5
The Kitchen

CONNECTING PEOPLE THROUGH SMALL GROUPS

Q1	—	How Will You Align Your Ministry with Other Church Leadership and Ministries?
Q1	—	How Will You Communicate the Value of Groups to Your Church?
Q2	—	What Is Your Plan for Connecting People into Groups?
Q3	—	How Will You Measure Your Progress?

People often ask me what is a healthy measure of church attendees connected into groups. That’s tough to answer because it depends partly on where you are and where you want to go. It also depends on how many people from the broader community, outside your church, you want to bring into groups.

If your church uses the model of both temple courts and house to house, both parts should work together to help as many people as possible from your community come to know Jesus. In this case, I advise small group point people to strive for an increase of people in healthy groups each year. Not every year will see a gain, but you should always strive for an annual gain.

When I first started at Saddleback, our long-term dream goal was to have a greater number of people connected in healthy small groups than attending the weekend services (which means bringing into small groups many people who do not attend church yet). At the time we had 30 percent, so we set a short-term goal for that year to reach 40 percent. We finally reached 110 percent in 2004, and now we are aiming toward a bigger goal—ten thousand healthy groups.

If you haven’t recruited a C Team member who will be responsible for overseeing this aspect of your small group ministry, I suggest you do so prayerfully (see chapter 2, “Lead as a Team”). At this moment, your own name may be at the top of your recruitment list, but I encourage you to pray, “Lord, show me who has the gift of connecting people in a way that will glorify you and move this ministry forward with unity.”

Q1

How Will You Align Your Ministry with Other Church Leadership and Ministries?

I encourage you to consider three aspects of alignment in planning your small group ministry. First, you should align your ministry with your church’s senior leadership. Second, your ministry and the various other church ministries need to be aligned and understand each other’s roles in the church. And third, you and your ministry team need to align your plans and activities with your small group vision and mission. This is why chapters 1 and 4 are so important.

Is Your Senior Leadership on Board?

One of the most discussed issues at our Small Group Network conferences is how to set up a small group ministry when the senior pastor or other key leaders are not on board. You need to set up your small groups in a way that aligns 100 percent with the vision of your church, and I want to show you seven tactics you can use to successfully work through any differences in vision that you may encounter. It’s imperative to work as a team with all of your church leadership.

You must build out your small group ministry plan around your senior church leadership. Your senior pastor is most likely the church’s visionary, so your job is to build your ministry plan in a way that implements his or her vision. This ensures action, not just hallucination. Keep focusing on action, because everything eventually distills down to work!

Take a moment and look back at the church leaders you listed near the end of chapter 1—those with whom you are prayerfully seeking unified cooperation. You may think of other names to add—key opinion leaders with whom you wish to build relational equity. The following qualities, attitudes, and practices will guide you in working with these leaders toward the goals of your small group ministry and your church. These must especially characterize you, the small group point person, but also others in your ministry leadership who will serve as your ministry’s “ambassadors” to the rest of the church. Work hard to disseminate these throughout your ministry leadership structure.

Display Humility, Not Entitlement

When I’m training a church staff, I always say, “Seek to let others discover you, not to make yourself discovered.” That means humility. View your service responsibility as an honor. Never assume you are entitled to your position.

You must earn the right to be heard by building relationships on mutual trust, not by insisting on your own way. Show yourself to be a friend, not a divisive competitor, with your fellow leaders. If you serve humbly and wait to be discovered, God will do incredible things.

Appeal to the Interests of Others

Appeal to the goals and interests of your senior leaders. The prophet Daniel encountered some precarious situations, as in Daniel chapter 1, where he was told to compromise his values and his relationship with God. But he appealed to the goals and interests of his leaders without compromising his own value system and objectives. He made a simple request for a ten-day test and left the final decision to the king’s representative. It’s an art to think through ways to present your request in a synergistic way, showing how your goals and interests align with those of others.

Also seek to understand your senior leadership’s love languages, which vary within teams as they do in families. “The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive” (Prov. 16:21 NLT).

Earn a Reputation for Responsibility and Respect

Proverbs 22:1 says, “Choose a good reputation over great riches; being held in high esteem is better than silver or gold” (NLT). You want to be the go-to person who, no matter what, is willing to stand in the gap and make sure things get done. Come prepared with solutions instead of just presenting problems as a complainer.

Prove yourself a team player, respecting and supporting others’ values and goals as well as your own. Discover your senior leadership’s goals, and accomplish those first.

It’s easy to get fired up about a new program, like small groups, and hammer your ideas. But it’s more effective to launch new programs and ideas by shaping your ministry to support the church’s culture. And if the church culture needs to be changed, introduce your suggestions gradually and respectfully. Help win over senior leadership by showing how your ideas work in conjunction with theirs to accomplish everyone’s goals. At Saddleback Church, though I was hired as the Small Group Pastor, I understood the importance of other activities—for example, baptisms and CLASSes—and I even worked to integrate these values into our small group ministry plan.

Be Honest

Leaders are capable of resorting to a dark side, doing anything to accomplish our agenda. But “we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God” (2 Cor. 4:2).

A “white lie” is still a lie. We often “bend the truth,” exaggerate, or make the situation appear more favorable than it really is. If you become known as vulnerably honest about your failures as well as your successes, your frailties as well as your strengths, you’ll maintain secure relationships through good times and tough times.

Consider Your Timing

I can become extremely task-oriented and forget that not everyone is on my accomplishment speedway at that moment. The minute I see Rick, I want to talk with him about my latest thoughts. I’ve learned to gauge where he is mentally before I bombard him with my agenda. For example, trying to talk to him before a service is pointless because, shockingly, he’s focused on the service, not on me.

You’d be surprised how many people choose the workday equivalent to a toddler’s bedtime for deep conversations. We get fired up and rush into lengthy, complicated conversations at the worst times.

Trust God

If your senior leadership rejects your ideas, trust God! Proverbs 3:5–6 says, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” Trust that God has you in the right place and that he always accomplishes his will. If you’re pressing the accelerator and your leaders seem to be stomping on the brake, it’s okay—God has the wheel.

Remember Your True Identity

Your identity must be firmly rooted in Jesus Christ. Regardless of your ministry, you have to know that your identity, your calling, is in Jesus. You never know when ministry breakthrough is going to happen, but your faithfulness under all circumstances is the most important breakthrough, and you can ensure that now. Be patient in your other objectives; they sometimes take time. Don’t give up.1

I hope these points will help you gain trust and alignment within your church. Seek God. Trust God. Obey God. He will move in others’ hearts, and his will will be done!

Instructions for Question Planning Pages

After each of this book’s twenty planning questions, you will find a question planning page to complete as part of your small group ministry plan. (You’ll find the Q1 Planning Page immediately following these instructions.) I recommend completing these pages together with others from your church. We are better together!

Each question planning page offers ideas for three tasks you may do—a “crawl” task, a “walk” task, and a “run” task. These are presented at progressive difficulty levels to help you think developmentally. If the planning question presents a brand-new challenge, you may start with an easy crawl-level task. If your church has already wrestled through the question, consider an aggressive run-level task.

Each question planning page also provides a fillable chart with four planning steps: your dream, obstacles, actions, and timing.

Your Dream

Everything starts with a dream. When you first start, don’t let problem solving creep in. Nothing destroys a dream quicker than limited human thinking. Give God a chance to show what he will do. Let your mind run wild with God-size faith. Word your dream as specifically as possible. For example, “I dream of 50 percent of our average attendance connected into small groups.” If the dream doesn’t scare you, it may not be big enough.

Feel free to dream long-term, beyond your next year, and write that dream under “Long-Term (1–5 years).” But it’s hard to stay on track toward a long-term goal without breaking it down into intermediate steps. Refine your big dream into a series of smaller stages, and write these under “Short-Term (1–12 months).”

Obstacles

What might prevent you from reaching this dream? List anything and everything. For example, “Lack of good data about who is now in small groups.”

Actions

Some of your action goals should be answers to obstacles. But think beyond fixing problems to proactive action goals. Example: “By the end of this month, research software for tracking group membership.” In a moment I will explain the guidelines for effective SMART goals.

Timing

Think through your ideal completion date for each action goal. Will this take a week? A month? A quarter? A year? Make your best estimate and write in a date.

SMART Goals

At Saddleback we use SMART goals. This acronym first appeared in a November 1981 article in Management Review by George Doran, Arthur Miller, and James Cunningham.

S	Is it specific? Does it define who, what, when, why, and how?
M	Is it measurable? Is it quantifiable?
A	Is it action-oriented? Does it describe actions to take?
R	Is it realistic? Can you obtain the resources and cooperation to do it?
T	Is it timely? Does it include a time frame for accomplishment?

Allow me to expand on these.

Specific

Don’t word goals so vaguely that they offer no practical direction. A vague goal: “Grow small groups soon.” A specific goal: “Add ten small groups by end of quarter.”

Measurable

If you can’t measure your progress, you may become discouraged, feeling you’re getting nothing done. “Ten new groups” is measurable. “More groups” is not.

Action-Oriented

Write your goals in terms of actions to do, not just ends to reach. Example: “Implement fall promotion to add ten new groups by end of quarter.”

Realistic

Always dream big! Stretch yourself, but understand the difference between an attainable goal of faith and something beyond all reason.

Timely

Include a time component so you don’t wait indefinitely. This also provides accountability to move forward in a consistent manner.

The number of planning questions and the mountain of work they involve may overwhelm you. Don’t be discouraged. I have guided hundreds of churches through this process. Don’t be too concerned at first with the bigger picture of the whole plan. Work each question, one at a time. In chapter 10 I will guide you in pulling everything together into a doable twelve- to eighteen-month strategic plan. I promise!

After you’ve completed this page, mark the highest-priority action for this planning question.

Please see pages 86–89, “Instructions for Question Planning Pages,” for how to fill this out.

Copy that action onto the prioritizing list, pages 221–23 in chapter 10.

Q2

How Will You Communicate the Value of Groups to Your Church?

We are blessed at Saddleback Church because our senior leaders, especially Rick Warren, see the intrinsic value of our small group ministry. So although it isn’t necessary to communicate the value of small groups to our leaders, it is still important to stress this to our church members. Rick frequently says, “If you want to be healthy and balanced, you need large group worship in the temple courts and small group fellowship in the home.”

A recent article by Cade Metz related the pros and cons that Mark Zuckerberg sees in the Facebook community. According to Metz, Zuckerberg “says his model for an online community might look something like Saddleback. . . . The key for Zuckerberg is that Warren built a community in which tens of thousands of people gather under a capable leader’s guidance, but also divide themselves into smaller groups by interest, affinity, and aspirations.”2 Facebook is this generation’s biggest “crowd gather.” But even Zuckerberg knows a crowd isn’t a community, so he is planning the next step of community for Facebook. The church faces the same challenge, and we believe God has wisely addressed it in the house-to-house component of church, not just the temple courts.

Small group life offers many benefits on many levels, and your job is to communicate those benefits. Your small groups can be the heartbeat of your church, a source of your church’s health and growth, a center for discipleship, a launch pad for evangelism, and a setting for worship and relationships.

When people spend time together in groups, they discover things about each other. Even casual conversations build trust and lead to exciting personal discoveries about people’s gifts and other little facts that contribute to depth of relationships. Group members will also make sad or challenging discoveries about each other, but these are opportunities for support, encouragement, and healing. In groups people celebrate victories and carry each other through hard times. These require time together to develop intimacy as a safe environment for vulnerability.

Our fallen nature causes us to gravitate away from God, not toward him. Community is important because we help each other become better, putting what we learn into practice. The devil wants the opposite. Fear and isolation are the devil’s playground. If he can isolate you or keep your relationships at a surface level, he wins. And he uses fear to make spiritual growth even harder than it already is. He keeps playing old tapes in your head: “You can’t do it.” “What will others think?” “You’re a burden to your friends.”

But in a healthy small group, we confront these lies with truth. Some of the ways you can communicate this and other benefits of small groups to your church include touch points, testimonies, timely sermons, and teaching pastors.

Touch Points

These are the places people interface with your church. Use them to help people understand the importance of small groups and relational community. They can include, but are not limited to:

1. Your church or ministry website, apps, and social media
2. Signage
3. Booths, kiosks, or ministry representatives in the church foyer or patio
4. Bulletins or response cards (paper or electronic) offering small group options

These are limited only by your creativity. Brainstorm ideas with your ministry team.

Testimonies

You are going to read over and over in this book the value of testimonies from “satisfied customers”—people who have benefited from small groups. You can put written or video testimonies on your website and use them in weekend services or other events. You can guide people to these by placing QR codes in your lobby and on printed literature.

Here’s a great example from one of our thousands of small groups:

My group of five years began with a core of nine members, and we’ve had some turnover. The fellowship is difficult to experience in any other setting. We are there for each other, we laugh together, and we get through difficult times together. We meet every Saturday for an in-depth study of James with interesting and thought-provoking discussions.

Recently we welcomed a man from Iran. He was baptized several years ago, and when he went back to Iran, he was arrested and served several years in prison because of his faith. He lost his wife, and her parents kept his daughter from him. He felt safe with us when we accepted him unconditionally into our group family, where we maintain everything in confidentiality. We supported one couple during an extremely difficult time in their marriage, and they are now doing well. We’re also supporting another member after her son’s suicide.

We started a closed Facebook page to share with each other any time, day or night. We serve together as often as possible and are praying about our small group family joining the Prison Ministry at Saddleback to reach out to those in dire circumstances and bring Jesus into their lives. As in any family, flexibility and open-mindedness have brought us this far.

Finding the right small group has been a blessing beyond compare, essential to my spiritual growth. God works through us in so many ways, and we are without doubt so much better together.

Find testimonies from group leaders or members who clearly communicate the value of being part of a group that will ultimately become family. These come from your satisfied customers, and you, the salesperson, use them as a “selling tool.” Whose word will best persuade new customers to buy?

Timely Sermons

Timely sermon series are also effective in communicating the value of small groups. Preaching on small groups and related topics is a great way to train your congregation in the value of community. The early chapters of Acts, on the birth of the church with its temple courts and house-to-house environments, can broaden the meaning of the word church. Or sermons on discipleship in our daily lives. Or a series on relational connection or the New Testament’s fifty-eight uses of “one another.” You can offer these in series or one-off sermons, perhaps coordinated with seasonal opportunities: New Year groups in January, Mom or Dad groups at Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, and so on. Think like Hallmark! They come up with all kinds of reasons to send cards.

Teaching Pastors

Utilize your teaching pastors and their personal experience in small groups. Rick often speaks about how his small group, through their “ministry of presence,” held Kay and him together after their son Matthew died. A personal story is much more impactful than a sermon that just teaches ideas.

After you’ve completed this page, mark the highest-priority action for this planning question.

Please see pages 86–89, “Instructions for Question Planning Pages,” for how to fill this out.

Copy that action onto the prioritizing list, pages 221–23 in chapter 10.

Q3

What Is Your Plan for Connecting People into Groups?

You can’t have a small group ministry without taking the initiative to motivate and recruit people to start or join groups. Understand this: You must actively recruit for your small group ministry. In order to motivate people to start or join small groups, you need to appeal to their felt need for relationship—that is, for relational connection, for fellowship, for belonging. The New Testament uses the metaphor of the human body: “Each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function” (Rom. 12:4); and “From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love” (Eph. 4:16).

This story from Al and Bre, small group leaders from Saddleback’s Anaheim campus, shows the value of connecting the right people with the right group:

Bre and I prayed that the Lord would guide us to a small group that had families with young children, as well as people in the same stage of life. We felt God was leading us to start a group. We trusted that God would bring families with similar longings. That following weekend we took a leap of faith and signed up to host our own group. While we were signing up, we were told that two families had recently inquired about a small group specifically for families with small children. In our group we have seven children, ages one to twelve. Sure it’s loud. Sure it’s crazy. And sure the kids make a mess. But that is our group. God not only brought together a small group, he brought together a family!

Customer Service

As you connect people into groups, you will find yourself in the customer service business. You won’t have enough time, staff, or energy to devote deep personal time to each person, but you still need to treat everyone with respect, making sure they know you value them. God is entrusting his children to your care, so care for them well. Steward God’s people as valued individuals. Remember that people are not interruptions, but opportunities to build the oneness and maturity of Christ’s body.

Why Multiplication Is Difficult for Connecting

We live in a fractured society. It is common for families to be scattered across the country due to demands of their jobs. I have four older brothers and an older sister; each one of us lives in a different state. Getting together as a family takes a lot of planning and traveling for everyone. As a result, it doesn’t happen as frequently as we would like. If you have three children and send them off to college, the chances are very slim that all three will be able to come back to their hometown and find employment. Even if you live in a major city, the competition in the job market often forces people to move several states away for their career. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that the average American moves 11.7 times in his or her lifetime.3

In addition, divorce has become commonplace. The most frequently cited statistics state that somewhere between 40 and 50 percent of all marriages will end in divorce. Children are often forced to split their time between two households, sometimes traveling to different cities or even different states for visitation. Added to that, “fewer than half (46%) of U.S. kids younger than 18 years of age are living in a home with two married heterosexual parents in their first marriage.”4 As a result, many of us are growing up without a strong, positive role model of family or true community.

When you gather a group of Christians together and encourage them to meet weekly for a year and form strong bonds, it should be no surprise to learn that once they find community in a small group, they are reluctant to invite newcomers into the group and risk losing that sense of community. The small group has become the family they never had. In addition, birds of a feather flock together. Many Christians will tell you they don’t even know any non-Christians beyond the grocery store clerk or gas station attendant, and it is a bit difficult to strike up a meaningful conversation while buying groceries or paying for gas. While it may be an exaggeration to say that most Christians don’t know any non-Christians, research has found that once a person becomes a Christian, his or her circle of non-Christian friends decreases dramatically.

We are starved for community and seek experiences and situations that make us feel grounded and part of something. It is not too much of a stretch to imagine that a small group can provide this type of community. Fellowship, and the relationships it develops, fills a need. I know many people who say they are closer to their small group members than they are to their blood relatives.

As the small group becomes the modern form of biblical family, this creates the tension to introduce a rigid multiplication system.

When Addition Is Better Than Multiplication

Small group ministries live in constant tension between the safety of familiarity and the need to draw unconnected people into groups. We want small group members to develop deep relationships with each other, but we also need to integrate new people into groups. Many churches handle integration of new people by adding new members to an existing group until it reaches a certain size, then “multiplying” (splitting) it into two small groups, which can then grow and split again. But the unfortunate result is often members’ resentment at the intrusions and forced splits. And the small group point person becomes frustrated continually trying to sell a concept that group leaders and members simply don’t buy. We have found that it is better for all concerned to start new groups than for existing groups to multiply.

So how do we integrate new people? Largely through annual campaigns (described below). We have grown to more than seven thousand small groups by using campaigns to launch new groups each year. Since 2002 campaigns have increased small group participation from 30 percent to 110 percent! Since 2004 we have had more people in small groups than attend our weekend services. Rather than taking energy away from our small groups by forced “multiplication” (division), the campaign approach focuses on relationships. Now we are praying for ten thousand healthy small groups!

Outside our annual campaigns, when people express interest in a small group, we offer two courses of action. First, we ask if they want to start a group with a couple of friends. If they say yes, we give them a Small Group Starter Kit that includes:

1. A two-week starter curriculum on community from Rick Warren
2. “Helps for Host” from Rick
3. A card identifying their Community Leader
4. Tips for a successful small group
5. A copy of Leading Small Groups with Purpose5

We then follow up on new groups with the use of a decision process (see figure 5.1) and welcome and follow-up emails (see below).

If they don’t feel comfortable starting a small group, we help them plug into an existing group. They complete a Join a Small Group Card (see figures 5.2 and 5.3), and we use that information to help them join a group that we know is actively seeking new members. As we do this, we still encourage them to be looking for two or more friends with whom they can start a new group at the next campaign. If someone signs up online or in person to join a group, within seven days we follow up with the small group to make sure the new person has been welcomed and fits in the group and everyone is happy.

Figure 5.1

How Big Can a Group Get?

We at Saddleback do not subscribe to the theory that a small group needs to be kept below a maximum size. Some people are just natural gatherers. They keep inviting others until they have, perhaps, twenty or thirty people jammed into their house every Tuesday night. We don’t penalize these people. Instead, we encourage groups to become any size they want and then equip them for health in ways that are appropriate to their size. We believe ratios are more important than size, and through subgrouping (see Q10 in chapter 7, page 105) we help maintain ratios of attendees to leaders at optimum levels so that participation and group health are not jeopardized. We help every group foster an environment for a life-changing, healthy community.

Figure 5.2

Three Strategies for Connecting People

There are pros and cons to every system, and you should never choose one or the other because “that is the way we’ve always done it.” Take some time and give thought to your desired result, and then choose the delivery system that is the most effective in achieving that result.

Here are three strategies for connecting people into small groups: adult Sunday school strategy, connection event strategy, and campaign strategy.

Adult Sunday School Strategy

Adult Sunday school and small groups can coexist as long as they are aligned together and not competing with each other. There’s also potential for unhealthy competition with men’s, women’s, couples’, and singles’ ministries if not aligned with your church’s delivery systems to create healthy followers of Christ. So make sure all church ministries serve each other and the church’s vision, mission, and strategy rather than building walls.

Figure 5.3

How can you start or help a healthy Sunday school ministry? Here are some practical steps:

1. Strategically set up your room. Instead of chairs in rows, seat members around tables to encourage eye contact and conversation. Or set chairs in small circles or horseshoes (open end toward the front).
2. Build consistency at each table. Encourage class members to sit in the same spot each week so they can become better acquainted with the same people. Encourage clusters of new joiners to start new tables. Mixing people every week makes members feel unsafe and discourages transparency.
3. Understand ratios. If one of your goals is to know the spiritual health of each class member and encourage personalized next steps of growth, one person can’t realistically know and follow up on more than ten individuals. If your class is larger than ten, start identifying table leaders who can help you build health into each individual.
4. Set the table for evangelism. If your tables (or circles) seat eight, assign five or six people per table and ask them to invite others to fill the extra seats. Also, smaller groups encourage organic attendance accountability because a person’s absence is more readily noticed.
5. Guide everyone through spiritual health assessment and planning (using something like Saddleback’s Spiritual Health Assessment and Spiritual Health Planner at www.smallgroups.net/store). Assessment helps members discover where they’re doing well and areas for spiritual growth. Planning helps them choose and pursue next steps into health.
6. Build spiritual accountability. Have members pair up in partnerships, regularly asking each other how they’re progressing toward their personal goals. Checkups should be done as a natural part of the relationships. The teacher and table leaders don’t need to know everyone’s growth goals, just that everyone has a support partner.
7. Share ownership. Delegate responsibility to individuals according to their strengths in the five biblical purposes (fellowship, discipleship, ministry, evangelism, and worship). Someone at a table who is strong in fellowship may track birthdays and anniversaries or help plan a class social event. Someone strong in discipleship may oversee the Spiritual Health Assessment and Spiritual Health Plan for the people at his or her table. The strong in one area can help the weak in that area.
8. Be creative with limits. Recognize what you can do in the class time and what needs to be done outside. Generally, a Sunday school hour only permits discipleship. You can attempt fellowship, and occasionally worship. But don’t attempt to accomplish all five purposes in one Sunday school hour. Encourage tables or clusters of tables to coordinate addressing some purposes outside of class. Release your people to develop themselves. If you try to contain all growth experiences within the classroom, you will limit creativity and suppress the Holy Spirit.
9. Think transformation, not just information. Sunday school originally started in England to teach children literacy on Sundays because they worked in factories five or six days per week. Over time biblical teaching was added, and even later the secular teachings were dropped as labor laws and free education fostered literacy elsewhere. That explains today’s emphasis on teaching, which made perfect sense in the original context. Now Sunday schools are moving toward a missing piece of discipleship or spiritual formation: application. It’s important to present information in such a way that students take the teaching with them and apply it to their lives outside the classroom.
10. Use the power of discussion. Discussion encourages members to talk through the biblical teachings, share how well they are living it, learn from each other, and encourage each other toward life change. This encourages accountability to follow through on personal growth plans. The teacher’s greatest challenge is finding and allowing discussion time. I encourage 40 percent teaching and 60 percent discussion.

The benefits of a Sunday school strategy to start groups are:

• Convenient meeting time (before or after worship)
• Child care provided
• Ease of leader management

The cons of using a Sunday school strategy to start groups are:

• Time constraints limit fellowship
• Unchurched less likely to come to a church than a home
• Limited to the number of classrooms available

Connection Event Strategy

This was our primary way to draw people into groups until we came up with the campaign strategy in 2002. It proved successful, and you may want to try it. It’s now our secondary means of connecting people into groups.

We hold a two-hour connection event on campus, targeting church attendees who aren’t yet connected to a small group. We recruit them through pulpit announcements, email invitations, flyers, videos, and personal invitations. All you need is a room with round tables. Depending on the size of your church, you may mark tables for singles, couples, men only, or women only. Or you may divide the room according to geography. Once people are all seated, help them get acquainted by passing out lists of questions to discuss at their tables that focus on affinity, group experience, and spiritual journey.

• What is your name?
• Where do you live?
• What are your hobbies or interests?
• Briefly (about two minutes) tell us about your spiritual journey to this point.
• How did you start attending this church, and what do you like best about it?
• What is your previous small group experience?
• What is one thing you hope to gain by being in a small group?
• What is one fear you have about joining a small group?

We allow about an hour for them to get acquainted through these questions. Then we guide them through choosing a leader using new questions for them to think about:

• Who in this group is most likely to lead?
• Who has spiritual maturity and a growing heart for God?
• Who has the most small group or ministry experience?
• Whom would you be willing to follow for six weeks?

We then ask them to close their eyes and, on the count of three, point to the person they think would make the best leader. When they are all pointing, we instruct them to open their eyes and see who has the majority of people pointing to him or her. Then—and this is critical—we ask each person to explain their selection. Then we ask the tentative leader whether he or she is willing to lead the group, using a six-week DVD curriculum (our 40 Days of Purpose curriculum at https://store.pastors.com/pages/small-group). In my years at Saddleback we have never had the chosen person say no to leading for six weeks. We provide a link for training, a curriculum, and a Community Leader to guide our new leader along his or her journey.

If you already have leaders looking for new members, you can begin the event seating them at empty tables, some perhaps choosing certain types of members (women, singles, and so on). New people join a table, bond with that leader and each other, and leave as a group.

The benefits of a connection strategy to start groups are:

• Greater sense of group ownership by members
• Curriculum and training resources immediately available
• Quick connection with Community Leaders, especially if they attend

The cons of a connection strategy to start groups are:

• May kill evangelism by replacing church attendees’ existing friends with new churched friends
• Some less-than-ideal group fits because the strategy uses a degree of randomness
• More real-time customer service for people who might be at a table that isn’t going well

For instructions for a connection event, see www.SmallGroups.net/connection.

Campaign Strategy

Saddleback Church was the first church to successfully use the campaign strategy. A campaign is forty days of intensive, churchwide focus on a particular aspect of spiritual growth for each age group. It encompasses weekend sermons, small group curriculum, children’s activities, student ministry programs, social media, and more. One goal of our campaigns is to start new small groups.

Campaigns grew out of Rick’s challenge to pray and work toward exponential group growth (see the “Exponential Thinking” section on pages 114–15). We needed a new strategy to accomplish the numbers he had in mind. This was also when we came up with the Host role, which is the only way we’ve found to initiate large numbers of new groups out of a campaign. As part of the campaign we ask the congregation, “If our church has ministered to you, would you in turn minister to your community and be willing to Host a small group for six weeks? All you need is two friends to start a group!” (See pages 137–39 for more on starting groups with two friends.) The first time we did this, response was overwhelming, and suddenly we had plenty of people willing to initiate new groups and lead them for the short term.

Some of these groups don’t continue beyond their initial six-week commitment. But that’s not reason for discouragement. Healthy groups will stay in place, growing the ministry beyond where it was. After one of our campaigns, we looked in depth at the reasons groups discontinued and found it was not because they didn’t have a good experience. It was because life got in the way, and our leader coaching infrastructure wasn’t in place to support Hosts. We reevaluated our infrastructure, and two years later, after our next campaign, our retention rate went from 68 percent to 86 percent.

We learned by stepping out in faith and attempting the seemingly impossible. We moved ahead before we had all the details ironed out, and we made some mistakes. But we learned from them and moved forward. Saddleback’s campaign resources are available at https://store.pastors.com/campaign-central so you can avoid some of our mistakes.

I’m now a multidecade veteran of campaigns at Saddleback, and I’ve discovered that a strategy is only as good as the foundation and follow-through. To ensure a positive outcome, check out my battle-tested tips:

1. Choose a compelling question, such as “What on earth am I here for?” (from our 40 Days of Purpose campaign), to motivate people to join small groups.
2. Align children, student, and adult ministries. This encourages natural discussions at home among all family members. It also emphasizes the importance of every church member, not just adults.
3. Stick to the principles, and apply your own methodologies. Keep the content consistent, but tailor it to each age level.
4. Language matters. We had trouble getting leaders when we called them shepherd leaders or small group leaders. People were intimidated by the term leader, but Host led to much higher participation.
5. Employ various avenues of learning, such as weekend services, discussion groups, Scripture memorization, curriculum, and ministry projects.
6. Once a year is enough. Too much of a good thing isn’t a good thing and runs the risk of burning out volunteers and the congregation.
7. Provide clear start and end dates. Then people are more likely to come along for the ride.
8. Expect high intensity for staff, volunteers, and members. But allow them time to recover and process the experience at the end.
9. Remember and celebrate! Don’t forget to celebrate a job well done, perhaps through an appreciation event.
10. Prepare your leader support infrastructure in advance, and give new groups a next step to increase retention rate after their short-term commitment. A good leadership principle is to make sure people sign up for their next step in the midst of the current step.
11. Give people an out at the campaign’s conclusion. Of course we want groups to continue, but if the group isn’t right or the stage of life doesn’t allow, we don’t want to cause unnecessary guilt. We want them to come back to group life when circumstances change.
12. Budget to avoid financial obstacles for people. We don’t charge participants for anything in a campaign. This is an investment that pays off, it shows people we care, and it avoids roadblocks for Hosts or groups.

The benefits of a campaign strategy to start groups are:

• Low leadership bar for Hosts to lead for exponential group launch
• Hosts fill groups with their friends; high evangelism
• Whole-church alignment, children, students, and adults

The cons of a campaign strategy to start groups are:

• Taxing on staff and volunteers to coordinate forty-day campaign
• When groups start through friendships, some members feel pressured to stay when they should be free to leave

Other Stimuli for New Groups

Some good times for starting groups are seasonal. Aside from an annual campaign, examine the natural rhythms of your church and culture, then build group launches around the times that make the most sense.

Struggles are a second type of group-starting stimulus. Many Saddleback groups have launched out of painful times. Celebrate Recovery and support groups typically start out of ministries other than our small group ministry. The worse people’s trauma, the more we want them to focus on healing through a specialized healing ministry, while they depend mostly on weekend services for other aspects of connection to the body. If they join a standard small group before they’ve healed, that group can turn into a support or recovery group without realizing it, and that leads to imbalance in the group’s achievement of the five biblical purposes. But if one of the specialized healing groups succeeds and its members become healthy, we then want them to join or become a standard balanced small group.

Third, you can also add new groups through significant events. We host men’s and women’s events with great regularity at Saddleback, and out of these come new groups. Other significant events may target families with new babies or teens or empty nesters. You are limited only by your creativity and the life events of the people in your church.

A fourth way groups may form is through spiritual steps. Groups can be launched out of any spiritual step in a person’s life. Some may be new believer classes, baptism classes, mission trips, or groups forming from other short-term classes.

Please Remember . . .

The great thing is, no matter what strategy you use, it is a win-win. The goal is to get people connected!

Keep in mind a couple of things. First, regardless of your strategy, it needs to be scalable. In other words, set up a strategy that will still be workable and adaptable as your ministry grows. For example, if your small group ministry expands, make sure its financial demand won’t break the church. Whatever it requires on a small scale must also be affordable on a larger scale.

Second, if your church adopts the five biblical purposes for small groups, keep your groups intentional on serving, evangelism, and worship—the purposes most often neglected—not just on fellowship (relationships) and discipleship (learning). Traditional adult Sunday school tends to focus on discipleship, but it’s great for getting church attendees initially connected in some way. Small groups, if not kept on target, will tend to focus exclusively on fellowship. You and all of your leaders must work hard to balance all five purposes in your small groups.

Exponential Thinking

Exponential thinking takes your goal and adds a God-size faith zero to the end of it. Pastor Rick Warren has a whole Leadership Lifter on this topic at www.pastors.com, but let me summarize it for you. Back before we started churchwide campaigns, Rick challenged us with the concept of exponential thinking. The previous fall’s three hundred new groups had marked a banner year. But Rick said we needed to add a zero to our next year’s goal—three thousand new groups!

After I woke up from passing out, some amazing things took place. First, although Rick was directing the challenge to me, it was our entire church leadership team and staff who took on the goal. We were truly better together. Second, we were free to dream and to destroy any obstacle in our way. And most important, Rick paved the way for resources and alignment across the church so we could work together. And the churchwide campaign was born.

When you add a zero to the end of your goal, you have to think differently. It forces you to approach the situation with fresh faith, new thinking, new creativity, and the realization that without others it doesn’t stand a chance of happening. The earth-shaking part of exponential thinking isn’t the goal, it’s the process you go through as a team to reach the goal through faith.

I also learned that exponential thinking only applies to goal setting, not our salaries, though I made my best pitch for both.

After you’ve completed this page, mark the highest-priority action for this planning question.

Please see pages 86–89, “Instructions for Question Planning Pages,” for how to fill this out.

Copy that action onto the prioritizing list, pages 221–23 in chapter 10.

Q4

How Will You Measure Your Progress?

In chapter 3 under “Saddleback’s Top Ten Small Group Ministry Commitments,” number three is: “I will steer clear of the numbers game.” I’m not contradicting myself when I say, in a moment, that data is king. Setting definable goals with numbers is essential, as long as you’re not using numbers for bragging or unhealthy competition with other churches. I like to ask, “How many, by when?” because numerical values and timing clearly define the target for everyone involved. Without them, no one knows if you succeeded. As the old saying goes, “If you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it every time!”

Data Is King

Timing and numbers are important for measuring your progress. Many think it’s unspiritual to talk numbers, and you are likely to meet resistance. They’ll say ministry progress is all about quality, not quantity—that God doesn’t care about numbers.

But that isn’t true. I mean, there’s even a book called Numbers in the Old Testament. It is completely possible to care about quality and quantity at the same time. The two are not mutually exclusive, nor do they need to be enemies. We count people because people count. Anticipate resistance by being prepared with your rationale, explaining how you intend to balance processes with people, because it’s all for people. And it’s all for eternity.

Regardless, do not be discouraged. This resistance is normal, and you can plan ahead for potential obstacles by brainstorming which obstacles may arise and planning their solutions. This will prevent others from being able to derail your great ideas and objectives.

Regarding timing, set points in time to review your progress. If you’re on track, praise God! If you need to adjust course, take some time to readjust, and then start moving forward again as soon as possible.

Hard and Soft Data

Hard data is the most familiar to us. This is basic contact information and church involvement—name, address, phone number, email, social media contacts, salvation date, baptism date, and metrics related to your ministry system. I think most churches do this well.

Soft data is another story. Where hard data is important to the church, soft data is important to the individual. Soft data tells his or her story. It’s a window into that person’s interests and priorities. A beginning, crawl step to discovering people’s “soft data” stories is gathering their important calendar dates, such as family birthdays and anniversaries. An intermediate, walk step could be to learn and record people’s hobbies, interests, sports involvement, and the like. A run step may be to track spiritual achievements and needs.

As you learn soft data, it is important that your church database stores this information and makes appropriate use of it to enhance relational bonds between them and key people, such as their group Hosts. When leaders gain members’ trust, they can more easily challenge them to take risky steps of growth and obedience.

When hard data and soft data are both used effectively, data moves from cold, hard numbers to relationships, hearts, and stories. Furthermore, numerical goals depend in part on learning and using soft data. Appropriate use of soft data brings people in the door and helps them feel safe and supported in your church family through good times and bad.

What to Look for in Data

As you gather data, what do you do with it? Here are some questions to consider:

1. What kinds of data are useful, and what is useless?

As a rule of thumb, if you’re not going to use the data, don’t ask for it. Basic small group data tends to focus on the number of small groups in a church and average group size. But this doesn’t reflect the rich, full dynamics of healthy small groups. For instance, tracking the life spans of groups and average age of group members reveals commitment levels. But commitment doesn’t guarantee health. To help measure group health and sustainability, I advise tracking such details as:

• Number of studies each group completes each year (discipleship)
• Monthly average number of social gatherings (fellowship)
• Number of service projects (ministry)
• Members’ engagement in personal, local, or global outreach (evangelism)
• Group connection with the Lord through, for example, communion, prayer, or fasting (worship)

I’ve found one useful indicator is a Host’s frequency of contact with the Community Leader. Hosts who keep in touch have the healthiest groups because they value guidance in maturing their groups. I recommend that you require leader coaches to track and report successful contacts with small group leaders compared with attempted contacts from the coach. Track indicators and measurements of spiritual health of groups and leaders.

2. How do you obtain data?

From my experience, the answers vary depending on the church’s culture. I consider an ideal approach to be eclectic—that is, the small group ministry team partners with other church ministries to track and share data and to watch trends in various church spheres. I suggest asking small group leaders to complete a short survey about their group twice a year. There’s any number of ways of gathering valuable information through websites, forms, interviews, and other sources.

But even more valuable is an honest, open relationship between small group leader and CL. Your leader support team should keep their ear to the ground and stay aware of conditions in groups and ways God is moving in the ministry.

3. How do you respect privacy while gathering data?

It’s important to maintain your group leaders’ and members’ trust. Make sure their information is securely protected and that only appropriate parties access and handle it. Mentioning this on forms will help build trust.

Some small group leaders may be reluctant to share sensitive information. I make a practice of including a picture of myself and family in my introduction email to groups, and I share a short personal history and current stage of life. I consider it a requirement to avoid the Big Brother effect through personal care.

Whenever possible, requests for data should come from someone personally known to the recipient. If the needed relationships haven’t yet been established, then establish them! Take every opportunity to clarify that the requested information will contribute to a healthier ministry and better care for group members.

4. Where and how do you store and access data?

Excel serves nicely for many churches. And several companies have designed software specifically for churches. Make sure servers, accounts, and documents are password protected. A reputable person with an IT background may be of great service in setting this up and teaching the appropriate people how to use it.

5. How do you analyze, understand, and use data?

These “hard facts” are details of people’s lives, meant to help you understand the realities of people and groups in order to better care for them. Accurate analysis of valid data will guide you in making better ministry decisions. Some data can actually be misleading if the person using it doesn’t have the story of the people behind the reports. For instance, the fact that Saddleback’s recorded average group size is four people hides the reality that many Hosts don’t keep their rosters updated.

We depend heavily on Community Leaders keeping group rosters up-to-date through their conversations with Hosts. But beyond merely deleting names, they ask why members left or groups stopped meeting, trying to get to the less visible meaning beneath the numbers.

When you are considering data conversations with people, it is important that they see your heart, and that although we have one eye on people concerning data, our other eye is on their eternity.

After you’ve completed this page, mark the highest-priority action for this planning question.

Please see pages 86–89, “Instructions for Question Planning Pages,” for how to fill this out.

Copy that action onto the prioritizing list, pages 221–23 in chapter 10.