7
The Study
INVESTING IN GOD’S KINGDOM THROUGH SMALL GROUPS
| Q9 | — | How Will You Develop Group Members into Leaders? |
| Q10 | — | How Will Subgrouping Develop People? |
| Q11 | — | How Will You Encourage People to Serve? |
| Q12 | — | How Will You Create Opportunities for Groups to Serve? |
How Will You Develop Group Members into Leaders?
I encourage you to “think developmentally” about your small group ministry. Once you have established your ministry and have a handful of groups up and running, it is important to continue investing in both leaders and their group members. This is where maturity within groups really takes off. In order to foster the relationship necessary to develop leaders, you must be able to speak truth into their lives. That privilege is built on a platform of trust, and trust is built on time. You cannot rush this process. As a small group develops slowly into a family unit, existing leaders can actively work to develop other leaders within their groups.
Figure 7.1
Figure 7.1 illustrates Saddleback’s progression from seeker to leader. It takes time to develop leaders because growth takes time. But we must all keep in mind our ultimate goal of moving everyone to their highest potential of maturity and ministry commitment.
At Saddleback we add a sixth level, “Commissioned,” for groups engaged in outreach through our PEACE Plan, but most churches do not engage entire small groups in large-scale outreach.
I encourage you to design a ministry in which all members are continually progressing toward their next stage of growth and commitment, never stagnating. You’ll recognize natural leadership potential in some group members, while others will surprise you. Saddleback’s methods may or may not translate to your situation, so you must diligently work on a plan that effectively develops group members into leaders in your unique setting.
Here are a few pointers:
- Prayer. Are you and your leadership team spending meaningful time asking God to bring more people into group life so they can be transformed? Are you and your team asking God to raise up the leaders you need?
- Vision. Is your vision big enough? Are the people in your ministry hearing you and others consistently talk about your vision for small groups? Are you encouraging all of them to cast the net far and wide?
- Goals. Do your goals coincide with your vision? Are you and your team setting big, hairy, audacious annual goals? Goals that motivate your team to passionately recruit leaders and invite people into group life? This is risky, but it is absolutely necessary if you are going to arrive at a destination bigger than your dreams.
- Strategy. Does your strategy include new ways to find leaders, train leaders, and help leaders start new groups? Ideally every trained leader will train another, who will start another group. This ripple effect creates exponential growth.
Expect All Group Members to Get Involved
Even for the many who will never wear a leader’s title, you can sustain a ministrywide expectation that everyone will learn to lead others by their example and influence. For many this begins by taking simple responsibilities in their group.
At Saddleback Church we believe “every member is a minister,” based in part on Ephesians 4:11–16. Not every member feels like a minister, and some will resist. But God has equipped each of us with our own set of gifts, and each one fulfills Jesus’s Great Commission and great commandment by exercising those gifts in some type of service. Train your leaders to expect every member to take at least beginning baby steps into various roles of service and responsibility. Once they taste the reward of making a difference, they will naturally progress toward greater responsibilities.
I have learned that not everyone loves titles, partly because a title creates a sense of obligation from which the person may feel there is no escape. However, people are willing to take on responsibilities or untitled roles. Train and encourage your leaders to give each group member a clearly defined task of some kind, ideally in keeping with their interests and abilities. It’s important to keep each task within the person’s ability to ensure that he or she succeeds in the assigned role. See figure 7.2 for some examples of roles members may fill in a small group.
The following story from Janet Collins of Lakeside Church, Guelph, Ontario, Canada, illustrates this idea in action:
Finding a role for every person in the Small Group is so important. I put together a list of roles for my group and in my mind started slotting people into the roles I thought they would best fit. Some were already naturally taking on roles and asking to help. I began by asking these people to keep doing their tasks on a consistent basis. I did not give them an official title or role, just a task or activity they loved to do. Then I began to see roles that were not being covered, and I focused on looking for people who had gifts in those areas. People who have a passion in an area become creative, and their service enriches the group experience for everyone. Some also become motivated to serve beyond the group because they love what they do for the kingdom.
Using the five areas of a healthy small group, here are some examples of ways I’ve encouraged people to get involved:
Worship. One man loves music. He is not a professional singer, but he relates music and lyrics to life. I asked him to bring a song to share one time during the semester. He began the very next week and continued week after week. This fueled his passion, and I never had to ask again. He began to bring printed lyrics so the group could sing along, and he prepared a reflection question.
I’ve also thought of inviting people to organize prayer or communion.
Fellowship. One woman asked to organize our snack schedule and potluck sign-up sheets. She in turn got others serving by bringing snacks. Another gentleman took on setting up our meeting room and making the coffee and tea.
Discipleship. I love getting people involved in coleading. One friend loves to research passages of Scripture, their cultural context, and ideas for application today. I learn so much from his teaching, and the group enjoys a richer, deeper understanding of the Bible.
Ministry. I have women who bring cards for the group to sign to support or encourage a member through some difficulty. One year two members struggled with serious health issues, and these women organized the group to bless them with cookies, poinsettias, and cards. We also assigned people to check up on them and let them know we were praying.
Another member heard about our food distribution center’s need for peanut butter. She challenged the group to bring as much as they could, scouted store sales, counted donations, and announced the results.
Evangelism. One person got everyone to bring gifts for Operation Christmas Child, organized a potluck for people to assemble gift shoe boxes, and coordinated people to deliver them. When my neighbor broke his elbow and couldn’t work, one woman cooked meals, which I delivered. The rest prayed for him and for my outreach to him. This opened the door for my husband and me to get to know him and care for him in a practical, unexpected, no-strings-attached way.
When people have a role in the group, they feel valued and affirmed, and everyone benefits. These people take ownership of the group.
Figure 7.2
Rick Warren taught me, “People don’t do what you merely expect, people do what you inspect.” Build into your strategy some way of inspecting whether people are acting on the vision you have cast. But don’t bog down the process with reporting. Rather, train all of your group members to inspect each other in love, spurring each other on toward greater love and good deeds (see Heb. 10:24–25). And you can help individuals become self-inspectors by putting tools in their hands like Saddleback’s Spiritual Health Assessment and Spiritual Health Planner.
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.
How Will Subgrouping Develop People?
We invest in people, in part, by developing their relationship with God and developing the gifting God has given them. This helps them clarify their purpose and help others. Some of this happens best when individuals and their gifts are “discovered,” and these discoveries are more likely to happen among smaller numbers of people, such as when you use subgrouping (see figure 7.3).
Figure 7.3
Subgrouping is using part of the meeting time to divide into smaller, separate groups for any purpose. The whole group typically starts and ends together but breaks into subgroups somewhere in the middle. The purpose for subgrouping is to create situations with few enough people that each individual gets a chance to talk and quieter people are more willing to talk. A fundamental rule we give new Hosts is that if not everyone in your group has a chance to talk, then it’s time to subgroup. Generally, this happens when groups grow to seven or more people.
Men’s and Women’s Subgroups
Subgroups can be formed any way you want. At Saddleback Church we’ve discovered special advantages in having men and women meet separately for part of some small group meetings. Besides the advantages of smaller numbers, women tend to share more openly with other women, and men with other men.
Saddleback used to have distinct men’s and women’s ministries, but we have done away with them. We still absolutely value the spiritual development of men and women, but we’ve found that when we call something a “ministry,” it becomes just one more event for people to attend during their limited time. In addition, different ministries can become separate fiefdoms.
We have found that the best men’s and women’s connections develop in mixed-gender small groups of couples and singles, especially when subgrouping is used to give men some time with men and women with women.
My friend Jason Williams shared this story:
In our group’s third meeting, right up front, we wanted to emphasize praying for each other. But the other wives told Joy (my wife) that their husbands would never pray out loud, or even talk, in the group. We decided on subgrouping, meeting separately as men and women for prayer time. Guys often feel safer around other guys, and we hoped this might create a space in which they’d give it a go. After we split and the men shared a few prayer requests, I told them I would love for us guys to be committed to praying for each other and wanted to set that tone right now. I explained that there is no right or wrong way to pray, that prayer is simply a conversation with our Father, who loves spending time with us. Just a sentence or two would more than suffice. Then I held my breath . . . and prayed God would prompt just one of them to break the ice.
After a minute that felt like an hour, one guy said, “God, I want to make a prayer for my friend Eric.” Don’t you just love hearing an honest prayer by someone who hasn’t learned the polished “right way”? I was so thankful, and ready to jump in and close. But before I could, another guy chimed in. Then another. And another. I was stunned. By the time I closed, every guy had overcome his fear, taken a risk, and prayed. Subgrouping created a smaller, safer place. I will never forget that meeting.
In my own small group, one evening the men and women met separately for prayer. One woman admitted she was attracted to someone other than her husband. The women prayed over her and agreed to continued prayer and accountability. Later that night Lisa shared the woman’s experience with me privately. Eventually the group came around the couple and helped save their marriage, which is now stronger than ever.
I believe this happened both because we, as couples, had developed intimacy that some women’s groups don’t have, but also because we gave the women the chance to be alone together. Subgrouping within the larger group was the key to investing in these people’s lives.
Ideas for Subgrouping
You don’t have to use subgroups every meeting—only as often as it is helpful for your group, sometimes just to add variety and avoid stagnation. And you can vary the timing and purpose. Anything is possible, but I see three great opportunities for subgrouping to take your group deeper:
- Fellowship. Any activities a group does to build relationships and encourage each other can be done in subgroups—anything from snack and chat time to a ladies’ or men’s night out.
- Discussion. Whatever type of curriculum or study style you use, part or all of the discussion time can be in subgroups. After Saddleback groups watch the evening’s video together, they may break up to discuss the accompanying questions. Some topics lend themselves to discussion in subgroups of the same gender, stage of life, profession, or other characteristics.
- Prayer. As we’ve seen, sharing and prayer often feel safer among fewer people, especially those we trust or who share some affinity.
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.
How Will You Encourage People to Serve?
People often fail to serve, not because they don’t want to serve but because they feel they have nothing to offer or they have not been offered specific opportunities. Churches are full of overworked pastors and underused members. That is not God’s plan, and it has been a problem as far back as Exodus 18, when Jethro taught Moses to delegate. Jesus clearly wants us to serve. He commands us to love our neighbors as ourselves (see Matt. 22:39). And when the church was birthed, “All the believers . . . had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need” (Acts 2:44–45). Service was normative in the early church.
I love Paul’s teaching that all of the saints are meant to be prepared by leadership “for works of service” and that the body of Christ achieves unity and maturity, “attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” as “the whole body . . . grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work” (Eph. 4:12–13, 16, emphasis added). And Peter taught, “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms” (1 Pet. 4:10).
One universal human need is for significance—to have a purpose, to make a difference. So the case for service is based not only on the needs of the receivers, but also on the giver’s needs. People have a need to exercise their gifts, to attain a sense of meaning in making a difference. And, of course, they also meet others’ needs.
Every human is wired with a personality and special set of natural talents, and through life they are shaped further by their experiences. Then at salvation every follower of Christ also receives spiritual gifts. But people need a path to discovering their unique design and how best to use it for God’s kingdom. Many people in your small groups are probably unaware of the ways God has prepared them for service (see Eph. 2:10). At Saddleback we offer CLASS 301 to help people discover their SHAPE—their Spiritual gifts, Heart (passions), Abilities, Personality, and Experiences—their unique design and function in the church body.
If your church doesn’t have a way to help members uncover this, I encourage you to develop a method or find one and use it. People can work through this discovery process in small groups or outside, in a class or other venue. Everyone is a “ten” at something, and people find new fulfillment and make eternal impact when they begin serving in ways for which they were tailor-made.
At Saddleback we also introduced “Test-Drive a Ministry.” We post service opportunities and encourage people to test-drive one for six weeks, putting their toe in the water and discovering what they like. We don’t hold them to the full six weeks if they seriously dislike it.
Grow Servants in Your Small Groups
The healthiest and most effective small groups don’t limit their identity to two hours per week. They live out their group identity 24/7. The 24/7 group doesn’t just meet, study, and eat cookies—they live life together and take life deeper outside the meeting. Together they help each other fulfill Jesus’s Great Commission and great commandment all week long.
I was so blessed by this letter from Glen Telusma of Freeport Bible Church in the Bahamas:
I’m coaching three small groups that have done many “acts of kindness” in our community, such as giving people tokens to wash clothes, handing out bags of peanuts, and working with the elderly. The response has been incredible. Not only have we been able to take care of those in our small group ministry, but our community as well. I have also been the recipient of kindness. I had major surgery, and my group rallied up in support. Our church has come a mighty long way.
The fact is, you have a ton of hidden talent sitting in your small group ministry. It is your job, and the job of your leaders, to uncover those talents and help group members develop them in a God-glorifying, kingdom-building way.
Sometimes surprising talent is right under your nose. Way back when we were starting our first satellite campus in San Clemente, we had no idea how to handle the technological aspects of multisite ministry. Through a strange series of God-ordained “coincidences,” we discovered that the very person we needed—the owner of a recommended tech company—lived in our city and was, in fact, a Saddleback member who was involved and serving in a small group! He brought his talent to meet our need for broadcasting to our multisite campuses.
Don’t wait for resources to come to you. For the sake of all members and your church, make it a priority to unlock and then utilize them. God gave these resources to your church for a reason, and we do not want to squander a single opportunity to glorify him.
Train your leaders to nurture servanthood in their groups and service opportunities within the church and your ministry. Use every opportunity with leaders to encourage and help them challenge their group members to sacrifice beyond themselves.
Campaigns are another way to focus your church beyond themselves, helping others, if you have (or can win) the cooperation of your senior leadership. We hardwire into every campaign’s small group curriculum a service opportunity for every group. We’ve found that when small groups serve together, their rate for staying together goes from 68 to 83 percent. Serving together helps others, but it’s also good for the group.
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.
How Will You Create Opportunities for Groups to Serve?
Serving together strengthens camaraderie, esprit de corps, and bonds among group members. Working together toward a common goal—especially venturing outside comfort zones—creates relationship-deepening memories, strengthens the group’s sense of unity and identity, and fosters trust, especially when service requires “having each other’s backs.” Serving together also makes members accountable for follow-through. With the right motivation, no one wants to be left out.
Spontaneous Opportunities
If you succeed in fostering servant hearts throughout your small group ministry, members will be on the lookout for service opportunities that arise spontaneously. As an example, when my wife’s dad had a major stroke, our group stepped in to care for our son while we were gone to care for Dad. Various people brought Ethan meals and took him to a movie. What a blessing!
Some group members have needs they’re too prideful or embarrassed to share. You and your leaders can urge people to be willing to ask for help, giving others the blessing of helping.
But don’t just expect your groups to find spontaneous opportunities on their own. I encourage you to be intentional in creating additional connections between your small groups and a wider variety of service opportunities.
Seasonal Opportunities
Seasonal opportunities can set groups up for a psychological win. Since the commitment is limited-time, people can sustain enthusiasm from beginning to end and celebrate quickly upon completion. Inform your groups about ways they can serve in your church or community at key, recurring times throughout the calendar year. You may choose certain events to give special attention and “swamp” with help, making sure there are plenty of hands on deck to meet the need in a loving and effective way.
For example, a small group may adopt a school classroom for a month to help with midterm needs. Contact a school or senior center to discover spring cleaning opportunities. In the fall provide backpacks filled with supplies for needy students in your church. Invite people without a family to Thanksgiving dinner. Adopt a needy family and provide a tree, decorations, and Christmas dinner.
Short-Term Opportunities
Some groups reach a point of readiness for a run-level service activity. At Saddleback our PEACE Plan draws many entire groups to do global and local short-term outreach as a group. The whole group doesn’t have to go abroad in order to be involved. We encourage as many as possible to join the “away team”—the people who go. The rest of the group forms the “home team,” supporting the away team in several vital ways. This prevents anyone from feeling guilty or left out because everyone contributes substantially. (For more on this, see “Home and Away Teams,” pages 187–88.)
If you want a good return on investment, your small groups must start investing in people. Some of your groups (the early adopters) will catch on immediately with little prodding. To help the mid- and late adopters come on board, enlist your small group leaders and leader coaches to keep encouraging these groups to become strong links in your ministry chain.
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.