Learning from Church planting

my first post from my
mobile so this will be short. taking the next 36 hours to learn from some real live church planters in Boston, MA. hardcore area to plant a church and every one of them is trying to incorporate small group life. I do a fair amount of training and consulting with new church plants so I hope to gain some valuable insights during my time here that we can all learn from!

Promo for Small Groups

Ok, thought we could have some fun this week on the blog. Our topic: How to promote “getting in a group” at your church. I think this could be a great “idea share” topic. So, the comment section below will be helpful. What have you seen or done that has been effective in generating “interest” and moving people into group life. What campaign “themes”? what communication channels? what event ideas?  I’m not going so much for your on-going strategy (though that is more vital) as I am short-term “push” ideas.

To kick our idea-share off, here is what we are trying this Januray:

• Theme: short-humorous sayings that communicate group-life values (see graphics below).
• Communication channels: Video-screen slides / announcements from stage / pastor reference in sermon / placement of graphic in worship guide we hand out at service (not just a “slot” but one of our graphics) / t-shirts for small group volunteers at each campus / twitter & facebook / church blogs.
• Event: We actually hold a connection event at each campus where we bring many leaders onto campus and invite those not in a group to come meet these leaders & plug in to a group. Thank you Northpoint for the idea. we call it GroupLink.

Promo-graphics:

Creativity in Group Life

I’m always blown away by the creative ways those in a small group interact with one another outside of their normal meeting. I think it is critical for group health to maintain regular communication outside of the 2 hours or so they meet once a week. This will make it much easier to “get down to business” when you gather once a week. If you don’t have that communication, you will spend that group time catching up with each other on what happened over the week. So, what in your group are you doing to facilitate interaction outside of your normal gathering?

Different groups use different methods like Facebook, Email, google or yahoo groups, etc. One of our Summit Small groups recently launched a website for their small group and I gotta tell you, its pretty impressive and makes me want to be in that group because they look like they have a game plan for group life.

So, get creative and get outside of the box of your normal group gathering.

Discipleship 101: Balance

I’m the small groups pastor here at the Summit. I have the best job at our church. Maybe the best job in the entire world since this is the best church on earth. My day-2-day involves a lot of coaching small group leaders to grow as ones who make disciples of Jesus for the glory of God. In coaching them, I run into a few pretty common situations that can keep a group from growing / moving forward as disciples. The truth is, these are usually not complex situations, but ones that arise because the leader has forgotten or never heard some basic biblical principles on discipleship. I want to tackle those here on the blog and I hope this is a help to our small group leaders at the Summit as well as to other pastors and leaders serving in a direct disciple-making context.

Principle 1: Balance

Just like in a food diet, balance in your spiritual diet is critical to your long-term health as a disciple of Jesus. Probably the most common mistake I see in small groups is imbalance in how the leader plans for his group members to grow as disciples.
I should note that this problem is not isolated to group leaders. Many lead pastors suffer this same dilemma. Rick Warren talks to them in a 2005 article on this topic.

Imbalance: how it happens

Imbalance usually comes about unintentionally and to the ignorance of the group leader and thus why it is such a common, easily treatable problem. But if left untreated an imbalanced spiritual diet will lead to a very unhealthy environment for spiritual growth. What usually happens is that God in his grace gives a person a passion for a certain area of life as a disciple (for our purposes here, a disciple of Jesus is one who loves God, loves other believers, and loves the world.) be it bible study, evangelism, prayer, accountability, ministry to the poor, etc. This person then becomes a small group leader and out of sincere motives tries to get others in their small group as passionate about this area of life as he is. One of two things follows: either, the group slowly dissolves and the leader becomes discouraged or angry, OR the group gets behind the leader and it morphs into a spiritual “cause” group.  Neither lead to healthy environments for disciple-making.

Balancing the diet

At the Summit, we combine the great commandment with the great commission to say a disciple Loves God, loves Each Other, and Loves the World. Out of a response to the gospel, a group engages in deep bible study and meditation, shares the gospel to the world, and shares life together. In contrast, a small group that only studies the bible is in great danger of spiritual obesity. Only caring for those in the group leads to spiritual isolationism. Only caring for the world becomes a spiritual social action group.

So group leader, what does the normal course of group life look like for you? How balanced of a diet are you providing for your group? When is the last time you had a group prayer meeting? When is the last time you just hung out together? When is the last time you served the community?

An Idea

The point is not just to get you doing things, it’s to call you to step back and look at the big picture. So here is an idea for you: Grab a good book on spiritual disciplines (Donald Whitney’s Spiritual Disciplines is my favorite) and grab the 2010 calendar. After working through the disciplines, look at 2010 and start planning opportunities for your group to get some exposure to the balanced life of a disciple of Jesus Christ.

If you are a Summit Small Group leader, we have a calendar already available for you and you can talk with your coach about how to implement the “balance” principle.

Face Time

This coming Saturday is one of my favorite days of the year. For about 3.5 hours, I get to gather with every small group leader here at the Summit Church. We are holding an event we call FRONTLINE where we get all leaders from all campuses together. We worship together, we pray together, and I have the great priviledge to encourage and equip these leaders for the coming semester. If you are a small group leader at the summit, register now! Only those who register will be up for the free stuff and you know we like to give away some good stuff.

It is easy for me to fall into a habit of communicating with leaders through email. Getting ready for Frontline has reminded me how valuable face-to-face time is for me with our group leaders and group coaches. Not that I have a pretty face by any means, but its important for us to remember the church is people. Times like these are often great connection times for me with leaders from various campuses, and a chance to meet the new leaders who have become group leaders since our last Frontline. And our leaders need this as much as I do. They need to see and get familiar with the pastors who are providing vision and direction for the ministry they serve in. They also need to see and interact with others who they are serving alongside of.

See this isnt a “meeting,” cause I really dont like meetings. This is like family re-union meets worship meets small group conference. Its gonna be fun.  If you are in a leadership position in any ministry, I encourage you to think how you can put the face-time principle into action in 2010.

A great blog series for small groups pastors / directors

A guy I am coming to really respect and appreciate is Mark Howell. His insight into small group world is clearly shaped by years in the trenches of small group ministry. Specifically, his blog series called “How to build an effective coaching structure” handles what I believe is the most critical part of small group ministry very well. If you are in any type of leadership in your small group ministry, this blog series will serve you well. Take some time to work through it while you have extra time this holiday season.  you can also follow Mark on Twitter at @markchowell.

Another one of my favorite small group guys is Craig Eggleton. Craig is a member of our small groups staff at the Summit and serves in the role of “coach” for about 25 groups. He shared his insight on the new EQUIP blog recently on “what makes a good small group leader.” be sure to check it out and give him some love. you can follow Craig on Twitter at @craigeggleton.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

What I’ve been doing & where the small groups guy is going

This fall I’ve had a few things taking my attention away from the small groups guy blog. But wow has it been a great fall. So let me show you a little of what has been taking my attention and after that talk about where this site is going:

Stuff that distracted me this fall:

First off, personal life. Here is The new guy (Benjamin Graham Shelton born 10.07.2009) & the bigger family:

On the church front, I’m very excited to announce the launching of a new site from the Summit Church called EQUIP. I’ve poured a significant amount of time into getting it up and running and believe it’s going to be a great resource spot for people here at the Summit and those around the church world.

Also on the church front, I’m pumped to tell you that the Summit will be publishing a small group study through the book of Ephesians which will debut in January 2010. It will remain in-house through the spring while our groups go through it and then should be ready for large-scale publication in mid-spring!

Last, I have had the great privilege of building some relationships with some other small group pastors & ministries across the country. Trevor Joy and the small groups team at The Village Church were awesome to spend time with. God is cultivating a doctrinally sound army of worshipers there that is nothing short of inspiring. Other shout outs of people who are encouraging me across America: Jay Ashlog at Rockbridge Church in GA, Heather Zempel at NCC in D.C., Joe Muller up at FCCF in M.O., Mark Duncan and Matt Hahn both doing small groups here in N.C., the BALLER church planting teams I get the privilege of hanging out with around the country, Scott Mosley and Samantha Krieger over at SmallGroupTrader.com,  Also, The team at leadership network has been a blessing to begin interacting with and I’m stoked about partnering with them in the future.

2010 Small Groups Guy:

1. More network oriented approach. I see a couple of things that need help in the small group world in American church right now and one of those is connecting the people in charge of groups at a church with others who have done it and/or are doing it. I want to help that cause. That’s why I partner with smallgrouptrader.com because I think they are doing that really well online. So, if you are a groups pastor or director or co-ordinator, I’d like to get to know you in 2010. And one way is…SMALL GROUPS CONFERENCE. We are looking at hosting a small groups conference in October of 2010. more details to come. Another way is by having other pastors and leaders around the country do some guest blogging here on the small groups guy.

2. More writing. I believe God has shown us some very awesome things about biblical community here and one of my goals is to communicate those clearly so that he might receive glory for his work here. That may mean fewer but more in depth blog posts. The Small Groups Guy is staying, dont worry. Just not at 3 posts per week like I was able to do most of this year. Then again, you never know.

3. EQUIP. I believe this new site is going to be very helpful both to those who are here at the Summit Church and to those in other ministry settings. be sure to check it out.

Small Group Trader

Alright, I’ve got a truckload of material to send your way, but first I want to inform you about a change in one of the links over on the right side of the blog. For sometime now I have been fortunate to partner with and write for smallgroupexchange.com. Samantha and Scott and the rest of the team there have been very gracious giving me my first opportunity to communicate with the larger small groups audience here across America. Since their partnership I have been fortunate to pick-up opportunities to write for smallgroups.com (Christianity Today’s small group site) and Outreach Magazine. In my first year of “real” writing I have learned much and have Samantha and Scott largely to thank for it. Of course, really the only people I can thank for the writing I am doing are the small group leaders here at the Summit. Your commitment to building a healthy local church has been nothing short of inspiring and because of how God is using you, we are getting the chance to tell others of God’s great work here!

Recently the smallgroupexchange team made a pretty big move and retooled their website to better suite their growing audience. The new name is SmallGroupTrader.com and the new look is awesome. I think you will find it very helpful as a small group leader. Spend some time looking around on it today and if you are a small group leader, it may be one you should set in your favorites.

SENT tomorrow night

Simply put, you should be at the Summit’s SENT conference tomorrow night. There are several reasons why. You probably know them by now. I dont need to rehash them here. ALLLLLL small groups should be there. thats just a no brainer. See you tomorrow night!

The narrow road // SENT

Guest Blogger
Curtis Alan, Pastor of Church Planting at the Summit

I suspect we’ve all had those “ah ha” moments – where confusion and chaos in our lives suddenly becomes clarity…when suddenly the light bulb goes off and it all makes sense. I’m no exception, although up until about a couple of years ago, those moments had been reserved for those infrequent times when Algebra suddenly clicked…or when I finally realized how to use the copier at work.

About 4 years ago, I was on a late-night flight back from the West Coast when I had such a moment. My life was in absolute turmoil – God was doing something in my life and I was struggling to sort it all out.

At the time I was literally “living the dream.” I was a director at one of the top companies in America and was compensated handsomely. I lived in a dream home, drove a nice new car, my kids were in the best schools in the state, and we spent our family vacations in Europe. Our lives were in a nice, tidy, and comfortable box.

However, about a month earlier, I had returned from an absolutely unexpected experience. I had spent six incredible weeks volunteering in an area devastated by the 2004 tsunami. There I used my business and management skills to develop projects to re-develop communities there…and plant churches in a vehemently Muslim context. Before leaving, I was asked if I’d return with my family to continue the work. I admit that I had laughed the idea off with an arrogant “you don’t know who I am and what I have”.

But, after returning home, I was a wreck. My heart was burdened by what I had experienced. I couldn’t stop thinking about what I had seen God doing in this place. suddenly all the pieces didn’t fit in my nice tidy box anymore. After much prayer with my wife, we had concluded that God was leading us to go…to sell what we had, leave the “box,” and move our family to the Third World to help plant churches. It made no sense, in many ways it was terrifying, but I couldn’t shake the call.

So there I was on the red-eye back from the West Coast. I had flown out for a series of meetings that were intended to merge the division I led with another business unit. I had wanted this change for years, lobbied my vice president for it countless times. It would mean more money, more responsibility, more prestige…and more things in the box.
As I sat in the seat headed home on the darkened plane, I read Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship. I came upon some comments that he wrote on Matthew 7: 13-14  (“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”). His insight caught me right between the eyes.
But if we behold going on before step by step, we shall not go astray. But if we worry about the dangers that beset us, if we gaze at the road instead of at Jesus Christ who goes before, we are already straying from the path. For He is himself the way,the narrow way and the straight gate. He, and He alone, is our journey’s end. When we know that, we are able to proceed along the narrow way through the straight gate of the cross, and on to eternal life, and the very narrowness of the road will increase our certainty. The way which the Son of God trod on earth, and the way which we too must tread as citizens of two worlds on the razor edge between this world and the kingdom of heaven, could hardly be a broad way. The narrow way is bound to be right.
He’s right, of course, absolutely right. I had a choice – walk down the broad road that the world understood and rewarded or follow the narrow road towards Him, in His presence.

The Gospel  demands a response. It starts with a decision whether or not to accept and follow and it continues with a submission to go. Not all of us are called to the other side of the world. However, the  road to the lost co-worker in the next office or the broken neighborhood downtown is just as narrow. Whether to another zip code or to another time zone, we’ve all been sent.
At the Summit, this compels us to plant gospel-centered churches and we believe that everyone plays a part. Whether it’s joining a church plant, being part of a small group that plants new groups in new communities, or supporting through prayer and short-term trips, we can all love our world by  churches. That’s why we want everyone to be a part of our annual missions celebration called SENT. If you call the Summit home, this is a night you won’t want to miss. So mark your calendars for Friday, Oct 23rd – you can find out more at www.summitrdu.com/sent <http://www.summitwestclub.com/www.summitrdu.com/sent> .