By now you’ve probably heard of Rooted or used it in your church. Rooted is an experience brought over from Kenya by Mariners Church about a decade ago. If you haven’t heard of Rooted, you can get the full details here and here . While many churches have seen phenomenal life transformations through Rooted, other churches have struggled to implement Rooted or to deal with life after Rooted. While I’ve written a great deal about what is working with Rooted, let’s take a look at what churches are finding difficult.
Rooted is a Big Deal, but It’s Only 10 Weeks
Where will your groups go after Rooted ends? While Rooted should be a major initiative in any church, it is only 10 weeks. Rooted requires a certain amount of training in order to qualify a facilitator to lead the Rooted group. So, for the group to continue, you need to raise up a new leader to lead the on-going group. If you don’t then, you will lose your Rooted facilitator and will have to recruit more facilitators for future groups. You have to begin with the end in mind.
As the Rooted group starts, the facilitator needs to quickly size up the Rooted group to see who the potential on-going group leader might be. You could even get ahead of this by recruiting the on-going leader before the Rooted group begins. Of course, this puts you in the dilemma of recruiting both Rooted facilitators and group leaders. We all know how tough handpicking leaders can be.
One option would be to ask someone to gather a group, then give them a Rooted facilitator. Similar to a church-wide campaign where someone would gather their friends, then the church would supply a video-based curriculum. Instead of giving them a video, you would give them a Rooted facilitator. Then, when the 10-weeks of Rooted ends, you have the on-going leader in place.
The approach to disciple making in Rooted is much different than most Western left-brained approaches. The rhythms of Rooted touch on both the left and right sides of the brain. (For more on this see, The Other Half of Churchby Jim Wilder and Michel Hendricks). While there is plenty of left brained activity like daily homework and Bible discussion, the addition of the rhythms and experiences of Rooted produce powerful transformation. This combination creates an appetite for more. The problem is at this point there isn’t more.
I have seen a few other attempts at follow up studies to Rooted like Story and Life in Rhythm, but at this point neither of these measure up to the original Rooted. So, should your church avoid Rooted until this is remedied? Absolutely not! But, here’s what you need to think through.
First, in time Life in Rhythm will measure up, so be patient. You can offer Rooted without offering its immediate cousin as a next step. In fact, you can turn any 6-8 week study into a Rooted sequel by adding the prayer experience, strongholds study, serve experience, and celebration. The appetite is for the rhythms and not necessarily the “brand.” (But, the brand is pretty great.)
Next, consider other studies which relate to the themes of Rooted. At the Rooted Celebration the graduates are commissioned to find and fill needs in the community as “ministers of the Gospel.” Studies like The Neighboring Life by Rick Rusaw and Brian Mavis or The Art of Neighboring by Jay Pathak and Dave Runyon would dovetail beautifully with this commission. After all, you don’t need any special ability to be a neighbor!
Before you begin Rooted in your church, you need to have a next step study in mind. If you haven’t planned a next step, then you will have created an appetite that will go unsatisfied in your church. That is never a good thing.
Churches Don’t Know What They’re Getting Into
Rooted is a powerful experience. I have seen little else that produces the level of life transformation as Rooted. But, you know when you introduce powerful godly forces, then you will face a significant amount of spiritual warfare.
When I worked with Mariners Church and the Rooted Network on their pastors’ training events, as a Rooted semester began things would always happen: financial struggles, relationship tension, health problems – you name it. In every semester stuff happened. As a Presbyterian friend of mine says, “Well, when you do things for God you can expect a certain amount of spiritual flak!” And, we did. At one point, I mentioned to Robin Riley, the former COO of Rooted, “When it comes to the dynamics of Rooted, sometimes I wonder if you should run toward it or run away from it.” I’m not saying these things to scare you, but you need to be prepared.
You need to bathe your Rooted launch and Rooted experience in prayer. This is a powerful tool. God will do amazing things, but you will face opposition. Before you execute a single strategy, ask the prayer warriors in the church to pray for your staff, your facilitators, your members, your church, and your community. Otherwise, if you launch headlong into Rooted without sufficient prayer covering, you might end up like the Sons of Sceva (Acts 19). Ok, maybe not exactly, but you get what I’m saying.
Give every Rooted facilitator a coach and check in with them regularly. Rooted will bring up a lot of stuff. You won’t see this in the first two or three weeks, but after that, your facilitators will face some things they may not have experience in. They will need to process what’s going on in their group. Enlist some mature folks in your church to check in with your facilitators every week and make themselves available to them. While this is something you might be tempted to skip, don’t skip it. This is necessary for the well-being of your leaders.
Rooted Brings Up Major Issues
If Rooted works well, then Rooted graduates will never be the same. People will come to Christ. People will be set free. Some will be completely overwhelmed by the spiritual strongholds in their lives (Week 5). They will need something beyond Rooted to address these issues.
I am currently working with a church that did Rooted as a church-wide campaign a couple of years ago. All 1,400 of their people did Rooted all at once. They are still trying to sort everything out. For months there was not a single counseling appointment available in their town. All of the counselors were booked up with Rooted graduates who needed to process their strongholds.
If your church is doing Rooted as a church-wide campaign, then have some resources in place to deal with these strongholds. Celebrate Recovery and other support groups can be a great resource. Recommendations for local counselors will be welcome. The strength of Rooted is that people will face stuff that they’ve buried for a long time. They will experience freedom. They will experience blessing and connection with God. But, this isn’t automatic. Be prepared to give them the help they will need.
The Biggest Problem with Rooted
Churches have been anxious to offer Rooted to their people to see their lives transformed. This is a wonderful thing. This is what first attracted me to Rooted. But, this is only half of the equation.
The purpose of Rooted is to transform both people AND churches. When the people change but the church doesn’t change, there is a problem. Rooted is built on the Simple Church concept [LINK]. Rooted calls for you to re-evaluate the ministries in your church and to purge the things that don’t align with your mission.
In the early days of Rooted in North America, much was made about the Loop (pictured below). Now, many Rooted churches don’t know what the Loop is.
The title of the Loop tells the story: Transformational versus Transactional. The intent of Rooted is to change people’s lives, but also to change the culture of your church. The focus goes to culture, connection, and outreach – nothing else. Rooted is an empowering movement. But, if you attempt to put new wine into old wineskins, then you’ll have a mess on your hands.
Think About This
If you’re church is using Rooted or planning to, do it! But, plan ahead. Here’s your checklist:
What is your prayer strategy?
Who will lead the on-going group?
What are the next steps after Rooted?
Who will coach the Rooted facilitators?
What resources will you offer people to process their spiritual strongholds?
How will you allow Rooted to impact your church in every area?
Rooted can and will make a tremendous difference your community. If you are ready or reluctant to launch Rooted in your church, then let’s talk. Click this link to set up an appointment.]
Rooted is different. When Mariners Church began to report the outcomes of Rooted participants as 90 percent continuing in on-going small groups, 84 percent increasing their giving, and 73 percent increasing their serving, it sounded almost too good to be true. What’s more Rooted is high commitment, advanced preparation, and daily homework. This was counterintuitive to those who have lowered the bar and launched easy-to-use church-wide campaigns. Something was certainly unique about Rooted.
A Little History on Rooted
“I didn’t want to be remembered for building buildings or building a big church,” confessed Kenton Beshore, Pastor Emeritus, Mariners Church, Irvine, CA. “I wanted the legacy to be building disciples.” At the time, Mariners had a large menu of ministries with no clear path. “The idea of simple church was a big influence on us.” Rooted, or Mizzizi in Swahili, is based on a discipleship method developed by Pastor Muriithi Wanjua at Mavuno Church in Nairobi, Kenya. It is a non-Western approach to discipleship, yet it is not new. “Rooted is by far the best, most authentic, discipleship process I’ve ever experienced,” said Paul Dowler, Core Values and Community Life Pastor, Compass Christian Church, Colleyville, TX. “The secret to it is that it is not really something ‘new’. It’s actually an experience/process that has worked throughout the centuries by the first century church, the Moravians, the Celtics, the Methodists…the basics of the faith. [Rooted helps the participants with their] understanding the nature of God, the fall, and redemption; dealing with strongholds and sin; and activating people to mission. It’s totally refreshing to not chase the ‘culturally relevant’ because that changes constantly.” Convinced God was using Mizzizi to disciple people in all stages of their faith, Kenton began to work with Pastor Muriithi to adapt the experience to Western culture. Mariners Church translated and designed it for use in the West without taking away the impact of the non-Western approach.
What is Rooted?
Rooted is a 10-week experiential study with three large group sessions, 10 small group meetings, 45 daily devotionals, and three experiences. The focus rests on three themes: Connecting with God, Connecting with the Church, and Connecting with Your Purpose. “People don’t grow in classrooms. People grow in experiences. They grow in relationship with each other. To motivate them, we have to put them in high risk environments. This is what we found in Rooted,” Kenton reported. While Rooted is a Bible study, it is experiential in nature, meaning that the Bible, the relationships with others, and experiences work together to transform lives. The groups utilize “The Seven Rhythms of Rooted” which include Daily Devotion, Prayer, Freedom from Strongholds, Serving the Community, Sacrificial Generosity, Sharing Your Story, and Celebration. The integration of study, prayer, experiences, and relationships accelerates life change because the participants are doing what they’re learning while they are learning it. “There are thousands of discipleship programs in North America, and I think I studied all of them,” Shelly Juskiewicz, Community Life Pastor, Mariners Church, says. “What I found is they all pretty much have the same content. What makes Rooted different is that it’s based on experiential learning rather than a lecture or leader teaching each week. Life transformation comes more through experiences than through knowledge. Teaching comes in and goes out and very little of it stays. But if you can share an experience together and do something, it changes people.” The three large group gatherings include a Vision Night, a Money Talk, and a Celebration all led by the senior pastor. The Celebration typically includes a meal, worship, individuals declaring their faith, water baptism, and a commissioning. The 10 small group meetings focus on the topics: Who is God?, How does God Speak to Us?, Where is God in the Midst of Suffering?, There is an Enemy, How Can I Make the Most of My Life (2 meetings), Why and How Should I Tell Others?, and Why is the Church Important? The topics are further explored in five daily devotionals per week, which are essential to the impact on the individual. The three experiences are a prayer experience, a serve experience, and breaking strongholds.The two-hour prayer experience in the third week of Rooted is the watershed moment for most Rooted participants. Those who participate in the guided prayer session based on their The Lord’s Prayer, The Armor of God (Ephesians 6), or another Scripture passage, will continue on to finish the rest of Rooted and receive the full benefit. On average, 10 percent of participants drop out prior to the prayer experience. “The end goal of the prayer experience is to help them hear God’s voice in their lives,” according to Matt Olthoff, Network Development Pastor for the Rooted Network. The serve experience gives each group the opportunity to serve the poor in their communities. The focus, however, is not based on the act of service. Rather, the participants are encouraged to listen to God’s voice while they are in the process of serving the poor. “You want to encourage everyone to experience God while they are serving, then debrief these experiences afterward. The debrief involves crystallizing next steps based on what God spoke to them,” said Olthoff. Breaking strongholds in week five starts with a discussion on spiritual warfare, then the group is divided by gender into two groups. “Strongholds are areas of sin in our lives where our flesh and Satan work together to create destructive patterns that are sometimes hard to see. We have the authority and power of the Holy Spirit to break free from these influences.” If group members feel they have a stronghold, they confess the pattern of sin in their lives and choose to replace it with a new character quality they want to adopt. This is the beginning of a process that the Holy Spirit works in the life of the individuals. In some cases, group members may be referred for professional counseling. These three experiences are both powerful and profound in the growth of the group members. Rooted focuses beyond the information the Bible provides on discipleship, but moves group members toward living out what God directs them to do.
How Do Churches Use Rooted?
While Rooted is a curriculum used in a small group, it is not a small group curriculum. In fact, individual small groups are discouraged from using the materials as a one-off Bible study. The implications of Rooted are for the church as a whole. Rooted cannot be used effectively as an isolated class, group study, or individual study. The full impact of Rooted is felt as a church-wide experience, but don’t read that as a “church-wide campaign.” While church-wide campaigns have helped to connect entire congregations into groups for a six-week experience by offering video-based curriculum so anyone can start a group, Rooted is the opposite. Rooted can only be led by a trained facilitator. In order to recruit facilitators, most churches will offer pilot groups first for their pastors, staff, and church leaders, then a second round of pilot groups for other influential leaders in their church. After two rounds of 10-week pilots, in most cases the church is ready to launch Rooted with their entire congregation. Rooted is not meant to serve as one of many options. For Mariners Church, initially offering Rooted as one more option to its large menu of options proved to greatly lessen the impact. Today, Rooted is offered as the entry point for every other level of involvement in the church. If someone wants to join a small group, they do Rooted first. If someone wants to serve, they go through Rooted. If someone wants to become a church member, they do Rooted first. This goes for every other ministry in the church without exception. Part of the significance of the pilot groups with pastors and church leaders is to determine the church’s level of buy-in to Rooted. If the pastors feel strongly about Rooted, they will present it was the front door to everything else in the church. If the pastors don’t feel that strongly, then Rooted will more than likely not produce the result seen at other churches. Once groups are formed and Rooted is underway, the facilitators meet for weekly training and coaching. Since Rooted often touches deep issues in people’s lives, it’s important for the facilitators to have the support of a coach every time they lead a Rooted group. In every Rooted session they will find new challenges and new issues among the group members. They may have never faced these things before, so support is essential.
Why Rooted?
Though high in commitment, Rooted provides results across the board. “Rooted has a way of impacting the unchurched, the dechurched, and the over-churched at the same time,” according to Drew Sherman, Senior Pastor, Compass Christian Church, Colleyville, TX. “For far too long the American Church has been redesigning and/or trying to improve something that doesn’t really need to be improved. I can totally see Rooted creating a legitimate movement and revival in the American Church.” writes Paul Dowler, Core Values and Community Life Pastor, Compass Christian Church, Colleyville, TX. “Maybe I’m just on the mountaintop from celebrating the lives that have been transformed. But, I’m pretty confident this is going to keep working, and it’s not a ministry fad.” Before you get started with Rooted, read What’s Wrong with Rooted. For more information on Rooted: experiencerooted.com Considering Rooted for your church? Then let’s talk. Click here to schedule a meeting. (No Charge! I just want to help you).
By Allen White Pastor Kenton Beshore and Mariners Church started something six years ago that intrigues me. I’m more than a little leery when a ministry presents a new strategy which they claim is the best thing since sliced bread. (I also wonder what the best thing was before sliced bread). I’ve been in ministry for a long time. I preached my first sermon 34 years ago. I’ve been part of the small group movement for the last 20 years. It’s not that I’m old — I’m only 51 and I have a two year old — I was called to ministry early in life. There have been so many faddish things over the years. Some of them produced temporary results. Some produced no results. Just a few produced lasting results. I’m talking everything from the launch of bus ministry to the introduction of praise music to the comfort of seeker services to the impact of church-wide campaigns. Each one of those basically claimed their own decade from the 1970’s on. People were saved. Churches grew. Impact was made. But, then they disappeared. Some strategies and ministry ideas had a much shorter shelf-life. So, now that you understand my jaded, skeptical point of view, you can certainly understand why I very rarely endorse anything. I want to see how it plays out. Is this just the next new shiny thing that we pastors tend to chase after? Is this an attempt to copycat what’s working somewhere else in hopes it will work here? Then, I get real honest — is somebody just out to make a buck?
My Introduction to the Rooted Experience.
About nine months ago, Caleb Anderson, Lead Pastor of Mariners Church, Huntington Beach, CA, introduced me to Rooted. I was blown away. It’s not a program. It’s not merely a curriculum. It’s a catalyst that produces dramatic transformation. He had my attention, but I did go to school in Missouri, so he needed to show me. Then, I began to hear story after story of transformed lives. People coming to Christ. Marriages saved. Addictions forsaken. Bodies and minds completely healed. Lives and finances surrendered to God. But, here’s the most intriguing thing — all of this was happening over a 10 week experience. Now, I really had to see this to believe it. I was part of the Rooted Training in November of last year and met churches of many denominations, sizes, and locations who were telling similar stories. I’ve spent the last month on the phone with pastors from across the country talking about how lives are transformed, congregations are emboldened, and communities are impacted because of a simple 10 week experience in Rooted. My doubts were quickly erased.
What a Kenyan Church Taught Kenton Beshore about Discipleship
In partnership with a Kenyan church, Kenton Beshore was introduced to a non-Western, experiential learning process which was seeing dramatic transformations in Africa. Having exhausted many means of discipleship, assimilation, and church growth in the U.S., Kenton thought, “Why not bring Rooted (or Mizizi in Swahili) to Mariners?” The results have been remarkable. After six years of leading the congregation of Mariners Church through Rooted, 90 percent of Rooted groups have gone on to become on-going Life Groups at Mariners Church with 90 percent of the group members continuing in the Life Groups. Rooted graduates have increased their giving by 82 percent and 70 percent have increased their serving. Now, imagine those kinds of results in your church. Here’s the thing about Rooted, if you just perused the curriculum, you would probably find it fairly unremarkable in and of itself. In fact, at first glance it appears fairly uncomplicated, and yet those who have completed the 10 week Rooted journey have discovered the experience is bold, focused, and powerful. They have seen health in their members, their churches, and their ministries unlike what they’ve seen before. Like I said, I am leery of new shiny things. But in Rooted, I have found something so remarkable and so special that I actually joined the Rooted Team for a season. And, I’m still a huge advocate. Need Help Launching Rooted in Your Church? We can take you through step-by-step. Before you get started with Rooted, read What’s Wrong with Rooted.
An ill timed launch is nearly as bad as no small group launch at all. You probably launch groups along with everything else in the fall and in the New Year. Those are great windows to launch groups, so what’s the problem?
In most churches, the senior pastor wants to kick off a big fall series as soon as everyone has settled back into church. The pastor will give a “State of the Church” message right after New Year’s Day, then launches into a major sermon series. If these sermon series are aligned with a small group study, then when do you recruit group leaders? And, when do you form groups? Before everybody gets back?
How Does This Work?
Let’s say that everyone is back onsite in the fall around mid-August. This will vary from church to church by a few weeks either way. If your pastor plans a big fall kick off with a sermon series starting in mid-August, you have to recruit leaders and attempt to form groups in July and early August. For most churches that means you are trying to recruit leaders when many of your people are on vacation.
The same goes for the New Year. If your series begins in early to mid-January, then you are recruiting group leaders and forming groups in December. But just in case you haven’t discovered this: nothing happens in December expect for Christmas.
Attempting to recruit leaders in the middle of summer or in December is completely futile. (Okay, maybe you recruited a couple of leaders once, but for the most part it’s futile.) You have to recruit leaders and form groups when your people are actually back. What does this mean?
If your people are back in church physically and mentally in mid-August, then start recruiting group leaders in mid-August. But, what happens to your senior pastor’s fall kick off? Your pastor can still launch the fall with a great sermon series, but wait to align your small group study with the NEXT sermon series (provided your pastor doesn’t do 20-week sermon series). You recruit group leaders in mid- to late August. You form groups in early September. You launch groups with a sermon-aligned study in mid-September.
Here’s a Great Result
One church in my Small Group Ministry Coaching Group made this adjustment and went from 30% of their adults in groups to 42% in groups just by launching with the next series instead of launching with the kick off series. At our church in California, our people weren’t back until after Labor Day. We recruited group leaders in September. Our Connection event to join groups was in early October. We launched our six-week aligned series on the second Sunday in October with it finishing just before Thanksgiving. Our next study started in late January or early February. The groups focused more on group life between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day.
But, What About Semester-Long Studies?
And, this strategy relieves another problem for you: every group and every ministry wants to launch all at once. By delaying your aligned series launch for a few weeks, people can sign up for Financial Peace, Rooted, or a Beth Moore study first, then you can recruit the remainder of folks to lead or join series-based groups. After all, a group is a group is a group. As long as they’re doing something intentional about their spiritual growth, does it matter what type of group they’re in? Everyone certainly doesn’t need to do the same thing.
Think About This
Recruiting leaders takes a lot of time and effort. By adjusting your alignment schedule, you put in the same amount of effort, but you get a better result simply by changing the timing. As long as your fall series ends by Thanksgiving and your New Year series ends by Easter, you’re in really good shape.
What does your fall church calendar look like? How can you make this adjustment to maximize your recruiting?
If you need a little help working through this issue, try Burst Coaching. You get three private coaching session plus an additional resource for only $197. For more information, click here.
Community is just as essential to spiritual growth as content. Think about this: Jesus who designed your brain also taught you how to make disciples. According to one study, Jesus spent 73% of His time with His disciples. This involved teaching, eating, serving, debating, correcting, and sending. All of this was wrapped around community. While the Enlightenment hijacked the Western church’s approach to disciple making, neuroscience is showing the importance of community in developing godly character.
Disciple making is not merely a transfer of information. It’s not simply making better choices. Disciple making is certainly not a process. After all, you’re not manufacturing widgets. And, as I’ve written before, sermons don’t make disciples. Character is formed in community. How is community formed? Here are some ways to connect your congregation into community:
Leverage Existing Relationships
“Everyone is already in a group.” That’s the first sentence of my first book, Exponential Groups: Unleashing Your Church’s Potential(Hendrickson 2017) . When you think about your people, they are in families, workplaces, classes, sports teams, hobbies, friendships, and neighborhoods. Over the years, I discovered that some people won’t join a small group because they value these relationships more than a church small group. Rather than grousing against that pull, I embraced it. Resource and empower people to make disciples in the groups they already enjoy. You don’t have to make it hard.
The short of it is if you will give your people permission and opportunity to start a group, give them an easy-to-use resource (like self-produced curriculum with your pastor’s teaching), a little training, and a coach to walk alongside them, you can start more groups than you’ve ever dreamed. If you don’t know the leader, then don’t advertise their group. They’re gathering their friends anyway. These groups tend to form more easily and stay together longer than groups formed in other ways. After all, groups of friends tend to last longer than groups of strangers. (You’ll have to read the rest of Exponential Groups to learn the system of starting and sustaining small groups for the long haul.) Leveraging existing relationships is one way to create community.
Pursuing a Common Topic or Interest
Sometimes community starts from the other direction. Instead of gathering friends for a study, people sign up for group based on a relevant topic. You can start groups around marriage, parenting, relationships, finances, Bible studies, book clubs, and a myriad of other subjects. People are drawn by the topic, but stay for the community.
Similarly, you can start groups around hobbies, interests, or activities. What do your people enjoy doing? These groups can connect both people in your church and in your community. Again, by giving permission and opportunity, someone with an interest can start a group around it.
Now in both of these cases, you will need to know these leaders well, since you will advertise these groups. They will need to qualify as leaders in your church, so the start up process will be longer than gathering groups of friends, but it’s important to offer multiple strategies to form groups. After all, one size does not fit all.
Connecting through a Shared Experience
Shared experience can range from serving teams to missions trips to Rooted groups. These are higher commitment experiences that quickly bond people together. While every group may not start this way, it would be a waste to allow these tight knit groups to discontinue.
When your people serve in the community, they develop a connection. When they travel together outside of the country, they certainly bond together. When they spend 10 weeks in a Rooted group, they are united by a powerful experience that stretches them in many ways. All of these experiences beg for a way to continue. Give them an opportunity to continue.
Think About This
This is a short list. This is just a sample of the ways your people can connect into community. What I want you to hear is that people need more than content. If they only needed content, then you could post online videos for them to watch, and they would just grow on their own. The problem is that they won’t watch videos in isolation, and they can’t grow without encouragement, support, accountability, and relationship with others. People are just not made that way.
Offer as many opportunities as possible for people to connect in community. Start friend groups, campaign groups, men’s groups, women’s groups, topic studies, activity groups, affinity groups, support groups, and on-going groups out of shared experiences. My only caution is this: Don’t start all of these all at once. But, for everyone who tells you “no,” offer them something they might say “yes” to.
Justin Bird from Crossfit once said, “People came for the fit and stayed for the family.” (from a recent episode of the Church Pulse Weekly podcast with Jay Kim). I wrote about Crossfit a few years back in a post called What Michelob Ultra Understands About Community: “Now, before you announce in the next staff meeting that your church is going to open its own CrossFit gym, don’t miss the point. Community comes in various shapes and sizes: small groups, activity groups, task groups, classes, Bible studies — all of these are environments where community can take place, but none are a guarantee that community will take place. Community is formed around common goals, common interests, and even common enemies. Maybe promoting community in the church is recognizing the community that is already taking place.”
How are you creating community in your church? What do you need to try?
