Media Outreach

Thinking small is definitely the way to go in today’s church.  The question is how do we, in the process of thinking small, not think small and have our small group ministry have large participation.  That was a mouth full … whew.  One of the last assignments in the church plant internship I am completing is helping the leadership to research and revamp the whole small group approach that the church has taken.  It has been a very interesting assignment in a lot of ways.  I have had the opportunity to interview some of the most successful small group ministries in the country.  The churches that I interviewed range in size from 1,500 to 12,000 in weekend attendance, so they also happened to be larger and more influential churches.  The ‘small church’ of the group is in essence a church plant and running 1500 people  They are a little more than 2 years old at this point and are doing incredible things.  Out of the churches interviewed, they range from 30% to 75% participation which is also incredible.

Being in Media consulting and personally talking with over 1000 churches about their ministries, I found that finding a church with a small group ministry is extremely common.  Finding a church with a successful small group ministry is however extremely uncommon.  Why is this?  I really am not sure, but here is a first of many thoughts.  There is no book or article or plan or flowchart or plug-n-play method that works for every church.  Every one of the churches that I talked to said,

“Hey, this is working for us now, but we are re-evaluating how to improve what we do to make it better … We definitely don’t have it figured out yet.”

Even one of the churches, that have 825 groups and 75% participation, was trying to figure out how to make it work better because they “still have problems.”

The thing that I kept getting was that this is one big organic monster that has to have complete buy-in from the pastor on the direction that it is going.  It has to be the senior guy’s heart and not some other thing you do that has no connection to him.  There was one church that boldly stated that they are not a “Small Group Church” but a “Church that has Small Groups.”  This is opposite of what most people will tell you to say or do, but it was done exactly in the way that the pastor had vision for it, and because of the way the rest of their ministry operated, it worked for them.  They still had over 30% participation.  The point is, first make sure it is your heart to have this ministry and not just a good idea that you “should be doing.”  If small groups are a part of your vision, then you, as the pastor, will know how they fit into the grand scheme of your church’s calling.  If it isn’t your heart, then don’t do this … there is nothing worse than an “after-thought ministry.”

I found many other commonalities of successful small group ministries that I am going to spend some more time with over the next couple of posts that I think prove interesting and yet allow for a tremendous amount of flexibility within those confines.

pic by (nutmeg)