Reading: Small Group Making Practices (Slides)

Small Group Making Practices

Henry Reyenga

The Keys Steps Of Setting Up Small Groups

If you want to get people plugged in to small groups, there are two steps you have to take: 

Helping people find a group and physically connecting them with others. 

Ensuring they have a stellar group experience— spiritually, emotionally, and experientially connecting them with others (more on this experience in chapter 5).

Reed, Ben (2013-10-30). Starting Small: The Ultimate Small Group Blueprint (p. 44). Rainer Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

Relationships Set Up Small Groups

Before we get into the specifics of different types of small groups launches, let's get one thing out of the way. The best way to form a small group is purely through relationships. Not an event the church puts on. Not through an online sign up. Not through a church-wide initiative. It's through relationships.

Reed, Ben (2013-10-30). Starting Small: The Ultimate Small Group Blueprint (p. 45). Rainer Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

Previous Relational Trust Is Key

When you have a prior relationship with someone, there's a trust that's already been built. You've laid the groundwork that typically takes months to do in a small group. So much of a small group's success or failure is contingent upon trust. Trusting what's said in the group stays in the group.

Reed, Ben (2013-10-30). Starting Small: The Ultimate Small Group Blueprint (p. 45). Rainer Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

Cell Group Forming Without Relationship Capital

Make the Connection with an Event One-on-one invitations and relationships work best for connecting people to small groups. However, it’s not the only way to make a connection. The most effective way I've found to connect people in small groups, when it's not through relationships, is through "the event." Call it whatever you want: Connect Now, Group Link, Group Up, Connections, or something else entirely.

Reed, Ben (2013-10-30). Starting Small: The Ultimate Small Group Blueprint (pp. 45-46). Rainer Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

The Event That Launches New Relationship Small Groups

The event is a chance for you to launch multiple small groups at the same time by inviting people to a neutral location (not someone's home) up to four times a year. At this event, people will meet group leaders and commit to a new small group. I've hosted this event on Sunday mornings, immediately following the worship service. But this event can be done on Sunday nights, inviting people to come back to the church.

Reed, Ben (2013-10-30). Starting Small: The Ultimate Small Group Blueprint (p. 46). Rainer Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

Consider A Not Sunday Morning Event

A time other than Sunday morning: There are lots of options under the "any other time" category. But in the end, they are similar in one way: You don’t get nearly as many people interested. But those that do come will be committed. The ones that show up for your event will sink their teeth in and join a group. Your retention rate from that event will be massively higher than if you'd done the event on Sunday morning. You won't have groups starting with 20 in attendance and by week two have an attendance of 5. You'll be starting groups with 10 in attendance and retaining those 10!

Reed, Ben (2013-10-30). Starting Small: The Ultimate Small Group Blueprint (p. 47). Rainer Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

How To Sit At Meetings

My friend, James Grogan, says, “Circles are better than rows.” He may have stolen that phrase, but since I don’t know who said it first, I’ll give James the credit. Circles promote group growth, unity, and a combined synergy towards knowing God, encouraging each other, correcting each other, and pushing each other towards God’s best. The reality is that I don’t know everything there is to know about the Bible. God hasn’t revealed all angles and varied beauty of truth to me .

Reed, Ben (2013-10-30). Starting Small: The Ultimate Small Group Blueprint (p. 64). Rainer Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

The Role Of Food

Ice cold soda and desserts can help any group. During the first few group meetings, people are nervous, they don't know others, don't know what to expect, and aren't fully comfortable striking up (and maintaining) a conversation with someone. Meals give you a natural reason to congregate together. You're sitting around a table together, or around the living room together, for a specific purpose: to eat. There's just something psychologically important about eating together.

Reed, Ben (2013-10-30). Starting Small: The Ultimate Small Group Blueprint (p. 67). Rainer Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

Food Contributes To Attendance

When you serve snacks and you're not the only one who brings them, you share the responsibility for making sure your group succeeds, giving one more person a chance to contribute to the group. Which means that if you're there, and they're there, you've got at least a small group of two every week.

Reed, Ben (2013-10-30). Starting Small: The Ultimate Small Group Blueprint (p. 67). Rainer Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

Prioritize Eating Together

Meals help reorient our thinking, too. Tim Chester in Meals with Jesus says, "Meals slow things down. Some of us don’t like that. We like to get things done. But meals force you to be people oriented instead of task oriented. Sharing a meal is not the only way to build relationships, but it is number one on the list .” If you want your group to succeed, plan to eat together. It doesn't matter what your group decides: snacks, a meal, or dessert. But decide on something.

Reed, Ben (2013-10-30). Starting Small: The Ultimate Small Group Blueprint (p. 68). Rainer Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

How Clean Should Your House Be

So my challenge to you is to clean your house, but don't sweat it. Invite people into your life. If you've always got a pile of mail on the entry way table, then leave it there. Don't feel like everything has to be perfect. Through this, you'll communicate boatloads of hope— that people can come as they are to small group. They can be who they are, warts and all. They can bring their victories, and also their struggles. The pile of mail tells them that it's okay to not have everything completely put together all of the time, and that this is a safe place to be real.

Reed, Ben (2013-10-30). Starting Small: The Ultimate Small Group Blueprint (pp. 70-71). Rainer Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

About Prayers

The more you use theologically technical, complicated words when you pray out loud, the more you'll encourage people to shut down during prayer time. Why? Because they don't have that vocabulary. At some level, praying out loud is like public speaking. Glossophobia (fear of public speaking) strikes 75% of people at some level, and we as a culture are deathly afraid of speaking in public.

Reed, Ben (2013-10-30). Starting Small: The Ultimate Small Group Blueprint (pp. 73-74). Rainer Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

Make Small Groups Fun

If it’s not fun, people won’t come back. It’s possible to get more information in a more convenient time in a more convenient way through many other means. Podcasts, books, blogs, and forums offer information and discussion environments at any time of the day, every day of the year. What separates small groups from each of these environments is the relationship, face-to-face aspect. Make sure you maximize this!

Reed, Ben (2013-10-30). Starting Small: The Ultimate Small Group Blueprint (pp. 75-76). Rainer Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

Make Small Groups Fun

If there’s no fun, it’s life-sucking. If your group is intensely serious, it can drain the life right out of people. We’re only wired to take so much seriousness. And often, every other environment in our lives gives us plenty of seriousness.

Reed, Ben (2013-10-30). Starting Small: The Ultimate Small Group Blueprint (p. 76). Rainer Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

Make Small Groups Fun

If there’s no laughter, people are missing out on great medicine. “A joyful heart is good medicine , but a crushed spirit dries up the bones” (Proverbs 17: 22). Maybe what hurting people need isn’t more medicine , but a healthy small group. They need to laugh together so hard that they snort. They need to laugh at themselves. They need to laugh at a corny joke. I’m not sure how it works, but after a difficult day at work— with the kids, with finances, with in-laws— laughing helps to melt away stress and anxiety, bringing healing to your aching bones.

Reed, Ben (2013-10-30). Starting Small: The Ultimate Small Group Blueprint (p. 76). Rainer Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

Make Small Groups Fun

Have you ever belly-laughed? Seriously, there is not much that is more redemptive than belly-laughing with someone in your small group. If you’ve laughed that way, from your gut, you know what I mean. Laughing so hard you embarrass yourself. Laughing so hard you even forgot what you were originally laughing about, and other people join you not because what was said was funny but simply because you're laughing so hard.

Reed, Ben (2013-10-30). Starting Small: The Ultimate Small Group Blueprint (pp. 76-77). Rainer Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

Make Small Groups Fun

When we have fun together, we show others that we serve a good God. Check this out: “Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then they said among the nations, ‘The Lord has done great things for them’” (Psalm 126: 2). Did you catch that ? When our mouths are filled with laughter, others are convinced that God has done great things among us.

Reed, Ben (2013-10-30). Starting Small: The Ultimate Small Group Blueprint (p. 77). Rainer Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

Make Small Groups Fun

Laughter builds community. Laughing together can help your group bond in a rich way quickly. Don’t neglect times of fun and laughing. Relish those times together. Jokes that carry from week to week, laughing at random things, and having fun together help set the stage for deep discussions, building trust among those in your group. Serve Quarterly In your small group, don’t forget about others.

Reed, Ben (2013-10-30). Starting Small: The Ultimate Small Group Blueprint (pp. 77-78). Rainer Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

Develop Ownership

Everyone Brings Something 

Another key component to leading an effective group is sharing ministry. Allow others in the group to lead the worship time, lead the study, bring refreshments, and host the group. Cultivating group ownership is important if members are going to feel needed and appreciated. It also helps to keep you from burning out or from thinking that you can do it all yourself (Ephesians 4: 12). Develop contributors, not customers.

Reed, Ben (2013-10-30). Starting Small: The Ultimate Small Group Blueprint (pp. 82-83). Rainer Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

Tasks For Ownership

Hosting: someone to coordinate the rotation of homes – 

Prayer requests: someone to distribute them via email – 

Food schedule: someone to make sure the meal happens – 

Serving schedule: an outreach coordinator for quarterly service projects – 

Fun weeks: someone to make sure the group keeps laughing

Reed, Ben (2013-10-30). Starting Small: The Ultimate Small Group Blueprint (p. 83). Rainer Publishing. Kindle Edition.