The Relational Mission

Group strategies abound. Some refer to them as small group, others as missional communities. There are a lot of right ways to do groups. Some will argue about where they should or should not meet. Others talk focus on things like when they should meet, whether they should be mixed gender to gender specific, whether they should target a specific demographic or be geographically based, whether they should be closed or open, whether they should be long-term groups or short-term groups and whether they should study the sermon or choose their own topics. Should the oversight system be flat or a pyramid? Should the leadership system be based on the advice of Jethro to Moses in Exodus 18 or upon Jesus' strategy of choosing the twelve? And there is quite a bit of discussion about whether small groups of 8-15 or mid-sized groups of 20-50 are preferable. We could talk for hours about the various nuances and distinctions between strategies. Discussions around all of these i...

When I first started teaching seminars on small groups in the early 1990s, we put a heavy emphasis on multiplication of groups. The goal was to grow the group to 12-15 people and then multiply it into two groups. In many ways, this made a lot of sense. The logic goes this way: God wants all people to be saved. The most effective way to reach people is through relationships. Groups are founded upon relationships. As groups relate to people who don't know Christ, they will be exposed to the life and message of the Gospel and be drawn to it. Then they will be added to the group. The group will grow. When the group grows, multiplication will be a natural outcome. So we focused our language on the importance of multiplication, thinking that if we emphasized this outcome that it would motivate people to relate to and reach people who don't know Christ. The result, though, actually worked against our desire for multiplication. We communicated the goal of multiplication by u...

Over the last 25 years as a writer, editor, trainer and consultant about all things small groups, and I’ve come across many different motivations for doing small groups. Some of the primary reasons provided for doing small groups include: Church Growth. Small group ministry is a key ingredient to growing a church. All of the largest churches in the world have some form of small group structure.   Closing the "Back Door" of the Church. Small groups are used as a way to connect people who attend on Sundays. This seems to be the prominent goal of most small group resources that are on the market. Evangelism. Statistics have proven over and over again that most people are led to the Lord through relationships with either a friend or a family member. Small group evangelism is dependent upon friendship connections with the lost. Church Health. Research on church health factors has revealed that small groups have the most impact on church quality. In fact, all of the healthiest ...

The way we lead people is the way people will follow. If we lead in a programmatic way, then people will follow in a programmatic way. If you lead in a relational way, people will be much more likely to follow you into that way. Small groups, missional communities, cell groups, house churches, etc. are inherently dependent upon healthy relationality. So the question for us is: Are we leading in a relational way? In part, leading relationally depends upon the focus in our leadership. Sadly, I've found that we tend to lead groups and pastors tend to to lead group systems by focusing on a "what" instead of "whom." Let me explain: I've been working with churches to help them small group systems for over 20 years now. I've seen trends come and go. I've experienced models rise and dissipate: Cell church. Meta-church. Groups of 12. Church of small groups versus church with small groups. Semester-long groups. Church-wide campaigns. Missional communities....

Provide Group Leader Training Small group leaders need training. Whether you are overseeing traditional small groups or innovative missional communities, those leaders need training. I've found the following levels of training provide a great framework that can be adapted for your context: Level 1: Introductory training for new or developing leaders. This is a basic initiation into the role and responsibilities. Most new leaders won't remember what you have to share if you give them too much information. In my experience, most new leaders are primarily asking how they can lead a good meeting. That's why I suggest that you start there. There are tons of great materials on this subject. In my first book, Cell Group Leader Training I summarize the basics of leading group meetings in the first four sessions. Level 2: A supplemental resource that provides general information about most aspects of leading a group. There are more books on this subject that you can count....

Foster Environments for the Re-Socialization of Jesus Followers that  Results in Community & Mission  Developing small groups that live in community and on mission is about helping people live in a way that aligns with the life that Jesus demonstrated when he walked on earth. He came not only to save us from the penalty of sin. He also opened a door of freedom so that we might freely live in a new and different way, what Jesus called “abundant life.” This abundant way is a revolt against the “principalities and powers of this world” that do not line up with God’s ways. They include patterns of this world such as individualism, nationalism, sexism, and racism, just to name a few. These are ingrained patterns that shape our thinking and are so common that they go unnoticed. We have been socialized by these patterns, which means that we have “picked up” disciplines that reinforce the life according to these patterns. When I say that we “picked up” or socialized, I mean...

Develop Coaches (or Better Stated "Elders") From the embryonic days of small group ministry, leadership oversight and coaching has been a crucial component. Every small group resource on my self speaks to the importance of establishing oversight structures. Even the house church movement sees the need for oversight. I’m not going to get into the details of these structural patterns, as that has been done many times over, including in two of my own books. Coaching structures tend to be a big focus when we talk about coaching. Instead, I want to talk about what group members and group—not just leaders—actually need in order to move into a new way of life. In a nutshell, they need elders.   Coaching & Eldering One of the common responses to the idea of coaching goes something like this, “My group leaders don’t want the input of a coach or a pastor. They find the extra meetings a waste of time. They lead groups quite well on their own.” Research states just the opposite...

Train People in Relational Intelligence My friend Kevin Calligan is a licensed Christian counselor. Through the years, he has worked with people ranging from the chronically ill to those who just need an emotional tune-up. And of course, there have been numerous couples who have come to him for counseling. In his work with couples, he realized that the skills they did not possess were the same basic skills needed to make any relationship healthy. Gary Smalley came to the same conclusion in his book, The DNA of Relationships. He writes, “The exciting concepts and methods hammered out in our marriage intensives aply to all relationships, not merely to marriage. I made this discovery for myself as I saw major improvements taking place in my home and with friends." The difference is that it’s socially acceptable to seek out and receive relational training for the sake of our marriages. We just don’t think about a need to be trained to relate to one another in our friendships. And w...

Create Environments Where People Ask the Questions of Life The common approach to directing small group systems is to prescribe a small group methodology and help people conform to that methodology. In reaction to this approach, other churches have taken a free-for all approach that basically allows people to lead almost any kind of group they want. I think that a much wiser approach is to facilitate the creation of natural environments where people can answer the questions that they are already asking. This is not about giving people the answers. Nor is it about letting them do whatever they want in order to get them in groups. It's about guiding people into honest self-discovery. The power behind self-discovery is that it frees us to create environments based on powerful questions instead of prescribed, top-down patterns developed by leadership. If we work within the big questions about life and personal significance people are already asking, we will encounter less resistan...

Lead People from their Current Reality into Community & Mission Thirty miles north of Dallas, you will find hundreds of acres once owned by my grandparents, who operated a dairy farm. My grandfather sold the property in the 1960s. When I was a kid, my father rented the land from the new owner for raising beef cattle. We also raised sheep, chickens, and even rabbits at one point of my childhood. We cultivated wheat, oats, and hay as well. Through my veins runs the dirt, sweat, and tears of generations of farmers. I learned a lot on the farm. For one, I learned that it is hard work. While I'm not medically allergic to farm labor it sure felt like it. But there is another lesson that that shaped my imagination, one that applies to my work now as a pastor. I learned from my father that caring for animals begins by working with what you have, not what you wish you had. What exactly does this mean, to work with what you have not what you wish you had? If you grew up on a far...

Focus on Discipleship Most small group systems focus on the development of small groups. But the small group systems that stand the test of time are not founded upon small groups at all. They do small groups for the sake of discipleship. Their goal is not small group participation. Instead, it’s helping small groups of people confront the typical American life so that they can be formed or discipled into an contrasting pattern of life. These churches are aiming to generate an alternative way of life. Small groups for the sake of small groups will always blow in the wind of the culture. But small groups for the sake of discipleship have a deeper, transformational, and missional purpose. Elizabeth O’Connor writes of the missional experience of The Church of the Savior in Washington D.C. She states, “This deepening of the spiritual life is not spontaneous. People do not just become great Christians. They grow as they make certain purposeful responses to life and to the grace of God. W...

Facilitate Presence Small groups meet in all kinds of places. Today, hundreds of small small groups will meet in schools, offices and on playing fields. One of the key tasks of small group pastors is to hold up the vision of what makes small groups of God's people distinct from all the other kinds of small groups that meet. There are a lot of things that we can do as small groups that are unique to being the people of God. We can worship. We can grow as disciples. We can study the Bible, reach out and live in community. But none of these really defines what makes us distinct. We are distinct because God's people are characterized by the fact that they know and follow the presence of God. Without God's presence, we might have a good small group. We might even fulfill all of the purposes that God has given to the church. But we will miss out on what makes us truly distinct. I am convinced that we have become so accustomed to leading groups in North America that we don’...

ASK QUESTIONS Asking good questions as a small group point person is more important than finding the right answers. In my experience, there many "right" answers when it comes to how we develop small groups. But if we are asking the wrong questions then we can very easily be led down a fruitless path. In his book, Community , Peter Block writes about the kind of life that brings transformation to neighborhoods. He writes, “The small group is the unit of transformation and the container for the experience of belonging.” This transformation is both personal and societal. Throughout his book, he consistently makes a strong argument proving “authentic transformation does not occur by focusing on changing individuals” but by creating environments where small groups of people can generate an alternative future for the social fabric of a neighborhood. To put it in the language of Jesus, the Kingdom of God comes through a group of people who are willing to embody the good news ...