By Allen White After spending the year pouring into others, often we get to Summer and dream of a tropical paradise. For more of us, that tropical paradise amounts to a week in Myrtle Beach. (There are better places to vacation in South Carolina, but as a resident for nine years now, I’m not allowed to tell you, especially if you’re from Ohio.)
Let’s face it for those of us overseeing discipleship and small group ministries in a church, Summer is really sort of an annual sabbatical for us in a way. After that week of vacation, what do we do? Sure we pitch in at VBS or youth camp. We might lead a mission trip or speak on a weekend or two. But, often we have more discretionary time in the Summer than in most other times of the year. What you invest in yourself now could make a huge difference this Fall.
Now that you have six weeks of your “sabbatical” remaining, here are a few thought about making your time productive and your Fall awesome.
Read.
I learned a long time ago that leaders are readers. Here’s the great news: you have time to read. Whether you prefer printed books, ebooks, or audio books, there is time to read. If you can’t find time to sit down and read for 20 minutes during the day, then download an audio book to listen when you travel to and from the office. My Summer commute is all of 12 minutes, but I can get 24 minutes of listening time in every day, which is two hours per week. When we multiply that by 6 weeks, we just found 12 hours of reading time this Summer.
Most of us don’t have hours to read during the day, but if we put in another 20 minutes, we could probably cover at least a chapter a day. Our lives are too short to make all of the mistakes and learn all of the hard lessons ourselves. So, cheat. Learn from other people mistakes and hard lessons. Here are a few books I’ve either just read or am reading this Summer.
Contagious by Jonah Berger. A professor at the Wharton School of Business discovers the best approaches and appeals to marketing. With great stories like the $100 Philly Cheese Steak and a Youtube sensation called “Will It Blend?” the author will take you through the six key areas of effective promotion. As you think about promoting your small groups this Fall, you will uncover some interesting thoughts from Berger about what to present and how to make it work. Deep and Wide by Andy Stanley. This is Andy Stanley’s “Gentlemen, this is a football” speech. Starting with the incredible stories of the inauspicious beginnings of North Point Community Church and challenging the church to be the church, Stanley delivers a solid whack on the side of the head. Small Groups for the Rest of Us by Chris Surratt. My friend, Chris, released this book last year. He offers a unique approach to groups in an approachable and transferable way. So many small group models just don’t work other places. Chris’ thoughts will work in churches large and small. Living Forward by Michael Hyatt and Daniel Harkavy. As pastors we are focused on fulfilling God’s plan for our lives. But, often we spend our days spinning our wheels and crying out to God for direction. While we should never be presumptuous about our own plans, the reality is if we don’t have a plan, then not very much gets accomplished. Living Forward helps you plan ahead for every aspect of your life. It’s not about getting rich quick or reaching the pinnacle of success as much as it’s about planning to give every area of your life what it needs when it needs it. How do you know how to do that? You have a plan.
Take an Online Course.
My book won’t be out until January 2017, so I can’t recommend it yet. But, if you’d like to see the first chapter, you can download it here: allenwhite.org/ebook. What I can offer you is my six session online course called Leading an Exponential to Group Launch. In this course you will learn proven strategies of set goals and make a plan, recruit leaders, develop a coaching structure, form groups, and get your groups to continue. This is a downloadable resource which includes six 45-60 minute talks along with the slide deck and some great downloadable templates, so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. If you would like to invest in a a live, in-person coaching relationship, I am starting a new six month coaching group this month. For more details, contact info@allenwhite.org
Take some time for yourself. Fall will be here before you know it. If you don’t have time to invest in yourself this Summer, well, then you have some things to learn.
What do you plan to differently this Fall than before? Leave your response below.
By Allen White Chris Surratt is a ministry consultant and coach with over twenty-two years of experience serving the local church. Most recently, Chris served on the Executive Team at Cross Point Church in Nashville, TN. Before coming to Cross Point in 2009, Chris was on staff at Seacoast Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Chris’s first book, Small Groups For The Rest Of Us: How to Design Your Small Groups System to Reach the Fringes, will be released by Thomas Nelson on September 29, 2015. You can find Chris blogging regularly at www.chrissurratt.com on the subjects of community, discipleship and leadership.
Q1. When we first met, you were the Greenville Campus Pastor for Seacoast Church. Seacoast the first multi-site church, and now there are over 8,000. What has changed with multi-site?
I would say that a lot has changed since we started experimenting with multisite in 2002. Very few churches were doing it, so no one had written books or started conferences about it yet. We felt like we were building the plane while we were flying it. While we made a ton of mistakes along the way, I don’t know that we would have tried it if we knew what we were doing. Churches are now opening up the definition of what a multiiste church can look like. Before, the only churches starting sites were mega-churches. Now, churches of all sizes are planting campuses. We saw it as primarily a band aid to growth capacity issues, but churches are now using it as an extension or a new expression of their ministry. People used to consider multisite a fad that would pass eventually. I don’t know that it will any time soon.
Q2. What NEEDS to change with multi-site?
There are still churches who look to multisite as a method for instant growth. With over 8000 multisite churches, it’s easy to want to jump onto the bandwagon and be a part of the movement, but not every church is ready or equipped to handle the issues that come with multiple locations. If your church is not currently growing in one location, and you still have capacity for growth, another location will not magically get it kick started. Cracks become gaps when you go multisite. Those same issues that are holding back potential now will travel with you to the next location. Put everything into making what you have now as healthy as possible, then consider multiplying it.
Q3. You just left the staff at Cross Point Church in Nashville to enter into the consulting world. I don’t understand why anyone would want to do that at all (wink). How can consultants help churches?
My family recently moved into a brand new house in downtown Nashville. During the process of moving in, someone (could have been me – no one really knows) took a chunk out of the wall carrying furniture up the stairs. Our first reaction was, we have to get that fixed as soon as possible, because it is going to drive us crazy to look at everyday. Two years later and it’s not fixed, and we never notice it anymore. The only time we think about it is when our small group comes to the house and lovingly points it out for us. No matter how amazing your church staff is, there is nothing like bringing in fresh eyes to see the cracks you have been staring at for months – or even years. A good consultant (like Allen or myself) can come in and walk alongside the staff to help maximize the good and fix the bad. My job is not to prescribe my way of ministry, but work with the leaders to make sure it fits their mission and culture.
Q4. I recently met your dad in Orlando with your brother, Greg. It seems a lot of pastor’s kids end up needing psychotherapy, yet the Surratt family now has generations of church leaders. What did your parents give you?
We have been referred to as the “Surratt Mafia” of the church world. I’m not sure if that’s good or not, but we should probably get nicer suits to wear. I think part of it is: we didn’t know anything else. My life has been spent in the church and I cannot imagine a better place to be. Growing up we had Sunday morning service, Sunday night service, Wednesday night Bible study, and revivals that would last for weeks. My mom would always say, “You don’t have to go to church, you get to go to church.” But, I never felt pressure to have to be in full-time ministry. My parents just instilled a love for the local church and the passion to help her reach the world with the Gospel. The methods have definitely changed with the generations of Surratts, but the mission has not. And, a follow up question, which doesn’t count toward the 5.5 questions, is the multiplication of the Surratt family the secret behind a multi-site church? Definitely with my brother, Greg. His kids have taken the “be fruitful and multiply” commandment personally.
As an introvert by nature, I have always felt left out by most small group systems. Between the connection hoops and the demand to share my secret sins in a room full of strangers, small groups felt like an intimidating concept. While thinking through how we could better design a system to reach people like me, I started running into other groups of people we were missing through our processes. If we were going to say we believed in community for everyone, what does that look like? The typical small group system is designed for the typical church attender. We have to begin thinking differently if we want to reach the people on the fringes. You’ll have to buy the book to find out how. 🙂 AW: I’m looking forward to it!
