It took me seven years to connect 30 percent of our church members into groups. This wasn’t our first attempt either. We attended conferences, read books, interviewed pastors, and studied model after model. We had more groups than most, but our groups were stuck. Then, my pastor and I made a decision to join a coaching group and learn some proven ways to do small groups. Within six months, not only had we connected everybody into groups, we also had another 25 percent over and above our weekly adult attendance. Coaching made a huge difference for us. Over the last 12 years, I have had the privilege of coaching hundreds of churches across North American including some of the largest ones. In the last nine months, churches in our coaching program have started upwards of 5,000 small groups total…and that’s only around 18 churches. A church of 2,500 in Renton, WA now has 500 groups. A church of 300 in Barrington, IL connected nearly 600 people into groups this last year. Some truly amazing things have come out of coaching. With Allen White Consulting, we want to make these proven strategies available to a church of any size. We want to help you connect your members into groups and keep those groups for the long term by offering high quality coaching. Some churches we work with have paid $30,000-$50,000 per year for coaching. We want to make these effective principles available to every church at a price you can afford. We are doing this through: Free Webinars. Online Courses starting at $97. Our newest course is available for $57 (a 60% discount). Coaching Groups of 5 churches learning together starting at $197 per month. Personal Coaching for individual churches (fees are based on the size of church). I want to help you the same way someone once helped me. Now, I could have continued the cycle of attending conferences, reading books, trying new ideas, starting 10 more groups, but once I embraced the focus and momentum of coaching, we doubled our groups in a day. I can help you step by step toward your goals. Where are you stuck? I will give you 20 minutes of my time to work through your issue. Call me at 949-235-7428 or email: allen@allenwhite.org Allen White Allen White Consulting, Inc. Taking the Guesswork Out of Groups
By Allen White When you fly, you count on sameness. Good planes, good service, on-time departure — these are the things frequent fliers enjoy. Anything out of the ordinary is unwelcome. When things become out of the ordinary on a trip, like someone brings out the snack cart at your gate, it is the kiss of death for an on-time departure. Of course, I enjoy the snacks. They help to cover the taste of bitterness from a lackluster travel day. Same is good. Snacks are good. The reason for snacks is not good. On one recent flight, the snack cart contained sandwiches. I just rented an apartment at ATL for a few days. One day I discovered the airline made a big change on purpose — not to every flight at every gate, just the gate I was leaving from. It was an experiment. They were running a pilot of a new way to board the plane. It was NOT the same, but it bore some promise. At a Terminal B gate at ATL, just down from the Popeye’s with great service, the boarding area was laid out completely different. First, the gate agent announced a free valet service to place your carry on bag above your seat prior to boarding. At first everyone was skeptical. After all, if you travel frequently, you understand there are only two types of luggage: carry on and lost. (If you at all envy how much I travel, you are sick in the head by the way. It’s the closest I get to taking the bus). Then, rather than all of the passengers ganging up to bolt onto the plane as soon as “Sky” was called after “Premium,” the airline changed something else. Sameness was gone. They had laid out three lanes on the floor like we were boarding with a 50 yard dash. Suddenly everyone was reliving the early days of Southwest Airlines when you stood in line for 60 minutes to grab an exit row seat. Above each lane was a screen indicating where you should line up. Lane one: Premium (First Class), Lane two: Sky Priority (People who live on planes), Lane three: Zone 1. Ready, set, board. It worked pretty good, once we figured out what we were doing. No other gate at any other airport Delta flies had this system. Just this one gate. It was a pilot. People like to know what they can count on. Now, in any organization some of those things are becoming outdated or ineffective. They need to change. Change is not wrong. But those who experience change feel a sense of loss, even passengers boarding planes. We had already figured out our angle to get on first. Now, we have to rethink it. Rather than wrecking everything you’ve got, try a pilot. It’s more important to engage folks who are marginally involved than to upend your current system in favor of something newer and shinier. And, in the process you just might save your own tail. As John Maxwell says, “If you’re one step ahead you’re a leader. If you’re ten steps ahead you’re a martyr.” Pilot something new. Live to tell about it. Get the First Chapter of My New Book: Exponential Groups Watch My Webinar: 4 Keys to an Effective Group Launch
By Allen White I wrote this post last Fall as a postmortem of a church’s group launch after a colossal failure. They ignored some fundamentals, allowed their communications department to take over the messaging, and the whole thing would have tanked except for an 11th hour appeal. Please take the following into consideration, so they next postmortem won’t be about your launch! Fall is a prime season to launch groups in churches across the country. In my consulting work with hundreds of churches across North America, I am working with churches from Florida to Washington and Southern California to New Hampshire. Among churches of various sizes and denominations, we are seeing some tremendous results. But, not every church hits a home run with their group launch. Here are some reasons why.
You picked the wrong topic.
Small groups are a great vehicle for people to grow spiritually. But, in order for people to grow in a group, they need to actually be in a group. If a church’s goal is to connect their congregation into groups, then a felt needs topic is very attractive. If you give people something they want to study, they will jump right in. If you offer something they “should” study, it may not go so well. Let me go on the record: Healthy, balanced small groups cannot live by felt needs topics alone. But, kicking off groups usually doesn’t go well with series on evangelism, stewardship, fasting, or other self-sacrificial studies. You need to establish your goal. If you want to increase the number of groups, then go felt needs. If you want to grow your people deeper, then offer these topics to your established groups.
You set the bar too high.
The more requirements for group leadership, the fewer leaders you will recruit. If you required all of your new leaders to be church members, complete a lengthy leadership training process, or graduate with their Master of Divinity, you certainly limited the number of groups you could launch this Fall. Your level of acceptable risk will greatly determine the reward. If you invite people to do a study with their friends, then you are only limited to people with friends. If you increase the requirements, you lessen the impact. If you choose to lower the bar next time, then lessen the risk by forming “unpublished” groups. If the groups don’t appear on your church’s website, group listing, or bulletin, you are not implying any kind of official endorsement of the groups. If friends invite friends, you will form good, lasting groups, and if someone gets in a bad group, well, it was their friend’s group after all.
You focused on recruiting group members.
As a pastor, if the invitation is for potential group members, you may or may not actually start groups. You will certainly give yourself a lot of busy work trying to find enough leaders to accommodate the prospects or trying to place people in the right group. But, you’ve missed the mark and the point. If you have a bunch of prospective group members, you might have a group. If you have a leader, you WILL have a group. In fact, the best way to get into a group is to start a group — you’re automatically in! When the focus is on recruiting leaders, you will greatly increase your number of groups. If your focus is on members, you will probably just end up with a mess.
You put too much distance between the invitation and the response.
When you or your senior pastor made the invitation for people to start a group, how and when did they respond? If they were sent to the church website to register, they didn’t go. If they were sent to the church lobby, they walked right by. If they were invited to a meeting in the near future, they forgot. If they had a sign up card in their hand during the service, bingo, they’re in! If they were sent an email to remind them to sign up at church on Sunday, they forgot again. If they were sent an email with a registration link, then they signed up. The less distance between the invitation and the response, the greater the result.
You gave too many steps from “Yes” to starting the group.
If the pathway from the response to the group starting took too many steps, then you lost leaders at every phase. If you recruited months in advance of your group launch, there were too many days before they started. Cold feet and good intentions didn’t get them there. If you required a training class, a membership class, a pastoral interview, a group orientation, a group connection, and a final debrief meeting, you lost, lost, lost, lost and lost new group leaders. If you kept the steps to a minimum, based on your own acceptable level of risk, you kept far more than any of the above scenarios.
Your recruitment period was too short.
A few years ago, I was working with two churches of similar size who were launching groups on the same week. One church recruited 20 new leaders. The other recruited 60. The first church recruited leaders for one week. The second church recruited for three weeks in a row. Triple the recruiting equaled triple the result. You do the math.
Your senior pastor was not on board.
If your senior pastor was hesitant about your next series in any way, it hurt you. Half-hearted appeals and hit or miss invitations lead to lackluster results. If your senior pastor didn’t make the invitation for leaders, that was a huge miss. The senior pastor will get three times the result of any other staff member. I’ve served as an associate pastor for 20 of my 24 years of ministry. As soon as I learned this, I never made the invitation again. How do you get your senior pastor on board with the series you recommend? You don’t. If you want your group launch to succeed, you have to get on board with where your senior pastor wants to go. If you respect your senior pastor’s direction, you will see respectable results. If you try to pressure your senior pastor into a series that is not his idea, you are on your own (literally). Last Sunday, I worshipped with a church who had never had small groups. Their senior pastor decided it was time. He cast vision for groups.He kept the response close to the invitation. He focused on recruiting leaders. He did it all right. Then, on Sunday afternoon, 360 new group leaders showed up for training (and they have two more weeks to recruit!) Between January and May this year, we have helped 12 churches launch nearly 3,000 small groups. One church of 2,500 adults now has 500 small groups. Another church of 4,000 adults recruited 1,200 people to LEAD groups. A church in the Harrisburg, PA area has grown by 7.5 percent over last year, and giving has increased by 7 percent because of connecting people into groups. Big things are happening if you follow these principles. Learn the lessons from your failed attempt. There is no shame in failure, but there is shame in not learning. Download my Free Ebook: Exponential Groups Watch my Free Webinar: 4 Keys to an Exponential Group Launch Related Posts: Read how Dr. Tony Evans recruited 500 new group leaders in just 3 weeks. The Case Against Sign Up Cards Why Reconnect Members Who Are Already Connected?
either. We attended conferences, read books, interviewed pastors, and studied model after model. We had more groups than most, but our groups were stuck.
