Jan

20

More on Adding Members

January 20, 2008 |

Well, the topic has come up in our group again. There has been a push for at least the last year to add members to our nine-person group. I’ve been odd-woman-out, insisting that we’re just the right size. We just got word that one of the couples has moved on to another church, creating yet another opportunity to add members. Most of the remaining members aren’t content to just replace. They want add more members. And they began the discussion with who to add rather than who we are or why we’re adding.

I’ve written in previous posts that group size can impact the effectiveness of a group and the desire of people to be involved. I’ve also posted a couple of articles on adding new members.  For the type of group and the type of relationships I prefer, 8 to 10 members is max. I guess this is a pet issue with me. But I gained a bit of new insight in this week’s discussion.

All of our members are relatively new to the church—within the past five years. Most of them don’t have family nearby, and most don’t have close relationships with many other people. All of us have faced the death of a family member in the past two years. All of us are new empty nesters and hating it. There’s a great deal of need for relationship in the group, and most believe that more is better.

So why are we different? Bob and I have a lot of friends from several “past lives.” Friends from when we were single 30 years ago. Friends from our previous church. Friends from work. Friends from other ministries. Friends from previous small groups. Friends all over the country and the world. Frankly, we have so many friends that we don’t do a good job being friends with most of them. With all else we do, we can’t keep up with the people we already love and that causes a great deal of guilt. The thought of adding more people to care about, pray for, and meet with is overwhelming. It’s almost terrifying! Especially the way we like to do small groups, developing intimate and accountable relationships.

I don’t know what we’ll do. I hope it doesn’t become a point of irreconcilable differences. We’re willing to replace the members who are moving, but can’t imagine adding more. Any thoughts?


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