Small Groups Revisited
I was sitting in a restaurant here in DeKalb a week or so ago talking with Pete about our small groups. One thing led to another and we came up with this interesting concept. Traditionally, the way that you start new small groups is that you find a "small group leader" and have them begin to recruit members for their small group. This leader can (in a perfect world) come from a successful small group and take a few of the members of the old small group with them to jump start the new group. If your lucky, the pastor will say something on Sunday morning to "plug" the new group and hopefully stir some interest.
In this model small groups have a tremendous importance within the church. It is the place where you take the people who are coming on Sunday morning and plug them in. Getting them in the small group is fruitful in two ways. First, they get discipled better in a small group environment, and second, you see a greater buy in to the church. You move people from just casual attenders to tithe giving, children church volunteering members. That's the theory, and that is just what every pastor in the world wants. People who in love with and are plugged into their church. Most of us have been told over and over again about how important this model is and how we NEED it in our church. All successful churches have strong small group ministries. We must also have a strong small group ministry to be a successful church.
Needless to say, if I judge our church by that model we would be considered a failure. Now it's not that I don't want small groups. It's not that I have not encouraged the church to join them. It's not that I'm not willing to invest in them. It just seems that most of the people that we have are not interested in them. They come to church, they do their thing and an additional night is a hassle. What's a pastor to do. I've read the books, I've taken the classes, I've listened to the tapes and yet we only have three small groups. It can get really depressing. That is until I came to this conclusion: this is a great model, assuming that you have people who want to be plugged in and that you have a Sunday service that regularly generates new people who are hungry for relationships and discipleship. Unfortunately, that is not us.
So Pete and I started talking about the small groups and about how we should take the three that we have now and make them more missional. Remember, missional community...that was the thing that I wanted to be a part of when I came here four years ago...that is the thing that we have not done. So if we could only get our small groups to think missionally, all of our problems would be solved, right?
Well, not really. The model that we are so used to doing is not a missional model. It is a Sunday School model. It's just an over glorified bible study. No, what we need to do is not just get our small group leaders to think misionally, we need to make our small groups missional. So, here's the thought...
What if we planted small groups the way we planted churches. So we look at our community - Northern DeKalb County - and we mapped it out. We asked the question, where would a good place to have a small group. Let's say for example, we focus on Genoa. So, we find someone who is willing to lead that group. They do not have to live in the area (although it would help), they would just have to commit to lead the group. The leader could start praying about the area, perhaps going up there and connecting with some people there (you know, got to some restaurants, stores, whatever....talk to people). Then we go up there as a church. Perhaps we do some servant evangelism up there, try to stir something up. Tell the people we are planing on starting a group up there and see what happens. We only need three or four people to be interested to start a group (and if one of them would be willing to host, all the better.) So the group starts first, and then the people start coming to Sunday morning. The group becomes the focus (since that is where they were introduced to the church.) And since a small group can be less intimidating, they invite their friends to the group....and so on , and so on. Kinda far fetched? How do you think we are going to plant the new church in San Juan?
I'm not sure if this will work or not, but I'm going to give it a shot. What's the worse that can happen? No one responds? Oh well, at least we tried to stir something up. Who knows, maybe the small group becomes a church one day. Or is the small group supposed to be the church today?
That's a thought for another day...
In this model small groups have a tremendous importance within the church. It is the place where you take the people who are coming on Sunday morning and plug them in. Getting them in the small group is fruitful in two ways. First, they get discipled better in a small group environment, and second, you see a greater buy in to the church. You move people from just casual attenders to tithe giving, children church volunteering members. That's the theory, and that is just what every pastor in the world wants. People who in love with and are plugged into their church. Most of us have been told over and over again about how important this model is and how we NEED it in our church. All successful churches have strong small group ministries. We must also have a strong small group ministry to be a successful church.
Needless to say, if I judge our church by that model we would be considered a failure. Now it's not that I don't want small groups. It's not that I have not encouraged the church to join them. It's not that I'm not willing to invest in them. It just seems that most of the people that we have are not interested in them. They come to church, they do their thing and an additional night is a hassle. What's a pastor to do. I've read the books, I've taken the classes, I've listened to the tapes and yet we only have three small groups. It can get really depressing. That is until I came to this conclusion: this is a great model, assuming that you have people who want to be plugged in and that you have a Sunday service that regularly generates new people who are hungry for relationships and discipleship. Unfortunately, that is not us.
So Pete and I started talking about the small groups and about how we should take the three that we have now and make them more missional. Remember, missional community...that was the thing that I wanted to be a part of when I came here four years ago...that is the thing that we have not done. So if we could only get our small groups to think missionally, all of our problems would be solved, right?
Well, not really. The model that we are so used to doing is not a missional model. It is a Sunday School model. It's just an over glorified bible study. No, what we need to do is not just get our small group leaders to think misionally, we need to make our small groups missional. So, here's the thought...
What if we planted small groups the way we planted churches. So we look at our community - Northern DeKalb County - and we mapped it out. We asked the question, where would a good place to have a small group. Let's say for example, we focus on Genoa. So, we find someone who is willing to lead that group. They do not have to live in the area (although it would help), they would just have to commit to lead the group. The leader could start praying about the area, perhaps going up there and connecting with some people there (you know, got to some restaurants, stores, whatever....talk to people). Then we go up there as a church. Perhaps we do some servant evangelism up there, try to stir something up. Tell the people we are planing on starting a group up there and see what happens. We only need three or four people to be interested to start a group (and if one of them would be willing to host, all the better.) So the group starts first, and then the people start coming to Sunday morning. The group becomes the focus (since that is where they were introduced to the church.) And since a small group can be less intimidating, they invite their friends to the group....and so on , and so on. Kinda far fetched? How do you think we are going to plant the new church in San Juan?
I'm not sure if this will work or not, but I'm going to give it a shot. What's the worse that can happen? No one responds? Oh well, at least we tried to stir something up. Who knows, maybe the small group becomes a church one day. Or is the small group supposed to be the church today?
That's a thought for another day...
