all types focus on some foundational principles. Think of this as giving you the right tools and information to help you tune up your church’s most important ministry. With a little effort, you can have it running like a top! Here is a quick look ahead at the upcoming webinars designed to help you restart your church’s teaching ministry this year (for a more complete look at these webinars, and to sign up, go to lifeway.com/restartgroups):

Breathing Life into Sunday School – There are 12 essentials that can help any Sunday School become healthier. Get your Sunday School off of life support and put it on the road to recovery.
Restarting Sunday School – During the first year of COVID, groups struggled to meet. As groups begin to regather, there are considerations for their successful relaunch.
How to Have all the Workers you Need – Never struggle to enlist group leaders after you learn a process for recruiting new leaders.
3 Roles for Guiding Groups – Teacher, Shepherd, and Leader—every group leader must embrace these important roles and balance them to create a healthy environment for the group’s members.
Leading Small Groups – Learn how to gather, lead, and multiply your small group.
Teaching with Style – Jesus was an expert in communicating His messages. Discover the eight learning approaches and how to use them to teach engaging Bible studies each week.
5 Steps for Building a Disciple–making Ministry – For over 100 years churches have used a simple formula for creating great groups and a strong disciple-making ministry. Do you know the steps to take in order to grow your Bible-teaching ministry?

This series of webinars will be offered on weekends, at night, and during the daytime. We tried our best to give you options because we know you need something flexible.

Don’t throw out Sunday School! Use these webinars to give you the tools to make it run like a new teaching ministry. COVID has created a hard year for the church. As we restart groups this year, let’s tune up the church’s most important ministry—its Bible study groups!

Group Leadership

March 25, 2021

Tips For Leading A Couples Small Group

By Chris Surratt

Bob and Crystal were a really nice married couple who joined our small group. At the first gathering for the semester at a restaurant, Bob seemed to jell with the guys, and Crystal jumped right in with the other women in their conversations. I was excited about what this new couple would contribute to the group, but the next week I noticed when it came time for the discussion part of group, Crystal would offer her thoughts, but Bob would always keep quiet. This was the same guy who was completely comfortable talking at the restaurant the week before but now had nothing to add. As this scenario continued for the next few weeks, I also observed that if the other guys contributed to the discussion, their thoughts were mostly superficial.

Doug and Wendy were another great couple who had been a part of our small group for a couple of years. For one of our studies, we decided as a group to do one that required a bit of reading in-between group meetings. This was a new type of study for us, with most of our previous studies being based on the sermons. The first week’s discussion went well, but I noticed Doug getting quieter as the weeks went on. I finally figured out that Doug wasn’t doing any of the reading and a lot of the other guys in the group weren’t as well.

These two scenarios brought to my attention a couple of issues with couples groups:

Couples groups will always struggle when it comes to being open and vulnerable. Most men will not open up in front of their spouses. They will talk about work or the game last night, but if there is a chance of vulnerability during the discussion, they yield to their wives every time.
Studies that require a lot of reading or homework will not work well in a couples group.

So, can couples groups be successful? In my twenty-plus years of experience leading them, I know they can be with a few adjustments and an intentional strategy.

Utilize the power of the subdivide.

Couples groups can be more effective if the discussion time is split into women and men subgroups. This doesn’t have to happen every week, but the group is much more likely to wrestle with the subject matter if they have opportunities to be open with others of their same gender. For complete openness, it’s important to stipulate that what is discussed in those subgroups must stay confidential. There is nothing worse than a guy opening up to the other guys and then having something he said brought up later for prayer when the group is back together. He has to know that the other guys in the group respect his openness by keeping some things confidential.

Start micro groups.

Couples groups can also be more effective when the members are connected to smaller, gender-based groups. There is openness and accountability in same-sex groups that is not achievable when discussion ensues in a mixed-gender group. Here are three reasons to cultivate same-gender micro groups:

We need natural places to find godly examples and mentors to follow. The best space for those relationships to organically develop is in a micro group.
Transformation can only occur alongside accountability. For real change to take place in a man’s life, he needs a group of brothers to hold him accountable to those changes. He can too easily hide behind his wife in a married couples group.
Same gender groups can be intergenerational. Most small groups are divided by stage of life or location demographics. We have young couples groups, married-without-kids groups, empty nester groups, and so on. While these groups are important, we are missing something critical when we do not have the influence that older and younger generations can provide.

Choose the right kind of study.

In 2016, the Pew Research Center survey of adult reading habits concluded that “women are more likely than men to read books,” and noted that 32% of men (versus only 23% of women) surveyed said that they hadn’t read a single book in the past year.1

Knowing that research shows that men read a lot less than women should help us when it comes to choosing a study for a couples group. For example, look for studies that don’t have a lot of homework outside of the group time; however, a guided daily devotional component, like what is in the “Daily Discipleship Guide,” can be important for individual spiritual growth and for content in the micro groups.

It’s also important to have a balanced curriculum plan that encourages spiritual next steps while also addressing felt needs for men and women. You can find an example of one here.

Leading couples’ small groups can be frustrating at times but also extremely rewarding when utilizing an intentional strategy of subdividing, forming micro groups, and choosing the right studies.

This post appeared originally at lifewaywomen.com.

CHRIS SURRATT (@ChrisSurratt) is the discipleship and small groups specialist for Lifeway Christian Resources, a ministry consultant and coach with more than 20 years of experience, and the author of Leading Small Groups: How to Gather, Launch, Lead, and Multiply Your Small Group. He is also a co-host of the weekly podcast, Group Answers.

Group Answers Podcast

March 17, 2021

Group Answers Episode 196: Leading Your Group Through Seasons of Grief

By Chris Surratt

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:33 — 36.8MB) | Embed

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On this episode of Group Answers, Brian and Chris talk to Tyler Quillet about how lead your group well during seasons of grief.

Resources:

Blog Post

Yet: Embracing God’s Faithfulness in the Midst of Grief

The Group Answers Podcast is a weekly show designed to resource, train, and encourage small group leaders. Each episode considers current trends and resources as well as timeless truths and methods of discipleship. It is hosted by Brian Daniel, a Bible study and discipleship expert in Lifeway’s Groups Ministry, and Chris Surratt, the small group and discipleship specialist at Lifeway and author of Leading Small Groups

Group Leadership

March 16, 2021

Building Relational Ministry Teams

By Group Ministry

By Reid Smith

How much thought do you give to the relational dynamic of your ministry teams? It is worth taking the time to help your church’s ministry teams function more like small groups because healthy ministry flows from healthy relationships. By adding some intentionality to building community among people who serve together, leaders will see powerful outcomes they want everyone on the team to experience. Members of relational ministry teams…

Are naturally motivated to invite others to serve alongside them
Feel a deeper sense of belonging and purpose
Are more inclined to remain committed to serving
Ooze more joy while serving, resulting in greater impact together

So how can a team experience more of the life-giving dynamic we see in Acts 2:42-47 and have an even greater ministry impact?

Appoint somebody on the team to compile everyone’s contact info and then distribute to the members on that team. Consider setting up a group on WhatsApp, GroupMe, or Facebook so people can stay in touch between times of serving together.
Pray together for one another before your ministry task. Prayer knits people together and makes the combined effect of their service even greater. Again, you can appoint somebody on the team to help champion this.
Periodically host a social gathering (e.g. 3-4x/year). Prioritize having fun together because that goes a long way when times of need or hardship arise. Find ways to spontaneously express appreciation.
Find out birthdays and anniversaries (in marriage and ministry) and celebrate them with your team by gifting that person/people one of their favorite treats. Your communications person (see first point) or someone else on your team can help look after this.
Stand together, facing outward. Help one another think and operate evangelistically. This can happen by praying for the lost each week, welcoming others on the team, engaging in a local service opportunity together a couple times a year, etc.

Team members who experience community while serving together are more likely to catch the vision of small groups in your church and be champions of serving within them. Taking the steps above will help your teams function more like small groups so that everyone can experience the joy that comes with fulfilling the church’s mission together!

Reid Smith has been equipping leaders in churches of all sizes and stages of growth for effective disciple-making since 1996. He lives in Wellington, Florida where he serves as a Groups Pastor at Christ Fellowship. You can find more of his helpful resources at www.reidsmith.org.

Group Leadership

March 11, 2021

Leading My Group Through Seasons of Grief

By Group Ministry

By Tyler Quillet

Grief is inevitable. Throughout life, we lose loved ones. It is a part of life that either pushes us closer to Christ, or drives us away from Him. Certainly, you will face grief as a group, if you haven’t already. This may be the loss of a group member, which you all grieve together, or maybe it is an individual or couple in the group who loses a loved one, and you walk that journey of grief alongside them. No matter the loss, it is great, and people in your group will be desperate for reminders of the hope that only Jesus can provide.

I don’t know about you, but when I am overwhelmed, stressed, or grieved I tend to have blinders on. I easily get uber-focused on the task or circumstances at hand, and have a hard time seeing anything outside of that. It’s a laser-focus, but not in a good way. And, when this happens, I don’t think things through, I don’t have clarity, and most importantly, I often don’t seek Jesus. I’m too sidetracked by what has me overwhelmed at that moment. Grief does this to many of us. There are constant thoughts of the person that we lost, the what-ifs of our own future, the empty hole that has been left in our lives, and so much more. Those thoughts tend to dominate our minds and keep our focus off of Christ.

As Christians, we desperately need one another to point to Jesus. Especially in times when we struggle to turn our own hearts to Him, it’s vitally important that we remind each other of who Jesus is. What an incredible opportunity we have to point those who are grieving to Jesus. This doesn’t have to be in a large group setting where the griever may feel “ganged up on.” Those who are grieving should be allowed to be there—grief is healthy and ok. Allow your people to grieve, but help them to trust in Jesus while they grieve. I believe doing both is not only possible, but also what God desires from our hearts. Grief is unhealthy without hope in Jesus, but it’s an amazing step of faith when we can say, “God, my heart is shattered, and yet, I trust in you.” So how do we help each other get to that place? What kind of reminders can we give those who are grieving so that they can take steps of trust as they grieve? Here are a few ideas:

Write a note to the grieving person. This is not to help them move beyond their grief, but to remind them of who God is as they grieve. Use simple words like, “I’m praying that God would overwhelm your heart with His peace as you trust Him in this time.” Remind them of His goodness by sharing scriptures like Psalm 34:18, Lamentations 3:21-23, Zephaniah 3:17, Isaiah 41:10, or Psalm 34:4-8, 17-18.
Send a simple text with one of the Scriptures above. Or, simply text, “Praying for you right now.” If you do this, actually spend time praying for them in that moment. Reminding them of God’s Word may prompt them to dig into that Scripture on their own.
Call them and simply ask if you can pray with them. Praying with someone is an incredible reminder of God’s faithful presence with them. Pray that their trust in Him would deepen, that He’d remind them of His goodness and faithfulness to them, and that they’d grow in their love for Him.
If/when this person is back in group, allow them opportunities to share their grieving heart. Don’t force them to share, but allow them to do so if they desire. Don’t use this time to try and “fix” anything about their grief, but speak truth and remind them of God’s goodness in response.
Be sure as a group that this person has relational outlets. They may be incredibly lonely, but not able to reach out to someone. Without forcing your presence on them, invite them to dinner, ask if you can bring over a meal, go on a walk, or invite them back to group if they haven’t returned yet. Use these moments with them to listen to their heart and respond with grace and truth.

Many who are grieving think, “Why me?”, “Where is God?”, “How could a good God allow this to happen?”, “What have I done to deserve this?” and more. Use every opportunity you have to speak the truth of God’s love for them, His faithfulness to them, His presence with them, His grieved heart over death, and most importantly, the hope that only Jesus Christ provides. As we continually point the grieving heart to Jesus, those blinders I spoke of earlier begin to come off. And, in the midst of grief, your group members will be able to remind themselves of God because you helped them to keep their eyes focused on Him on this journey.

While God will do the heart work in those who are broken and hurting, He is calling us to come alongside and point them to Him. Remind them of Him. Reassure them of Him. It’s all about Him, and while they may know this truth, they’re likely in a season of needing that reminder. I’m thankful that they have you to walk this journey alongside them.

Tyler Quillet is the team leader for the Custom Church Resources and Smallgroup.com team at Lifeway Christian Resources. He lives in the Nashville, Tenn. area with his incredible wife, Cathie, and two boys, Cylas and Bowen. Tyler is the author of Yet: Embracing God’s Faithfulness in the Midst of Grief. He also speaks, writes, and coaches alongside Cathie as they pour into and care for those battling infertility through Cathie’s, The Quillet Institute. Tyler previously spent 15 years as a pastor and is passionate about serving churches and pouring into church leaders in a variety of ways.

Group Leadership

March 2, 2021

Eight Keys for Building a Community Culture

By Group Ministry

By Reid Smith

Culture is something you feel. Every group of people and organization has a distinct culture. It’s the water in which you swim when you’re hanging out in an environment or with a group of people. It’s what you experience through all your senses when you are gathered with others who are a part of it.

For example, you are experiencing more than just coffee when you sit inside a Starbucks. There is a culture that has been intentionally and artistically created to entice customers to return and build brand loyalty. Although our motivations differ, church leadership want people to return and consistently engage in their community life for infinitely more important reasons.

Pastors love it when people say their church feels like family. It’s always a win when folks say they feel like they belong and enjoy connecting with others each week. However, most leaders are not conscious about all the factors that make it that way. The DNA of culture must be deliberately molded, and just like a potter with clay, it is best to do this at the very beginning of a new work.

Regardless of where you would consider yourself in building a community culture in your church, here are eight keys I’ve discovered along the way that will help in this process:

Discern God’s plan for building community in your church and reaching your surrounding community with the power of the Good News. It’s safe to assume the Lord is already at work building His Church where you minister and your primary job is to figure out how that’s happening. Invariably, this will be through a community of two or more people pursuing Christ together. So how is God already moving in your midst to reach the lost?
Decide together with your core leadership team how everyone will prioritize community and relationship-building. How will each one live it and lead it? The involvement of pastoral leadership in a church’s community life is the linchpin to the ongoing growth of biblical community. There is no substitute for what the most influential and visible people in the church model and advocate, particularly on the weekend.
Don’t allow groups to be viewed as simply another ministry program/department of the church or to be perceived as something that “good Christians” do. A programmatic paradigm can be lethal to organic community. It is not groups that we’re after ultimately…it’s what happens in them. Biblical community empowers believers and churches to function as the Body of Christ should (Rom 12:4-5; 1 Cor 12:21-27).
Dedicate resources to building community. Invest time, energy, and money into the leaders and resources that serve as the life-source of community in your church. By virtue of resourcing this area of your church, you will be enhancing all areas. There is no short-cut to healthy ministry, which flows out of healthy relationships.
Discover who is gifted in communications and beat the drum of community every chance you get. You want to show and tell people what you believe about the importance of biblical community to their spiritual growth and well being. Use all forms of communication: platform, print, digital, visual, and stories to convey what God is doing through the community-life of your church.
Design a community-life calendar and include no less than three church-wide opportunities per year for people to get plugged in. Present new ways for people to get connected in new types of groups. Feature existing groups and new group start ups in your weekend announcements, website, social media platforms, slides, etc.
Determine that every event you host or program you run will be used as an opportunity to help people take their next step toward greater engagement in your church’s community life. Churches tend to pour a lot of time and energy into planning events while the next steps for people to take is an afterthought. Flip this. When events are built around a clear next step, more people are inspired to actually do something and you’ll see measurable fruit from your organized activities.
Devote yourself to building a community culture. The journey will be filled with successes and set-backs, but stay with it! Study churches that do this well and read books by leaders you respect who are community-building champions. Attend groups conferences in-person or online and include other staff and key volunteers. In other words, be a learner and bring others along with you. Never settle.

This is all worth doing wholeheartedly because healthy spiritual relationships are essential to having a growing relationship with Jesus Christ (Hebrews 10:24-25; 1 John 1:7, 3:14, 4:20). Furthermore, when spiritually lost people come to a loving community, they tend to come to Christ (Acts 2:47; John 13:34; 1 John 4:12). Building a community culture is not optional for a church that wants to advance God’s mission in the world and these keys will help you and your team in the process.

Group Leadership

February 4, 2021

CPR for Small Group Ministry

By Group Ministry

By Reid Smith

One of the greatest mistakes made by church leaders who want to reintroduce or reinvigorate a small group ministry is to make their first step an announcement from the pulpit. This well-intentioned step can have catastrophic results if those who had a less-than-favorable experience feel disregarded, retired leadership feel dismissed, and residual leadership (if any) feel disrespected. There is a critical pre-game plan that must be executed in private before going public. The life-saving practice of CPR offers a helpful pattern to follow.

When an unconscious or unresponsive person is being revived using CPR, it is vital for the person helping to follow the A-B-C steps for resuscitating another person:

AIRWAY – Open the airway
BREATHING – Breathe air into the opened airway
CIRCULATION – Perform cycles of breaths & chest compressions to restore the victim

There are equivalents for each of these steps when it comes to restoring life to your small group ministry. As with actual CPR, it is very important to follow them in order. Many church leaders unknowingly engage these steps in the reverse order (C-B-A). This can have devastating consequences for the ministry at large.

The first step in CPR is to make sure the victim’s AIRWAY is clear from any obstructions. The one responding to the emergency is to look, listen, and feel for breathing. The parallel for those who are trying to resuscitate community life through small groups is to look for, listen to, and feel out your past, present, and future small group leadership. Conversation opens the airway.

AIRWAY – Learning from your past, present, and future small group leadership

PAST: Set-up conversations over coffee with those who were key leaders (e.g. coaches and long-term leaders) and significant voices of influence in the past and ask for their input. It is very important to do the following in each of your meetings:
- Be sincere in expressing appreciation for their past involvement and inviting honest feedback. Then be humble and listen intently to what they tell you.
- Be discerning about who is supportive of you and the attempt to restart the small group ministry. There will be some who express support but are not personally ready to take part in reintroducing a small group ministry…and that’s okay!
- Beware of those who do not seem to have anything positive to say and use their conversation with you to vent negativity. Thank them for their input and move on. It may do more harm to try to win these people over. Your goal is not to gain everyone’s acceptance and enthusiastic approval. Your goal is to get the RIGHT people on your team. Having the wrong people on your team obstructs the airway and renders the next two steps ineffective.

Have phone conversations with the other leaders and volunteers who were involved in the past for a shorter term. It is well worth your time to interface personally with every past leader and this effort on your part will mean a lot to them. Regardless of whether they are optimistic, ambivalent, or skeptical, you will learn a lot from these people even when they are not ready to jump on-board with the new effort. They will also likely appreciate the respect you have shown by initiating conversation and inviting feedback.

2. PRESENT: Acknowledge those who are still involved. Commend them for their commitment and include them in your future planning. Ask them for their input as well by using the same tips above. Invite them to join you for a vision-casting experience that will include emerging small group leadership. Note: Where present leaders remain involved, it is important that you do NOT convey that you are starting something completely new to replace the past small group ministry. Rather, you are continuing to build upon the foundation of the biblical community the Lord has already established. This honors what God has done and may still be doing through these present leaders, and it shows respect for their continued loving service.

3. FUTURE: Review your church’s master list of members with your senior pastor. Highlight the names of those who have been or are presently involved. Next highlight the names of those you and your senior pastor think are good prospective leaders. As before, arrange sit-down conversations with people you would like to invite into further responsibility.

1. Whether you talk by phone or in person with prospective leaders, explain…
  1. What you are presenting (tell them what their role looks like as a facilitator)
  2. Why they specifically came to mind as a potential small group leader
  3. What their group might look like and how it fits into the overarching vision of your church
2. Dream with them about possibilities and give them the freedom of choosing a focus they are excited about (we are all called to be community-builders!)
3. Clearly communicate expectations
  1. Essential responsibilities
  2. Project the time commitment involved
  3. Suggest beginning with a shorter duration
  4. Request participation in a vision-casting event and initial training
4. Clarify that you (or a coach) will be with them every step of the way
5. Set a specific time to follow-up

BREATHING – Including all the leaders in a vision-casting experience

After you have opened the airway by carrying out your pre-game plan with the emerging leadership, the next step in resuscitating the small group ministry is to bring all those who have expressed openness to restarting the small group ministry together to cast fresh vision by communicating your church’s…

Mission and core values
Vision of how small groups will further your church’s mission by fueling the growth of biblical community
History with small groups and what you have learned from earlier attempts (based on feedback you have received from a number of leaders)
Belief in the importance of small groups and the benefits that come from them
Current and projected need for small groups to ensure healthy church growth
Renewed definition of a small group and support structure for the ministry
Dream of what the new small group ministry looks like in action
Ongoing plan for training, resourcing, and supporting your new community of leaders

The third step in CPR involves restoring breathing and sometimes even circulation to the unresponsive victim. Like people, small group ministries can have faint breath or no breath, irregular circulation or no pulse. Take heart! The Lord wants you and the community of your church to experience His resurrection life. Furthermore, He wants the community life of your church to explode out and impact your surrounding community. Jesus will build biblical community in your local church as He builds His Church!

CIRCULATION – Reintroducing small groups through public communication

One mistake leaders make when relaunching small group ministry is going public prematurely. Do not circumvent the process of securing and uniting your new community of leaders with the fresh vision that will undergird your new attempt. Your small group leadership community provides the necessary backbone to this church-wide initiative, especially when there is a history of unsatisfactory results. In other words, you need to have your team together before game time. This provides confidence for the whole congregation that the necessary groundwork of preparing a new small group leadership group has already been done.

When it comes to reintroducing small groups as a church-wide ministry, it is vital the senior pastor joins with the small group ministry staff (paid or not) in communicating the new vision. Earlier attempts at small group ministry that never really took root can oftentimes leave a bad aftertaste. Hearing the philosophical “why’s” directly from the senior pastor and the fresh, practical “how’s” from those leading the new effort can help to neutralize this distaste.

There are a couple of things the senior pastor should recognize: 1) The past attempt(s) and the leadership’s appreciation for all of those who were involved and 2) The new attempt and how it is different. As a continuation of explaining the why behind small groups it is also important for the senior pastor to communicate why the church values small groups, why they are so important to the church’s mission, and why it is vital for everyone to be involved. The communication of opportunities for people to connect into a small group may be done by the small group/discipleship pastor once the why foundation has been laid by the senior pastor.

Another strategy that dissipates the bad aftertaste of earlier small group ministry short-comings is to talk about group life in the context of seasons or semesters. In other words, say “The first season of our small group ministry will look like such-and-such.” This lets the church know you are asking for a shorter-term commitment to begin with. It also affords you the flexibility to change tact from season-to-season in order to remain relevant for the ever-changing make-up and needs of your church community.

The other advantage to doing this is it gives you a “new excuse” to talk about small groups in a big way two to three times per year. Regardless, a key principle to ensuring the success of restarting your church’s small group ministry is to keep groups in front of your people. Give your newly-fashioned small group ministry plenty of “face time.” Advertise new groups, highlight existing ones, encourage people to connect. Talk about groups regularly in front of the whole church. Doing so shows the value you place on them.

Restarting an unresponsive person’s circulation usually requires some cyclical repetition of breathing and chest compressions. Likewise, there can be some repetition to the application of this third step of CPR to restoring life to your small group ministry by feeding your emerging small group ministry fresh communication and different opportunities for people to connect. Stay creative in helping people to connect and grow together in Christ! Networking with other like-minded churches and sharing creative ideas and resources helps this process.

A person who is revived through CPR does not immediately spring back to their feet and take off running. Similarly, a small group ministry that has life restored to it needs to be nurtured and nursed back to full health over time. It requires careful and clear communication. It requires consistency in prayer and the promotion of small groups in your church’s weekend life. And it requires a united leadership front and an openness to new seasons of community life that connect with your church’s mission. If you follow the A-B-C steps for restoring life to your small group ministry, the odds are strongly in favor of revival and real impact on your surrounding community.

Group Answers Podcast

January 13, 2021

Group Answers Episode 187: Leading in a Deeply Divided World

By Group Ministry

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On this episode of Group Answers, Chris talks to Will Johnston about how we navigate tough conversations in our groups, especially after the events of January 6.

Will Johnston is the Director of Build Community at Eastside Community Church in Anaheim, California. Will graduated from Wheaton College with a degree in theology, did a two-and-a-half year stint on Capitol Hill, and then joined the staff of National Community Church in Washington D.C., where he oversaw small groups.

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