How To Make Sure Your Small Group Ministry Fails: Part 2
Continuing with yesterday’s theme, here are five more ways ways to reduce the possibility of a successful small group ministry:
6. Make sure the church doesn’t have a small group vision or philosophy. Let people do whatever they want without any direction or oversight.
7. Make sure your groups become inward-focused and never multiply. Don’t ever encourage your groups to give life to new groups. Allow them to grow inward-looking. Better yet, hope they become filled with negative and critical church members.
8. Make sure to require your church attenders to do so many other things they’ll never want to be in small groups. Ask people to go to Sunday night church, Wednesday night church, committee meetings, Sunday school, etc. If you keep them so busy, you can ensure they won’t participate in small groups.
9. Make sure not to require staff members to be involved. If your staff (or key leaders) isn’t in groups, that will help keep others from being in groups.
10. Make sure you never make small groups a membership or partnership requirement. Be a low-expectation church. While you’re at it, don’t ask people to serve, pray, witness, or give sacrificially either.
Based on your experience, what would you add to this list? Where do you agree? Disgaree?
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#10 is an interesting one for me. We don’t make home group participation a requirement, but we make a huge part of who we are and because of that every single one of our partners are in groups.
I personally shy away from making groups a requirement…but Lifechurch is rockin’ so I am not about to criticize that approach.
as someone who was “brainwashed” into groups at NPCC for many years, I love this post. I left ATL and now live in a small town with no traffic and no relevent worship environments…I’ll offer a few more tips, many of which build on others mentioned.
*make sure the staff uses multiple terms when referring to groups (”small group, home group, community group, discipleship group”) to maximize confusion.
*make sure groups are defined broadly so as to please everyone. Groups of 8 function just like groups of 30, right??
*group leaders should always be the same few elder and staff “superstars” that get all the other public credit.
*training should be infrequent and focus intensely on donuts and political agendas.
*I reiterate inward focus…maybe even give a medal to the group who has been together the longest, celebrating their commitment to not influencing anyone outside their group!
*never totally commit to the groups model - always appeasing those who want didactic Sunday School with a “we’re looking into it” response.
I so agree with these points about the Life Groups. Particularly number 8! As a leader in my church, last year I felt so busy and every night there seemed to be some type of event on at church that I was expected to be at. Even if there happened to be a Life Group who met on a night that I was free, I was so exhausted to feel like getting up and going out again.
In leadership we need to work smarter, not busier! Instead of calling another ‘meeting’ to discuss particular ministries, think outside the box of other ways to communicate with the team! The internet has opened up HUGE possibilities and opportunities! Be creative! That way everyone will be left with more time and energy to put into building positive, meaningful relationships and growing together in God.
“Be a low-expectation church”. God spoke to me with just these five words.
Thanks Craig!
More great thoughts on s/g ministry. I have personally seen the downfall of not having key leaders in a small group. Number 10 should ensure that 9 doesn’t happen.
Thanks, Kyle from down under!
Brent, Great additions to the discussion. Thank you.
I would reiterate Brent’s comment on how to squash small groups: Make it a cliche. Make sure it’s the same 10 to 15 people who have been meeting in the same place for 10 years without allowing anyone new to join or especially develop new group leaders out of this group.
Been there done that. Doesn’t work. We continually encourage our group leaders to be looking for new leaders in their groups with hearts to serve in starting up more new groups. Working well so far.
PS…Craig, great to meet you at the One Day breakfast. I realize your busy and appreciate just a moment to meet face to face. Thanks to you, Andrew, Brian and the whole crew at LC.tv. You guys are a huge blessing to our Network church. Thanks!
#11) Make entry into groups difficult. Make it as hard as possible to find information about groups and their meeting times/locations. Don’t take into account that there are different kinds of people who want to find this information in different kinds of ways.
#8 is a big deal. Many established churches like the idea of small groups, so they begin to add more to the plate of things to do by implementing small groups. Yet, small groups can not be one of many opportunities among a buffet of ministries. In order for small groups to be successful it must be an “all or nothing” mentality. They will never work unless they are THE ministry for authentic discipleship withing a church. For the established church, I would say that if you are considering small groups, something has to go…dare I say maybe Wednesday nights or Sunday nights (GASP!).
Craig, we’re about three weeks away from our official grand opening/launch at Elevate and thinking through the process of small groups. What would be some things that we definitely need to have on our radar as potential issues that may come up as we establish this ministry of small groups/discipleship?
Brent’s list made me laugh. is a “sad but true” way though. I’d also add:
Make sure you don’t build a structure for ongoing support, training, communication, and leadership development so that once leaders are trained initially they are cut loose.
Make sure you only tell small group leaders the bare minimum information about vision, future direction, and events coming up. They don’t need to know anything more than what’s in the bulletin and an occasional e-mail asking them to do even more.
Great points again, Craig.
Here’s a few more for which I am so thankful LC.tv DOESN’T do:
> Make sure to require seminary degrees for all small group leaders, or any other set of church-established “hoops” to jump through (i.e. Small Group Leader 101, 201, etc.).
> Make sure there is zero accountability for your small group leaders to the church leadership.
> Make sure to keep the church body in the dark about any amazing God story that came out of your small groups.
>Make sure each and every small group in your church looks, acts, and does ministry the same exact way.
Great thoughts…
My addition:
>As a leader, set the example by never going any deeper than what happened during your week.
Any insight into small groups in small towns…where everybody knows everybody and is likely related :). There’s a tension between getting and staying with people for depth of relationship versus changing group dynamics by re-grouping on a regular basis.
WOW! You are not kidding with the “failure” idea. If a church or pastor agrees “life change” BEST happens in small groups, and churches have no venue to implement the implied principles from the points above, the implication is something huge is missing in any model of Sunday School or small groups.
I’m a fan of making small groups mandatory for membership, but know most churches can only “expect” it.
Staff members should be REQUIRED to be in a small group, even if you’re a Sunday School church. How can I know they are making disciples if all I see if programs and events? Church staff will be spiritually healthier if they are in groups as participants.
This small groups series is in your face. And I like it.
I work at Church of the Highlands in Birmingham, AL in our Small Groups department. It is so good to see that this week the main focus of the blog is on Small Groups and their effectiveness. I believe in them 100% and know the life chnage that happens in these groups.
Hearing the “dont’s” can be more effective then hearing the “do’s”. We all need to be reminded of why we do small groups and keep our focus strong. Thanks LifeChurch.tv for your continued support and friendship!
Good stuff!
make sure the senior pastor makes fun of the groups, especially the names of the groups, from the pulpit. (really happened in a church)
Great series! I came to my church a few years ago right after a small groups program they launched imploded, and I always wondered what exactly had gone wrong. I’m happy to report the new program we launched last fall, of which I am one of the leaders, has so far avoided pretty much all of your warnings. And the result has been that the entire church is pumped and really excited about the spiritual growth and fellowship these groups have produced.
Thanks for the excellent thoughts Craig!
Conviction hurts. You’ve hit on most of the points that I’ve been wrestling with since we started “small group” ministry, and the replies nailed the rest. I put it in quotes because we’ve definitely jumped in to the shallow end, and I know it. So, rather than lament here, let me pose some questions in the hope one or more of you will get in touch with me. heh.
1) We started with the open market model of small groups. The idea was that there would be a diverse list of interests being covered. We are currently running two groups successfully (meaning people actually show up). I’m thinking either the model is messed up (no clear direction) or the fact that only our ankles are wet is the problem.
2) We decided on a 3 month on / 1 month off cycle for the groups. This gives everyone a chance to take a break and change groups when the next session starts. It also allows the leaders to take a session or two off or bow out completely if leading a group just isn’t for them. This sounds great on paper, but we’re in our second session and went from six active groups to two.
3) How many of you guys actually had a Sunday School / Wed. night ministry that you transitioned out of into the small group model? I have been feeling that these two things are our “bronze snakes”. This blog entry is helping confirm that notion.
That’ll do for now. Great post again, Craig.
John… in terms of Sunday School and Wed. night ministries being the sacred cows of your church, challenge your people/leadership to look at the purpose of those ministries. You may just have to lead the way in that area. After all, sacred cows make the best burgers!
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I truly think each of us are designed a little differently. No matter how hard we tried to “make” a small group happen, it never was right for Chris or me.
But I look around at where we spend our time each week. There are certainly a small group of people whose lives are connected (even though they are not all members or attenders of the church I’m on staff at) and we truly do life together. These are my 3 am friends. We’d give everything for them and we know they’d give everything for us.
It’s not a church-ordained small group, but we see each other regularly, encourage each others’ walks, hold each other up, hold each other tightly. And I can’t think of any reason that’s doesn’t glorify God or accomplish the mission of what a “small group” ministry is set out to do.
[...] Your Small Group Ministry Fails: Part 2 Posted on March 5, 2009 by iankayser Another good post from Craig Groeschel …here are five more ways ways to reduce the possibility of a successful [...]
[...] as a whole church, we fail to have a good small groups.” Fortunately, someone compiled two lists of great ways to make sure your small groups fail. Boy, people really think of everything these [...]
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