By Allen White On Sunday, February 22, Pastor Perry Noble announced eight new campuses of NewSpring Church by the end of the year. In addition to four multisite campuses in Clemson, Greer, Simpsonville, and Northwest Columbia, SC, house campuses are being launched in Rock Hill, Sumter, Aiken and Hilton Head Island, SC. Hearkening back to the start of NewSpring Church, Perry shared how 15 people started in a living room in 2000. In the same way, the house campuses will start in homes led by NewSpring members and supervised by NewSpring staff. Different from a small group, the house campuses will view a special edition of the NewSpring service together online and will include children’s ministry. Similar to a small group, house campuses are exponentially expandable and are only limited to the number of homes available. House campuses will offer pastoral care and ministry similar to a multisite campus. They are more than just a bunch of people watching an online service in a living room. As house campuses grow, additional homes in the area will be added. If enough people begin to participate in the house campuses, there is potential to add a multisite campus to the area. With a goal of reaching 100,000 people in the state of South Carolina for Christ, the house campus concept, similar to the microsite campus I blogged about a while back, has the ability to reach all corners of the state and any open living room. There is no cost for renting or purchasing a building, since the millions of dollars in NewSpring’s members’ homes will be leveraged to bring the Gospel and the ministry of NewSpring Church to any community. Every church currently doing multisite campuses can launch new campuses in the same way. These microsite, house campuses can be launched anywhere from the small town out in the country to a group of scientists in Antarctica to a group of astronauts on the space station. There is no limit. I can’t wait to see where requests for house campuses come from next. I love my church! You might also be interest in: Three Reasons for Microsite Campuses The Rise of the Microsite Church
By Allen White Over the last couple of years, I have worked from a home office. After 20 years of getting up every morning and driving to an office, I have found certain advantages to working from home:
1. Flip flops in Summer and Slippers in Winter.
2. I can travel the country via teleconference at the click of a button.
3. Pants are optional. (Shorts are a minimum requirement).
4. The only clean part of my office is what you see on camera.
5. Unlimited hugs from my kids (we homeschool too).
6. Commute is Zero.
7. Banking by Mobile App
8. USPS delivers and ships from my mailbox every day.
Now that your group has spent a few weeks together in the Fall study, you probably have a sense of whether or not you actually like each other and want to continue as a group. Your first thought might be “Continue? What? I thought that this was a six-week commitment.” And, you’re absolutely right, this was only a six-week commitment. I want to thank you for honoring your commitment. This six weeks has been significant in the lives of your group members.
This is not bait and switch. Six weeks is six weeks, fair and square. If you aren’t planning to continue with your group, we do need to think about a couple of things:
1. Is there anyone in your group who has shown interest in continuing the group? If you group has passed around the leadership each week, you probably have a sense of who would be capable of moving the group forward. Who truly cares about the group? Who has attended the most faithfully? Who called when they couldn’t make it? These are the people who care the most about the group and very well could lead the group forward.
2. If there is no apparent leader, are there other groups that you can recommend to your group members? Check to see if there is another group like yours or if there is another group that meets nearby. Don’t just send your group to the wolves, I mean the web. Point them to a couple of specific choices.
If you want to continue with your group, now is the time to decide on your next study. This is the fourth week of the study. It usually works best for groups, especially new groups, to decide on their next study before the current study ends. There are so many choices for studies out there that a period of indecision, even just a couple of weeks, could easily cause your group to falter.
If your group would like to follow the next series at Brookwood Church, we will spend the eight weeks following The Me I Want to Be series looking at the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-13). There are a couple of options that I would like to recommend for your group:
1. Life's Healing Choices is an 8-week study from Saddleback Church. Rick Warren teaches on the DVD. There is also a hard cover book that you can read along with the study.
2. Living a Blessed Life by Lance Witt, a teaching pastor at Saddleback Church, is a 6-week study. This study is an enriching, verse-by-verse discussion of the Beatitudes. A teaching DVD is also available.
3. Message Discussion Guide. The discussion guide is written and posted every Sunday nearly year-round. The guide will help your group apply the teaching from Perry's messages to your daily life. It is available as a download at brookwoodchurch.org/discussionguide
Now if your group has been around for a while or if none of these studies interest you, you are welcome to study what your group is the most interested in. We have a wide variety of Small Group DVDs at the Brookwood Bookstore including studies by Andy Stanley, John Ortberg, Chip Ingram, and many others. You can check the DVD out of the Small Group Library, and then just order the books that you need for your group. When your order comes in, your group members can purchase the study guides from the bookstore.
The most important thing is to make a decision in the next week. If your group is new, you may find that they don’t have much of an opinion about the next study at this point. That’s okay. Just choose one of the options I mentioned for the Beatitudes study and go from there. If you have any questions, your coach will certainly help you.
