Nov

4

Starting a New Small Group

November 4, 2007 |

Nate Conrad at Naperville Presbyterian Church in the Chicago area lists five common misconceptions about leading a small group. These include:

We need to have a really healthy home life before we can welcome anyone into our home. We need to finish the basement, clean up that unruly closet, add some landscaping, get our own devotional patterns in order, etc.

We can’t lead, we are too busy, life is too full, we cannot imagine adding one more thing to our plates.

We are going to be stuck with hosting all the time, and leading all the studies, we are not ready to take on all that extra stuff!

We are not ready spiritually to coordinate a small group, we are such young Christians and are not ready to take on the responsibility for a small group.

We need to be mature Christians who can answer all of the hard questions people might ask about life and the Bible.

He then shoots holes in these beliefs and encourages people in his church to start a new group. Seems they are facing the common problem of too few groups, or open groups, to accommodate the number of new people interested.

I like his approach of encouraging non-leaders to become leaders. All too often we try to meet the need for more small group spaces by simply adding people to existing groups. This can become self-defeating, leading to less group participation and less satisfaction with the group as the size becomes unweildy.

In my book, I talk about the need to keep a small group small—generally eight to ten people. It’s so easy to want to welcome everyone who needs a group. After all, we want to be friendly. But I also talk about the purpose of small groups being to bring people to maturity in Jesus Christ. And that doesn’t happen nearly as well or as easily in open groups where there is no commitment and where you never know who’s going to show up. Maturity is best accomplished in closed groups with defined purposes and strong accountability.

But what that means, then, is that in order to keep the small group ministry growing, in order to accommodate those who want to be in groups, there need to be new groups starting pretty regularly. And that means ongoing leadership training.

What I’ve found works well is to have groups closed for a specified period of time—nine to 26 weeks. Then groups are split, multiplied, and re-formed. The advantage of the fixed time is that you know going in, “I’ll be with this group for x weeks.” Hopefully, you then decide to make the most of the time and grow as much as you can with that group. Then you start over. This is much more effective than allowing people to join a group mid-session when people are in the middle of growth plans.

So what do you do until the next group starts? One idea is to have one or two open groups where people can try out the group concept while wait for a new group to form. You might find your next leaders in this group and spin them off to form a new group. Another idea is to use the Sunday morning ed time as that open group, welcoming new people and feeding them into groups as space is available.

How do you handle this problem? I’d love to hear your thoughts.


Comments

2 Comments so far

  1. Blineluck on November 5, 2007 4:41 pm

    Hi Pat,
    I’m really glad you stopped by my blog. I have your book, however, I have not had a chance to read it yet. I read an excerpt from it on Heather Zempel’s blog (wineskins for discipleship). I’m looking forward to it very much, I just have to get through the end of this semester at seminary before I have time for more new books.
    I hope you will have time to stop by again, I have a few more posts on small groups in the making.
    I really like the emphasis on keeping small groups small. I figure if Jesus had 12 and even He lost one, we should probably stick to 8 or 10.

  2. Pat Sikora on November 5, 2007 4:57 pm

    Thank You for stopping by. I hope to hear from you again when you have had a chance to read the book. I think you’ll like it! I love Heather’s blog.

    On keeping a group small, I teach is that it’s all about TIME. Yes, Jesus had 12, but those guys were together 24/7. They walked with him and talked with him and were involved in every aspect of one another’s lives. We don’t have that luxury. If we’re lucky, we get two hours on Wed. evening. That isn’t enough time to become intimate with more than about 8 people, 10 max. If we get more people in the group, and especially if they are being added here and there, we begin to lose continuity and accountability. It takes a skilled leader with lots of time on his or her hands to manage the discussion and to keep everyone feeling connected during the week. Discussions take longer and even then, people don’t have time to develop their thoughts and integrate the change into their lives. Sharing gets short changed and prayer becomes, “Can someone close in prayer.” You may have superficial fellowship, but deep life impact just can’t happen in a large group. Can you tell I have an opinion on this?

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