Shopping For A Small Group

A friend of mine from high school saw that I was listed as a small group leader at our church and decided to contact me about possibly joining our group. I shared the details of my group with her and advised her to check out all of the different groups available to see if there maybe one that will be best for her.

I think it is important to shop for your small group and find one that you really like. Note to small group leaders. You should not be offended if someone visits your group and never returns. Small groups are key at many churches to becoming a part of the church community, so picking a group that you don't have much in common with may not be the best idea no matter how cool you think that they are.

I would encourage someone who is looking for a small group to find a group that fits you, instead of looking for a group that you can conform to. I know people that have visited multiple small groups before deciding to stick with one for a while. I know people who have changed groups every year or two. Sometimes groups grow and change over time, but you have to think about what is going to work best for you, your schedule, and your family.

On a side note, although I encourage you to shop for a small group, at some point you have to make a commitment to the group for an extended period of time. I don't condone group hopping every time you get uncomfortable. You are going to encounter real people with real problems in all small groups. Not everyone is going to be nice all of the time. So stick it out for a while and try to work through and resolve conflicts within the community.

Have You Communicated With Your Small Group This Week?

My small group had a week off because we were out of town and the thought crossed my mind that I had not communicated to anyone about small group this week. It is easy to get caught up in the business of life and we can sometimes forget to make regular communications to our small group members to remind them about what is going on. They have crazy lives too and need to be reminded about meetings especially when we have had an off week. Are you making efforts to communicate regularly with your small group?

Does Your Small Group Do Outreach?

I was just wondering how many small groups out there get together for outreach.  My church has hundreds of small groups and some of them are dedicated specifically to outreach.  I want to do outreach with my small group as well as Bible study, but adding other events to the schedule can sometimes be difficult.  It is easier to jump on board with big church outreaches, but I think that we should also be doing things on our own.

Is your small group doing outreach, or is it strictly a Bible Study?

Small Group Leadership

[Photo Credit - mikebaird]

Small group leadership can vary depending on the purpose of the group. The most common small group has one leader who handles all of the organization, communication, ang group preparations for everyone else. This can work very well as long as the individual leader is able to stay focused and committed to leading the group. Often small groups are made up of regular people who have families and go to their job everyday. This can make for distractions to the responsibilities of leading a small group. This can be easily managed if balance can be found with the other responsibilities of your daily life.

Sometimes when these responsibilities cause a small group leader to become overwhelmed, leadership can be shared or handed off for a time to allow a break for the regular small group leader. Sometimes a small group will use a shared leadership model. If you group meets at the home of a different family each week, maybe the host family will be leading group. I have also seen where a small group will hand off the study preparation to different people in the group each week or each time they change books or series that they are studying. This spreads the work load around and gives others a chance to learn leadership responsibilities.

A third type of small group leadership uses delegation to share the responsibilies of the group. When the work load becomes too much for one person to handle and other members are uncomfortable with taking on the full workload for a time, the responsibilities can be delegated. This works very well for small groups that are attempting to go beyond the typical simple Bible study. I have seen small groups that have the study leader, a secretary, outreach director, and social director. The study leader can focus their energy on preparing the Bible study for each week. The Secretary handles all group communication and logistics. Outreach focuses on organizing outreach activities for the group, and the Social director plans and organizes social events for the group. You may not need that many delegations, or your group may need more. You can break it up however you want. This model will allow the group to use the gifts of the group members to help the group grow in community. This is my personal favorite small group model as it divides the work load so that each person who is responsible for some aspect of the group is not overwhelmed and allows the group to become more effective.

Small groups can be led in many different ways. Pay attention to the needs of your group to determine what type of leadership is needed. Also you should not be afraid to change or adjust the leadership model if something is not working.

Small Groups Need a Purpose

Every small group needs to have a specific purpose.  That purpose can be as simple as gathering to study the Bible or it can be more complex with a detailed vision and direction.  Whatever that purpose is, I believe that it needs to be communicated to the small group on a regular basis to remind everyone what that purpose is.  If the purpose changes over time, that also needs to be communicated.  Have you ever joined a small group with the intention of getting to know more about the Bible and then suddenly the group changes directions and begins to read books outside of the Bible?  If the group agrees to change things up a little bit, that is fine, there aren't any rules.  But the purpose and direction of the group needs to be discussed, communicated, and agreed upon.

A small group can be like a miniature version of the church.  A church without a purpose and direction really is nothing more than a holy huddle.  It makes me want to ask what the heck are you doing?  Jesus commanded us to go, not to sit around and compliment each other about how holy we are.  I don't know about you, but I don't want to be that.  I want my small group to do the work of God.  I want my small group to listen to God and respond.  I want my small group to be there to encourage me when times are tough.  I want to help my small group when they are in need.  I want to come together with my small group and do things that have kingdom sized impact.

As I mentioned before, it could be as simple as studying together, serving together, or helping each other.  It doesn't matter how simple or how complex your purpose is, but there must be a purpose.

4 Keys To Starting A New Small Group

Here are 4 important steps to starting a small group from scratch. 

1. Find a core group of committed People.
A small group community needs members who are committed to showing up, participating, and meeting consistently  If you have different people every week, you have a different group every week.  If you do not meet often enough, you spend too much time catching up and your group will never gain any traction.

 

2. Establish an effective method for group communication.
Communication is key for any type of organization large or small.  Find out the best method to communicate with your small group members and utilize available technologies to communicate consistently.  No one gets left out of the loop.  People feel disconnected if their is no communication to them.  Don't under communicate, but don't spam your group either.  Joining a small group should not automatically put you on the "If you love Jesus..." FWD mailing list.

3.  Layout the vision/mission/purpose for the small group.
Find out what your small group members are really about.  Find out who is gifted and passionate about what and try to utilize the gifts of the group.  Once you figure that out, you should be able to come up with a good idea of your vision/purpose/mission.  It should answer the question, "Why does this small group exist?"  People who are new to your small group should be able to get a quick idea of what you are about.  You should be able to share your mission/purpose/vision in a few sentences.

4. Meet consistently.
A small group needs to meet consistently.  How often can be determined by the purpose of the group.  If a small group meets sporadically on different nights, times, places, it makes it hard for members to consistently make time for it.  Keep it simple.  Plan for your meeting agenda to fit within the agreed upon time frame.  Break it up or postpone until next time if more time is needed.  Respect other people's schedules.

Why Small Groups?

I decided to dedicate this blog to small groups because I am a big fan of small groups and what I believe they can accomplish. I found that I spend an abnormal amount of time thinking about small groups, what they can be, how they can be better, and what I can do to help.

Over the past decade I have led many small groups of different ages and participated in several others. I have encountered successes and failures in my small group leadership. I have worked in small groups with good chemistry and bad chemistry. I have learned that each small group is different and each group will determine its own success or failure. I define small group failure as a small group that fails to establish a community. This community can be working together and growing, or it can be struggling. A struggling community that is fighting adversity internally or externally does not spell failure for a small group community. Often struggle within a community helps it to grow closer and become stronger in the long run. But if a group of people get together and fail to form a community where people feel connected and move in a common direction, then what is the point? When a community is established whether it is growing or struggling, there is potential for great things.

A New Project

Simply Small Groups is a side project that I am starting so that I can document and share my small group experiences with the rest of the world. My initial idea was to have a blog where I would post all of my small group studies that I create and share them with anyone else who would like to use them. My idea then snowballed into other blog posts about how to lead small groups and guide a group of people in a common direction.

This seems to be something that I touch on my personal blog often enough that I can see an entire blog dedicated to it. My passion for small group ministry is very much in need of this outlet, so I hope that this little project of mine is able to help others in some way as well.

Currently, I am just getting the blog started and I do not have a rolled out plan for content yet, but I will be brainstorming on and off of the blog. If you happen to stumble across this site and you have ideas or questions, please leave a comment and I will see what I can do.

I am looking forward to sharing some great stuff here soon.