Adam Bishop again today, sharing the 3rd and final element to being sure that you always have enough small group leaders at your church.

The final, and most important element in identifying and involving new group leaders is

TRUST

- You have to trust the judgment of the group leaders who are praying for and interacting with the members of their group each week when it comes to new group leaders.

- You have to trust the recommendations that you receive from your team leaders.

- You have to trust that the system you have put into place will produce the leaders you need for the next semester.

Without trust, you will find yourself scrambling and stressing to beg, borrow and steal enough group leaders each semester.

Kerrick Thomas and I share more strategies on how to identify, ask, and raise up new leaders in our monthly Small Groups Pastor Tele-Coaching Network, as well as all other aspects of how to effectively implement a semester-based small groups system.

The next network begins on February 4 (less than 30 days away), so there’s not much time left for you to sign up!

I hope that helps!

Adam

P.S. To download your application for our upcoming Small Groups Pastor Tele-Coaching Network, CLICK HERE.

Adam Bishop (Small Groups Pastor at The Journey) here again.  I shared yesterday that the key to identifying and involving enough small group leaders at your church is to make that process a priority for each of your current group leaders.

The only way to get your group leaders to actively pray for new leaders, see potential leaders as Jesus sees them and ask them to lead is through… you guessed it – TRAINING.

The training of your group leaders can be broken down into three categories:

1. ONCE-A-SEMESTER SMALL GROUP LEADERS TRAINING - This training needs to take place two weeks prior to the start of each semester.  At The Journey, we have ours on a Sunday afternoon for three hours.  So if you have a spring, summer, and fall semester you will have three trainings a year.

Begin with the end goal in mind – clearly communicate to your group leaders at the training that identifying, asking, and producing new group leaders from their group is one of the goals of leading a group.

Celebrate and reward group leaders who have modeled this well.  At our last training, I gave away three gift cards for a day at the spa to the three group leaders who had produced the most new group leaders. Remember, what gets rewarded gets repeated.

2. WEEKLY TRAINING - Utilize a weekly email to your group leaders to reinforce the importance of identifying and asking new people to lead.

Around four to six weeks into the semester, ask your current group leaders to respond with the names of current group members who could potentially lead next semester.

3. MONTHLY TEAM LEADER TRAINING – I do not meet with all of our group leaders on a monthly basis, but I do meet with our Team Leaders.

Our team leaders are high capacity volunteers who provide care, communication, and coaching to the leaders of the five small groups on their team.  The number of team leaders you have will grow as your number of groups grows.

I lead a one hour a month meeting with our Team Leaders on Monday nights.  Regardless of the agenda at these meetings, I always make a point to focus on identifying and asking new people to lead in some form.

They in turn continue to communicate the importance of this to the group leaders on their team.  All of this serves to raise the value of finding new leaders in our small groups system.

Don’t miss tomorrow’s post where I’ll share the most important element in finding enough group leaders…

P.S. The new Small Groups Pastor Tele-Coaching Network that Kerrick Thomas and I are leading is beginning in less than a month and we still have a few more spots available.  For more information and to download an application, CLICK HERE

Good morning!  This is Adam Bishop, Pastor of Small Groups at The Journey, and Nelson asked me to share some thoughts about a struggle that many churches face when it comes to small groups – finding enough group leaders!

The first question I ask when a Small Groups Pastor shares this issue with me is “Does the system you are using to identify and ask new group leaders function ‘within’ your current groups system or ‘in addition to’ your groups system?

In other words, does your small groups system include a mechanism that naturally finds and involves future leaders?

How do you do this while not interfering with your groups as they meet each week?

Interestingly enough, the answer lies within your current group leaders.

When it comes to identifying and asking new people to lead groups, there are three things that every current group leader must do:

1.  PRAY - We want our group leaders to pray for the members of their group, specifically that some of them will lead future groups.  We pray that God will prepare in advance those who we will ask to lead for the next semester.

2.  SEE - We want our group leaders to see the members of their group as Jesus sees them – with potential to influence the lives of others.  Jesus did not expect perfection or Biblical expertise to be a leader and neither should we.

3.  ASK – We want our group leaders to boldly ask members from their group to lead.  We tell our group leaders that the best thing they could ever do for someone else is to ask them to lead a group!  It is a huge encouragement to the group member who is asked to lead.  And… even if it doesn’t work out for the next semester, he or she will more than likely eventually lead a group.

So how do you make this a part of your small groups system?  I’ll talk about that tomorrow.

P.S. Kerrick Thomas and I are making the final preparations for our brand new Small Groups Pastor Tele-Coaching Network that starts on February 4.  For more information or to download your application, CLICK HERE.

P.P.S. You can download a FREE copy of Nelson’s new Activate: Uncut E-Book by clicking here.

This is Kerrick Thomas (Executive & Teaching Pastor at The Journey and co-author of Launch and Activate.

Nelson asked me to address a key question that we are often asked by church planters: When should we begin small groups?

Our standard answer to that question is to wait until you have over 100 people attending before beginning small groups, but I thought I’d go a little further today to elaborate on the “why” behind the “when.”

So, why wait to start small groups?

Reason #1 - When you are first starting a church, you should  not expend the energy required to get small groups started in the first 6 months regardless of how big you grow.

There is just too much to do for a church planter that early in the process.  We recommend get your other systems under control at the beginning of the new church before moving on to small groups.

Systems like the Worship Planning System, the Assimilation System and the Evangelism System are foundational to a healthy start of a church, and they deserve your focus and energy before Small Groups.

Reason #2 - When you have fewer than 100 people your church basically is a  small group.  Everyone knows everyone anyway – so the importance of  small groups is minimized.

It’s okay to start small groups if you are still under 100 if you’ve been going for over a year.  Ideally you would have grown past 100, but even if you are running 50-80 people you can begin small groups and see positive spiritual fruit.

The whole idea behind holding off boils down to this:  It’s best to wait to begin small groups until you can implement and facilitate them effectively, right from the start.

I hope that helps!

Blessings…

Kerrick

P.S. Adam Bishop and I are about to begin a brand new Small Groups Pastor Tele-Coaching Network in just a few weeks.  For more information and to download an application, CLICK HERE.

This is Kerrick Thomas, Executive & Teaching Pastor at The Journey and co-author of Activate: An Entirely New Approach to Small Groups.

One of many contrarian ideas behind the Activate small groups system has to do with the number of people you allow to sign up for any one “small” group.

Nelson asked me to share some of the thinking behind that idea today.

Here’s a question we often hear:

I am struggling with your suggestion to allow 20 people to sign up for each small group. I have always heard/read/been taught/experienced that anymore than 10-12 in a group begins to diminish the discussion. Doesn’t that minimize each person’s participation? And who has a house large enough for 20 people to meet together? Can you help me understand this better?

This is one of those questions that we’ve gotten very familiar with over the last couple of years. We go further into explanation of “Why 20?” in Activate, so you can check that out if you haven’t already (to order from Amazon.com, CLICK HERE).

Here are a few thoughts:

1- 20 sign-ups doesn’t mean 20 “show ups”. 20 sign-ups means 12-15 people actually present and participating each week. Think about it. If you have 20 sign ups for a small group, 2-3 of the 20 will never show up. And with busy lives – 3-5 will miss on any given week.

So, if you allow 20 to sign up – you have the best chance of having 12-15 present in the group each and every week.

If you allow only 12 to sign up. 1-2 may never show up. And then 2-4 may miss on any given week. So instead of actually having 12 there every week – you end up with 6-8.

So – if your goal is 12-15 people present each week – let 17-20 people sign up for each group.

2- We believe that 12-15 people present is best for great discussion. If you have fewer than 8 people present in any group – the discussion suffers greatly (especially if you have fewer than 5).

Here’s why:

• In groups that are smaller (fewer than 8 ) – 1 weirdo can ruin the experience for everyone. We call this the “Weirdo Factor.” But in a group of 12-15 – one odd bird doesn’t stand out and can’t dominate.
• In a group that is smaller – one person can dominate discussion much easier than in a larger group.
• In a group that is smaller – there is less of a chance I’ll actually connect with someone in the group. I might not click with anyone. But in a group of 12-15 odds are that there is someone there I can relate to and would like to spend time with.
• In a group that is smaller – especially if you have people who are new to the church or who are not yet followers of Jesus – discussion may be non-existent. What if no one talks. Then the leader needs to be prepared to give a 45 minute lecture. They have to have the gift of teaching.

In other words – a larger group (12-15 people present) is much easier to lead for the leader, promotes more discussion, brings greater excitement, leads to the possibility of greater friendships and prevents one person from dominating the group or making it a bad experience.

3- Finally – the key issue in all this is leader retention. Will our small group leaders want to lead again next semester?

We have found that a leader has a much better experience if a group consistently has 12 – 15 people each week (makes discussion easier, better fellowship, etc.). So if you only allow 12 to sign-up and you have several nights when only 6 – 7 show up – that’s a tougher experience for the leader and it makes them less likely to lead again in the future.

Again – we say more about this in “Activate” in the Big Idea “Think Bigger, Not Smaller.”

Here’s the Amazon link again.

Right now, if you’re still not completely convinced, I challenge you to trust me.  Let your groups fill to 20 sign-ups and see how it positively impacts the groups experience.

And check out some of our other blog posts on small groups like this one:

http://www.churchleaderinsights.com/blog/2009/07/28/q-a-how-many-small-groups/

God bless…

Kerrick

P.S. – By the way – you or your small groups pastor should consider being a part of my upcoming Small Group Tele-Coaching Network. It kicks off on Thursday, November 19 and during the network me and my team will walk you through 2 semesters of small groups in the “Activate” system. The network comes with:

- Monthly 2-hour coaching phone call

- Hands-on coaching from guys going through the semester-based process ourselves

- Unlimited e-mail and phone access to me and our small group team

- Every single small group document and resource The Journey has ever used (including e-mails to leaders, leader trainings, calendars, promotion ideas and much more)

- Tons of other free resources and special guests on our phone calls

- Reading assignments every month

I’m just wrapping up a network right now with over 20 great churches in it. It has been phenomenal and each church has seen a dramatic increase in small group participation and life-change.

Here’s a link to the application and to find out more:

http://www.churchleaderinsights.com/coaching/smallgroupstelecoaching.php