What if we stopped growing?

Im working on a seminar for our Small Group Leaders that we are calling “How to plant a small group.”

Details: This Thursday Night, 7-8:30pm , Brier Creek Campus, The Bay.

In preparation for this night God has really been challenging me on some of the presuppositions our small group growth has been based on for some time. Right now God is blessing our church with a consistent Sunday morning growth rate that is pushing 30% this year. Its crazy. For some time now our church has seen an increase in Sunday morning attendance that has had us scrambling to connect these new faces to our church community…which exists as about 100+ small groups around Raleigh-Durham. And so I have challenged our group leaders to “make room” in their small groups just like we often have to “make room” on Sunday morning. It means being more uncomfortable than we’d like but its for the advancement of God’s kingdom so we live with discomfort. I’ve asked group leaders to plant new groups because we need the room for the 16oo people at the Summit not yet in a group. It makes sense. almost. The problem with that growth strategy is that it only serves to facilitate church-wide growth, not encourage it.

Last week I began asking myself…what if the Summit stopped growing on Sunday morning? What if we caught up in our small group ministry and everybody at the Summit was in a small group. 100% participation! Goal Acheived! No more need to plant groups because there are no more people we need to worry about putting in those groups. That right there is the first step towards a church’s demise. Seeing Sunday morning as the missional arm / front door of the church and your small group as the church holy huddle will kill a church. Why? Because the church is to be an ever-growing community of people reaching out to those who dont know Jesus with the love and truth of the gospel.  We fight hard here at the Summit to encourage our small groups to be missional and this just amplifies that.

In speaking with our church planting center (SendRDU) director Mike McDaniel, he mentioned one character trait of churches he is observing  that are making an influence in their area (called a movement church) is that they see their small groups as side doors into the church. And hundreds of side doors are more valuable than 4 (4 campuses) front doors if they just realize their potential. Let me give you an example:

If 80% of the people in SummitLIFE groups (roughly 1000 people) invited ONE, JUST ONE (often families invite families) person to be a part of their SummitLIFE group this August, we would grow our overall church population by 25% in a month. In this context evangelism and discipleship happen first in the group and second in the Sunday morning worship service. And if we recognize that our Small Group is the way that person is going to STICK and not just visit, we would sustain that growth and probably need about 100 new groups by the end of the year. We would not have a 25% bigger crowd, but instead an increase in disciples.

So this thursday, and throughout the summer, we are going to challenge group leaders to re-think the purpose of their summitlife group. Is it to facilitate growth, or to be a catalyst of growth? Is it to be a reactional group or a missional group?

As we move towards our Week of Hope this summer, consider how your group can begin to think missionaly. See you Thursday!

Planting new small groups isnt fun…growing them is

This past Sunday Ed Stetzer preached to us here at the Summit. It was awesome. Dr. Stetzer is a statistician who loves Jesus and is a gifted teacher. Most statisticians just have the gift of, well, crunching numbers. His sermon sunday hit home with me as he talked about the great role the church has in advancing the kingdom of God. One thing that stuck out in particular was an analogy he used for church-planting. he called it “birthing” new churches. The analogy goes like this…planting new churches is like having a baby. It requires a lot of preperation, and the event itself is messy & painful. But then 2 years later you find yourself wanting to do it again.

Planting a church is not a formulaic process and when it means people leaving the church to plant new churches, many might resist because they dont want to leave their friends or their comfort zone. But when a new church plant starts seeing people come to know & love Jesus, they tend to forget about the messiness and pain because the reward is so much greater than that sacrifice.

At the Summit, we use the same philosophy and even same language as our church planting center. That is, we want healthy small groups regularly planting new small groups. We dont want them “multiplying” or “splitting.” We want them raising up a core team who could be sent out from the group to begin a new small group experience with those who have not yet found a community of believers here at the Summit.

Is it messy planting new small groups? YEP! painful too. Ive personally done it 5 times in the last 3 years! But nothing is better than seeing new small groups take on their own lives and really begin to grow. Im telling you, its awesome. So if you are in a SummitLIFE group or if you lead one, you need to be thinking & praying: “When is our group going to plant a new group?” Talk to your group, we’ve got a lofty goal of planting around 45-50 new small groups in RDU in 2009. We better get rolling.

Awesome small groups video

The guys at serendipity house found this video on the importance of small groups. They actually featured the small groups guy in a list of small groups blogs out there right now. you can see that list on their blog here.

Biggest objection to small groups and a solution in BETA.

It is necessary that this post is longer than normal. Don’t be a pansy; read it.

This post is for 3 groups: small group leaders at the Summit, people in other churches who have small groups & people who object to small groups. For the group that doesn’t object but just doesn’t have them b/c they don’t fit their model of church, I guess this is just informative. Consider yourself the Canadian citizen living in America right now. You cant vote, but all you hear is talk about who you should vote for.

The Objection – no accountability
Anyways, back to the debate. Seriously the objection to the small group model of discipleship I hear often and the one that carries the most weight is the accountability objection. It goes something like this: “how do you know what your groups are doing? Are they meeting regularly? Are they teaching heresy? Are they really doing life together or is that just what you say they are doing? Are your leaders feeling detached from the church? THERE ARE TOO MANY UNKNOWNS! SMALL GROUPS ARE DANGEROUS FOR A CHURCH!”

The reason this objection (which we will sum up and name as the “accountability” objection) is a good one is because it strikes at the core of both what the local church, and the pastor, is supposed to be. The local church was commissioned to cultivate unity around their identity in Christ (Acts 2:42-47) and the pastor was to “guard the deposit (gospel) entrusted to him” (1 Tim 6:20-21) and to teach the gospel , “keeping a close watch on yourself and the teaching” (1 Tim 4:16). So, some will say, how could you possibly build unity and preserve the correct teaching of scripture when your people are broken up into small groups meeting at various times and in places that span 4 counties?

A Response – Small Groups aren’t alone
Before providing a solution to the accountability question I briefly want to point out something about the objection. It assumes that false teaching and disunity do not occur in other models. I think we can all safely say this is a bad assumption. A friend of mine who is a Sunday School pastor (yes we are still friends) told me just the other day about how he discovered, through YOU TUBE, that one of his SS teachers was teaching, basically preaching, pretty blatant heresy on Sunday mornings, just across the hall from this pastor, during the “SS hour.” This is an example, not a proof, of a simple truth & warning from scripture: “False prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them…” (2 Peter 2:1). Basically, this warning is that your discipleship model is not immune to Satan’s attack whether you do it all in one building or all online or in living rooms around town. Do not be too proud to acknowledge that, the spiritual safety of the people in your church depend on you acknowledging that.

A Solution – coaching
The Summit Church is a small groups church. We believe whole-heartedly discipleship happens best in relationships and those relationships are formed best in small groups. We have tried several models and methods to institute accountability among our small group leaders. The one I am telling you about is the latest. (Caveat: I don’t mind telling you about it because we are confident it is fully in accord with biblical teaching, but when we identify a better, biblically sound, method we are not going to be too proud to jump on it.) After observing several small group-based churches in the United States we decided to follow the lead of Willow Creek & Redeemer Pres who have successfully instituted a model we are calling the coaching model.

It’s pretty simple. Every small group leader has a coach. A coach has 2 qualifications:

1. experience as a small group leader
2. identified by the pastoral staff as a spiritually maturing Christian of good character (We believe our next crop of elders will come from our coaches).

A coach has 2 responsibilities:

1. support the 2 to 3 group leaders (no more except in rare circumstances) they have been entrusted with by the small groups pastor
2. Meet monthly with other coaches & the small groups pastor. At the monthly meeting we pray for our leaders, diagnose and problem solve small group problems, and encourage one another with what God is doing in these groups

Is this model Satan-proof? Of course not. But Jesus is. So we will continue to bathe our small groups in prayer as we institute this model. I would love your feedback on this concept. For you SummitLIFE leaders, I know this is new so like the title of this post says, its still in BETA mode. Pray with us that God blesses this effort and moves our church towards spiritual maturity.

For a more in-depth look at this model, 2 good resources are Coaching Life Changing Small Groups by the guys at Willow Creek, and the Redeemer Presbyterian Church Planting Manual by of course the staff at Redeemer.

The First Meeting

My wife and I are planting a new small group and after all of the invitations, scheduling, praying and planning, last night we had our first gathering as a new SummitLIFE group. Now, I would launch into a post about how excited I am about this group, and I could take up 6 mouse scroll downs doing it. But instead I think there is merit to reflecting on everything that is happening, seen and unseen, in your first small group meeting. Maybe you have never led a group before, and now it is 5:45pm and people you have only met through email and MAYBE talked to on the phone are about to show up in your home? WHOA! The nerves, I dont care how old you are, are definitely there in some fashion. Here is why: You want this to be awesome. You want to experience the “biblical community” that you hear about in church and read about in the scriptures. Yet you are nervous because between nothing and biblical community sits your first small group meeting. In some ways I think it even feels a little like a first date. My last first date was when I was 15, but still, last night I felt a little bit of that “I hope they like me” feeling in my gut. Here are some principles that guided how I planned my first small group meeting.

• Connect before you meet. This is not possible in all situations, but where possible make a point to connect to each person you have invited before your actual first meeting. This way no one comes to your group meeting without knowing at least one face. Just like at a party you were invited to by a friend, it helps to know someone coming into it. Be that person where possible. This isn’t hard, just set up a time to meet after a sunday service for a couple of minutes.
• PRAY!! this one should be first. Be encouraged, there is nothing you can do to make these people become a group “knit together” as the scriptures say. God has to do that. So before you list out the 1000 tricks to try to make a group trust, love, encourage, and challenge one another, ask God that He would infuse your group with the unity that characterized the early church.
• LESS IS MORE. The actual “discussion” time I planned for our group last night was about 5 to 10 minutes long. And my part was only 5 of that. The evening was spent hanging out and just getting to know one another. All I did was read Acts 2:42 and shared briefly my desire to see this group, in time, become the church described in that verse. Then I asked each person to share a little of what they were hoping to get out of the group. And that was really it for the programmed part.
• FOOD! This one is easy. Have food. it breaks silence and gives people something to do. Plus, people are just more likely to talk over food. I dont know what it is, but its true.

Last night was a success. Was there awkward silence? SURE! Am I panicking? not so much. every group of people who are together for more than 7 minutes experiences awkward silence in conversation. So hey, good luck in your first meeting! Go get em!!

Small Group Dilemma…Childcare

A caveat: This is not a “dilemma” but a reality. My son (DUE ANY DAY!) is not a problem, he is just a part of the Shelton package. So if we want to participate in a small group, we gotta consider him just as much as we are considering ourselves. That said, childcare is often seen as a barrier to entry for many people to get into a small group. So leader, like it or not we have to be thinking about this because those we are wanting to connect to our small groups certainly are. There are 2 things we need to consider when approaching the childcare question: 1) The value of children in the small group community and 2) communicating that value through how we approach the childcare question.

1. Children ADD value to the small group experience
Too often children are viewed as a burden on the group. I have heard many stories where someone either left a small group or only went once because they felt their children were perceived to be a “difficulty” for the group (note the words felt and perceived, they imply that such may not have been the group’s intentions, but it was nonetheless what was communicated). The church has a unique opportunity that the culture we live in often tries to rob us of. We have the chance to build very authentic friendships with people in all stages of life. That means you, college student, could become close to a family of 5. That means you retired couple could become close to a group of young professionals. Our church gets to be multi-generational and with that opportunity comes God’s gift of children. Now, how do these children ADD to the small group experience? First remember the small group experience involves so much more than the 40 minute bible study you do once a week. It involves getting into people’s lives. And if the people in your group have children, I promise you will not get into their lives unless you get to know their kids as well as them. And guess what, PARENTING IS HARD! And the parents in your group are feeling that. You want your group to open up? To get more real with each other? Ask the parents in your group how you can pray for their children during your meeting time. They may not have done the assigned reading for that week, but they have plenty to talk about when it comes to their kids. Also, parenting viewed correctly is life-on-life discipleship. Parents are learning soooo much about spiritual growth as they watch their children grow physically. Non-parents in your group will benefit greatly from the life experience parents bring to the group. And, kids have a quirky way of bringing out character in people that otherwise would not show up in the group setting. Now, for the parents in the group, the small group experience is very valuable for their kids. Their kids get to observe their parents living out biblical community, and any parent will tell you their kids are certainly watching.

2. So what do you do about the kids?

The following are some ideas we have seen work here at the Summit. If you have other ideas you have had success with, post them in the comment section below.

· The rotation: I’ve done this one often. In the “rotation” members in the group take turns watching the children during the discussion and prayer portions of the meeting. At least 2 people should be with the kids for just plain smart reasons. If you have a lot of couples in the group, couples could rotate or you could rotate 2 guys and then 2 girls (this way the ½ of the couple who was in the discussion can fill in the ½ who was with the kids). The benefits of the rotation are that its free, and it gives your group members a chance to get to know everyone a little better. The drawback to this is that once you get over about 6 children, you should probably add a 3^rd person for small kids. So, groups with multiple families will have a tough time using this option.

· Group Babysitter: For groups with several kids this may be a good option. In this model you still keep all of the kids together (so they get to know one another). Instead of rotating through group members though, the group collectively hires babysitter(s) to watch the kids. This one is good because the kids are still together and you keep people from using the excuse “we couldn’t find anyone to watch the kids.”

· Church reimbursement: This is a strategy we’ve recently tried implementing. For details click here. In this model the church puts a significant part of its budget towards providing childcare for small group members. While there is no way the church can cover all of everyone’s childcare expenses, hopefully it can help make hiring a babysitter a viable option for those that need it. This system works well for churches who have small groups spanning a large geographical area and could not possibly have a central hub for small group childcare. Because of this system we are excited to say that EVERY SummitLIFE group has childcare provided in some fashion. Pretty cool.

Ok, so you have to decide how to tackle the childcare question because it very well could come up. The above are just 3 ideas, but each is a solution that communicates a level of awareness and care for those who are bringing children into your small group community. Hey, do it for the children.

Small Group Dilemma…The Dead Silence

Group Leader: “So…what did Paul mean by ‘creation groans until now’”?

Group Members: (crickets)

Group funny guy: (who hates the silence more than anyone) “Probably talkin about life before Starbucks. Id be groanin too. Hahahaha”

Group Members: (it wasn’t funny but thank GOD somebody said something) hahahahaha.

I cant tell you how many times I have been group leader in that scene. I have also been a part of the group members character, and because I really hate silence & really love sarcasm, ive been the funny guy as well. It preys on every good small group, the dead silence. It’s lurking around the corner of every question you ask. Or at least, that is the perception. The truth is, silence is simply an indicator that is pointing you towards other things that are going on in your group. Instead of fearing it, we listen to it, observe it, and plan against it for our next meeting. (Bill Donahue has some excellent material on this in his book Leading Life Changing Small Groups. He and his team at Willow Creek are some of the studs in the small group fiefdom. If you lead a small group, I recommend going through that book. ) Anyways, here are some things to consider as you deal with the dead silence dilemma:

• SOME silence is healthy: Ive been in many groups where the group leader will ask a great question that gets me thinking, and before he even gets the question out he is rephrasing and re-asking or just bailing on it all together. To make sure I don’t give up on a good question, ive instituted a shot-clock rule (college bball is king in the Triangle) where as soon as I ask a question I mentally start a 12 second shot clock. It started at only 4 seconds and has grown over time. Your question may be terrible, but it could also be the one that leads to some discussion barriers breaking down in your group. Give it enough time to see. Don’t worry, funny guy will bail you out eventually!

• Run your questions by somebody beforehand: This assumes that you actually plan ahead! At the Summit we try and give our leaders a head start by providing discussion guides each week based on the sermon series. Hopefully the questions in there are thought through and will generate some discussion, but even with a pre-packaged piece of material like that you will still want to comb over it with the “how would my group respond to this” lens. Good people to help you out: roommate, spouse, apprentice leader, dog (they are always encouraging).For more on this see last week’s post that linked an article on asking good questions. If your questions dont land one week, those are the ones you should review the next day and think on how you could have asked them better. That is all part of learning to be a better facilitator!
• Tell them where you are going: A good practice to get in is preparing a brief agenda for the discussion ahead of time. It will help you stay organized mentally and when you share it with your group at the start of the discussion, it gets them on your page. And I don’t just mean “we are covering chapter 8 tonight.” I mean “hey guys we are looking at the last supper and one thing I want us to notice is how it parallels the Passover event in Exodus. So we are going to spend some time in both places observing what was going on in an effort to hopefully get a bigger understanding of the meaning behind communion which we participate together in on a regular basis.” Now my group knows WHERE we are going, WHAT we are going to see, and HOW it applies to them.
• ROTATE FACILITATORS: Ok, little secret for you. If you make everyone in the group experience (at some point) what you experience as the regular leader of the group, they are going to “feel you dawg.” That is, they will know what its like in your shoes and will be much more likely to chime in than before they had that experience. This is the beauty of small groups. Anybody in the group can do a little extra homework and come prepared with some questions for the group to dig into. Don’t be alarmed when your best discussions come while others are leading. That’s mainly just because on those nights you have 2 people who you know will contribute!

One more thing, give it time. Groups don’t hit a sweet spot really until about 4 to 6 months in to life together. Until that point, just know awkward silence will be there each week and make a point to pay special attention to your new best friend in the group: funny guy.

post script: If you have questions or scenarios concerning any of the dilemmas in this little mini-blog series on group delimmas which are specific to your situation, feel free to post them in the comment section or email me with them. Anything I can do to help your group get healthy is what I am here for!

Small Group Dilemma…The Prayer Request Time

My favorite time of training new leaders is when we break up into groups and go through various scenarios that they will certainly face in their small groups. If you have ever been in any type of small group setting…say a college dorm room bible study, a Sunday school class, maybe just a really long cup of coffee, you have experienced the dilemma I am about to describe.

The Scenario
It’s the end of your group’s bible study time. Almost with a cringe (because you know whats about to transpire for the next 30 seconds or 30 minutes), you say something like “ok, time to shift into our prayer time, anybody got anything we need to be lifting up this week?” What follows is either

1. 1.a colossally awkward silence (you: really? Nothing? Are you people dead inside? your group: Really? Share serious life stuff with EVERYONE here? Are you stupid inside?)
OR

2 2. A verbal cascade of prayer requests lasting 12 minutes each with tears, laughter, gossip, and maybe a little anger all wound up into such a mess you have NO IDEA what the bombardier who started this raid actually wants you and others to pray for.

Then, finally, after either the silence or the monologues you likely had to cut off, you say something like “ok, who will close us in prayer?” or maybe you go so far to say “lets have a different person pray for each one of those.” The first question leads to a single prayer, probably by the unfortunate soul who made eye contact with you when you asked that question, and it lasts about 30 seconds. “God thanks for letting us meet, be with all the stuff we just talked about for 30 minutes, keep us safe this week, Amen…no wait, in Jesus Name, Amen.” The second question leads to 4 to 8 of the same version that tailor slightly to the assigned request if they possibly remember what it was (20% chance that happens).

Praying as a small group
Ok, the above was hopefully a humorous sarcastic picture of a group that maybe struck a familiar chord or two with you like it does with me. What happened in that situation, and in a lot of small groups, is that prayer REQUESTS took far more time and energy than actual PRAYER. God calls us to be a people of prayer, not prayer requests. Seriously, if you aren’t careful you will prayer request your group into spiritual demise. What you and I should shoot for is reversing the scenario above. Lets spend 30 seconds sharing prayer requests, and 30 Minutes praying in our groups! WHOA! I say that as a goal. Build up to that 30 minute mark. How? Well, here are a couple proven ideas and you may try grouping a couple of them together (Ive used 1 & 2 a lot together):

1. INDEX CARDS – pass out an index card at the start of each meeting. Ask each person to write their prayer requests on the card at some point before prayer time. SECRET: people will write the “need to know” without all of the “side-track” stories they would share if given the chance. Then collect and redistribute the cards for prayer time and have each person in the group pray for the needs on the card. BONUS: take the cards home for the week and your group will be praying for one another all week!
2. SMALLER GROUPS: divide up guys and girls where applicable, then get into groups of 3. Sharing takes way less time here and usually will draw out the prayer needs of someone who wouldn’t share with 10 to 15 people. BONUS: use these same groups each week. Great way to develop accountability relationships. The index card works here.
3. DIRECTED PRAYER TIME: Come to the prayer time with an agenda for what you will be praying for. We offer that to our SummitLIFE group leaders each week. Hand out a prayer guide that walks them through what the group will be praying for that night. This is a great way to keep things fresh in the group. You may even try devoting one entire meeting to prayer. BONUS: still collect individual prayer requests (written or by email) and send them to the group via email so they can pray throughout the week.

These are only three suggestions. What has worked in your experience?

Asking Stimulating Discussion Questions

http://www.christianitytoday.com/smallgroups/articles/howtoaskquestions.html

Ok, since my post tuesday was a little Walden’s Pond ish, the above is a very practical hands on article I read today. The cool thing is, if you lead a group at the Summit, this stuff is gonna sound familiar. So if you didnt believe it when I told you, im sure you will now since its on the internet! Seriously though, its good stuff and well-worded. And please do read the last paragraph.

Small Groups in the Summer

After talking recently with several of our small group leaders a common theme has emerged recently that the rest of us are probably pondering anyways. The thing several of you have communicated to me is that things with your small group are just a little slow during the summer. Your numbers are consistently lower than normal, seems like every week different people are missing so there is a lack of consistency, and you are just in a don’t know what to expect next week kinda pattern. You are trying to plan for the fall and for what God is going to do in your group but honestly you cant see it happening because after all, if people aren’t there or aren’t interested, how is anything going to happen in the fall? Is your group stagnating? Should you start considering some major changes to revitalize the group? Should you scrap the group all together?

Those are the kinds of thoughts that normally infiltrate the mind of a caring group leader during the 2^nd half of summer. You need to know something: YOU ARE NOT ALONE! This is common not only for small group leaders, but for ministry leaders and for lead pastors as well. The longing to see the ministry grow is tempered by the summertime low-involvement. At our church, consistently the summer seems to be the low-attendance time for us. So, let me share some thoughts ive had about taking advantage of the summertime as a small group leader.

For one, I never make big decisions about a small group based on what is happening during the summer. I may make big decisions about the group during summer because I have time to pray and meditate on the group during the summer, but I base those decisions more on the overall group experience during the previous fall and spring than I do on the past 5 weeks of summer. In other words, I try and think bigger picture with questions like: how many committed people/families were a part of the group this past year? If all of those will be there in the fall, how much room does that leave to bring in some new faces?

Also, I like to use the summer to invest in those who ARE committed to the group. Usually there will be one or two other people / families who are your most consistent group members in the summer. This is the perfect time to really build your friendship with them. Whether its having dinner with them, going fishing, going to a baseball game, or playing golf (insert any fun pastime here). I often tend to overlook these people when our group meets in the summer by saying something to them like “man, where is everybody?” The truth is they are likely the most important people to the health of my group and I should see that time as a way to focus my attention on them. That way, when the season comes where the group begins to grow in numbers, they will be ready to start investing into others as I have into them. Not to mention, its just more fun to do the best with what’s in front of you instead of complaining about what isn’t.

One last thing I take the summer to do is to get training on being a better leader. As a small group leader I can always grow and need ongoing training constantly. Since I am the small groups pastor at the Summit, I am constantly on the lookout for articles, books, and seminars I can go through with our leaders to give them as much useful help as possible during the summer when they may have a little extra time to read or listen to stuff.

Ive been teetering around saying this flat out, but I believe it so here it is: There is no better way to serve the local church than by serving as a small group leader. There is also no greater responsibility. The cool thing about the staff team I am on here at the Summit is that each of them will tell you with 100% honesty that serving in their respective ministries is the best way you can serve the church. That’s just the healthy tension that comes with working alongside people so passionate and talented in what God has called them to do.

SMALL GROUP LEADER: HAVE A GREAT SUMMER!!