Keeping Your New Groups

Forming new groups is one thing, but keeping your new groups is a different story. A church asked for coaching a few years ago. They were in a desperate situation. Having just completed their first 40 Days of Purpose campaign, the church was left with a result they didn’t want or expect. Prior to the campaign, the church didn’t have any groups. At the launch of 40 Days, they started 233 groups. It was an amazing story, until Day 41. When the campaign ended, the church was left with three groups. Now, if your a glass is half full kind of person, you would say, well, they have three more groups than they’ve ever had. But, if you’re more like me, well, going from 233 to 3 is a tragic loss. And, it was completely unnecessary.

Campaigns are Just a Start.

I love church-wide campaigns. They are a great way to get avowed non-leaders to open their homes to either host a group or get together with their friends and do a study. After all, you don’t need a leader to make disciples. You need a disciple to make disciples. Often the leadership word gets in the way. It’s okay to be stingy with the term “leader.” Just call them something else. After all, you’re not recruiting elders here.

If people are willing to open their homes and/or gather their friends, the truth is they already have more leadership ability than they give themselves credit for. It’s actually a pretty good test. If people have what it takes to gather a group, then they also have the ability to keep the group. Campaigns are a great way to get leaders to self-select. You don’t need to twist anybody’s arm. You just need to give them permission and opportunity to start a group. A short-term campaign of six weeks or so based on an easy-to-use curriculum is a great way to get them started. If your senior pastor is on the curriculum, then that’s a huge winner.

Give Them a Next Step.

Here’s an interesting fact about people: if you invite them to do a six-week study, when the six weeks is over, they think they’re done. I don’t know where they would get an idea like that. Most small group pastors/directors hope that people will love leading a group and will naturally want to continue. But, there’s the catch — many of them won’t think about continuing until you invite them to continue.

Think of it this way: when people sign up to start a group for a campaign, they are entering into a leadership recruiting process. Maybe you delay some of the requirements initially. You give them enough training to get started, then you let them lead the short-term group. It’s pretty easy. This is stage one of the leadership recruiting process. But, then you need to offer them stage two — continuing into another study.

If the groups like meeting together, then it should be pretty easy to invite them to a next step study like Community: Six Weeks to a Healthy Group, so they will continue. If the group faces some obstacles, then you or their coach needs to walk them through the issue and help them continue. And, of course, a few groups won’t be able to go forward. That’s okay.
The campaign is a test drive to see whether people like leading a group. It’s low commitment and low requirement. If they will accept the offer to a second study, then they are well on their way to becoming a full-fledged group leader.

If your groups are still in a Fall campaign, then offer them a study right now before the groups end. If they are new groups, choose the study for them. If they are established groups, then let them go back to what they’re used to doing.

If you do this right, at least 80 percent of your groups should continue. If you need help, join my Live Online Mini-Course: 3 Keys to Lasting Groups on Thursday, October 17, 2019 at 1-2 pm Eastern (Noon Central/11 am Mountain/ 10 am Pacific). This course comes with a complete set of notes and costs only $20. Click here to register securely through PayPal.
If you cannot attend the course on that date, you can sign up for the online course on Udemy.