Archives For Small Groups

The Risk of Small Groups

December 3, 2012 — 2 Comments

Lead Small

I’ve recently been reading through Lead Small, by Reggie Joiner and Tom Shefchunas. Lead Small is unique in that it is written for the small group leader. It walks the reader through 5 big ideas that every small group leader needs to know. I recommend it, and recommend the conversations that come from it with our small group leaders!

I believe that kids and students need relationships to grow spiritually, and I’ve worked hard everywhere I’ve ever served to create a system that breeds leaders leaning into kids through relationships. I could insert story after story after story here of how God has fully changed a students life through a small group leader. I sit in meetings every Monday morning, and listen to stories of small group wins pour in from every family ministry area of our church. I believe it works, and I believe it enough to prioritize it for all 3 of my kids (not to mention my own community group.)

But small groups do present one very big risk. This risk is oftentimes the very reason that churches don’t do small groups. In fact, I’ll be bold enough to say that 99 times out of 100 this is the ONE reason churches don’t do small groups for kids and students.

When it’s bad it’s really bad. When it’s bad it keeps people away, and that’s not the goal! The weirdest part of all is that it can be bad even when there is a fantastic group happening right next door. 

Look at the numbers on this. With no small groups, I have to concentrate in ONE area. I have to make this one 60 or 90 minute event as influential as possible, and many out there do a great job at this. Sure, there are many facets to this one area, but down to it’s core it is ONE event in ONE moment with ONE big impact.

Now there are a million different ways to get kids and students into smaller groups (I’m speaking in very general terms), but when you commit to small groups you are taking that one impact opportunity and you are turning it into 10 or 20 or 30 different areas where things could go right or wrong.

In a way our greatest strength becomes our greatest weakness. Our 3rd grade boys group is totally hitting it out of the park, and the leader is way more than awesome…but our 8th grade girls group is struggling to get any momentum, with spotty attendance and no teenagers willing to invite anyone to this terrible experience. It’s a risk, and I can tell you from experience that the danger is always there. There will always be some frustrations and struggles, but the wins are more than worth it.

What do you think keeps churches and leaders from committing to a true small group experience for their kids and students?

 

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Large Group Ministry Flexibility

June 3, 2010 — Leave a comment

Yesterday I wrote about our experience with kids in a Large Group Ministry Time, and wondered how we could move some of these positive Large Group moments into our Small Group ministry times.  I’ve come up with two ways we can help make this happen.  Go read the first goal HERE.

The second way we can do this is to schedule in time of large group ministry times, that can then transition into small group times. In an effort to create community for kids in a small group level, I often forfeit any chance of large group prayer and ministry time.  Why can’t both exist at the same time?  I’m thinking what if we setup times throughout our calendar year for large group ministry time?  In our church, I believe much of the success we’ve seen in our ministry times is that it’s so new and fresh for the kids.  To keep it fresh we will have to do a few things.

  1. Find the lessons, and biblical lessons that fit a large group ministry time.  Not all lessons are created equal, and it’s worth the time taken to find the lessons that lend themselves to praying together as a group.
  2. Give our Small Group Leaders ample time to prepare for transitioning into Small Group time from a Large Group ministry time.  I foresee a slow, deliberate transition from large group prayer time into small group.  I would want to take the same atmosphere of ministry time into small group, but this will take some training.  There would need to be common things happening in small groups each time there was a ministry time.
  3. Accept the fact that it will take time from Small Groups.  I whole-heartedly believe that life change happens in the environment of community, and I am committed to working to create the small group atmosphere for our children at Trinity Church.  However, I am also committed to large group ministry times, and I want to give kids the opportunities to pray as a group with each other and for each other.  To do this occasionally, we will have to adjust.
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Calling All Children’s Pastors

November 12, 2007 — 1 Comment

Any Children’s Pastors out there? This posting might seem useless to some of my audience, but I’m wondering if there is anyone who uses the Elevate Curriculum from Fellowship Church in Grapevine, TX?

We transitioned to a small group setting in our Elementary areas over 4 months ago, and have made some great strides since. A little history: On average we have 160 kids in our 1st-5th grade areas during our 11:15 am service. We do three services, but the last one is the most populated by far. (But that is slowly changing…) Having this many kids was a big challenge, because you don’t want kids to feel overwhelmed or lost in a church environment; but you also don’t want them to miss out on the excitement of a large group gathering. So in July of this year we started using the first half of our service in large group format(40 minutes), and the last half in a small group format (20 minutes). The small groups follow-up and reinforce what is taught during the large group format. It also allows for more intimate settings between my volunteers and the kids. I’ve discovered that Small Groups are great for relationship building!

After weeks of researching, I settled on the curriculum Elevate. However, if Fellowship Church ever showed up to view what we do they might not recognize it. We’ve worked through the ‘On The Trail‘, and ‘Heroes of Mega City‘ series, and are now working with ‘Winter Extreme‘.

We’ve made many tweaks, but I was wondering if anyone else has ever used Elevate? Ever heard of it? If not, what do you use? If you use it, then what do you do with the Early Childhood kids?

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