I have recently been thinking through philosophies of ministry – particularly when it comes to getting people engaged in small(er) groups. I obviously have developed my own thoughts over time and certainly have reasons why I do what I do, and don’t do what we don’t do.
The reality is most of our ministries have some type of small(er) group gatherings. We know people desire to connect at deeper levels with others. We also know that this is an avenue by which we can speak more directly to issues.
So now that the school year is beginning, and likely your small(er) groups side of things will be getting off the ground sooner than later, I thought we’d do a series this week on this issue. My hope is that all of us can glean off one another approaches and ideas. Maybe we’ll even toss our previous ways out, for what we might think is a better way of going about small(er) groups after reading someone’s comments.
So, to BEGIN the discussion here are a few questions…
- Do you have small groups? If so, how are they organized? Adult leader, peer leader?
- Do your groups study a book of the bible or go through another book? Both?
- Do you have both male and female groups, or include co-ed?
- If co-ed, what are some of the difficulties you see/have with that? What are some great things you see in it?
- How do you find leaders? Do you have any kind of formal training for them?
- Do your groups go for a certain amount of time (i.e. semester or school year)? Campus ministries likely have some type of time frame on them, while church-based leaders may have a variety of ways they go about it. Either way, what are the benefits of the way you go about it?
In my ministry I have answered all the above questions as I assume most of us have to some degree or another – or at least are beginning to. But I’m always up for learning as I hope you are…
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Chuck Bomar is pastor of Colossae Church in Portland, Oregon and founder of CollegeLeader (
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We don’t really have small groups, because our college ministry is a smaller group of 12-15, so trying to get them into groups of 6-8 would be redundant. I’m hopeful that one day we’ll be able to have different levels of formation experiences (big group, small group), but right now it doesn’t fit for us.
Bob, thanks for sharing. would you have them go through a book of the bible or another book? would you have them peer led or have an adult leader?
We have one main group of about 70 or 80 which meets weekly and goes through books of the bible which have themes. For instance that last two were “Dying to Live Free” (Romans) and “The Church: Together we Stand” Now we have smaller groups which teach each other the gospel. We started them with out-of college adult leaders, but now we have peer leaders, that go through a 6-week discussion on the gospel using the book of mark
Yes, we have small groups, and I think it’s the most important part of our ministry. Our groups are student-led, men or women only, and last for the duration of the school year. We’ve usually just stuck to the Bible for our “curriculum” although this fall we’re going to be using the Gospel Centered Life put out by World Harvest Mission. I might have picked up the recommendation from you =)
The leaders for our group are handpicked by previous leaders. Basically as we go along, eventually (late first semester, start of second semester) we begin to evaluate who has displayed the spiritual maturity and commitment to lead a group the following year. From there I set up a one-on-one meeting with those students and share the vision, seeing what their interest is. Some of their training has already been done, since they’ve been a part of the group already. At this point the leader can begin handing them some responsibilities while supervising them. We do have a training event after that, either during the summer or right as fall classes start.
I think there are several benefits of the way we do it: first off, you limit your leadership “failures” by knowing more about the people you’re recruiting. Furthermore you are recruiting them rather than simply putting out applications for anyone to fill out. It’s been very easy to sell the vision to new leaders because they already know how great the group has been for them, so they understand how much impact it can have in the lives of other students. I also think our training requirements are smaller, since the group format is pretty straightforward and they have a very good understanding of it already. It’s not a set-in-stone rule for us, but we will very rarely recruit a leader that hasn’t already been a part of a group previously. As far as small groups go, our focus is to empower students to not only prayer/encourage/study together, but also to serve others and reach out together. To that end I am a big fan of our small groups, because much of the ministry that we do is homegrown/grassroots efforts that they idea/plan/carry out themselves.
P. Ngwolo – thanks. two questions: (1) why the switch from adult leaders to peer? can you give some insights into that? (2) what, if anything additional, do people do after the 6 week discussion?
Jason, thanks for your comments and insights. i agree that having leadership come from within is the best way to go about things. it helps keep the culture, for sure. one question: when you say you meet with them individually (which i think is good by the way) and “cast the vision” – what is “the vision” you’re casting? i know that could be a pretty long discussion/answer, but if you could put it in a sentence or two that could be helpful for other readers…thanks again!
well, when we first started. I was the only teacher. I was trying to connect them with the gospel of Jesus. Many people had been churched, but many didn’t know the gospel. So I would teach through groups. We switched to peer leaders because our soul mission is to make disciples. After a period of time we felt it was necessary to put power in their hands, because they needed to make disciples too. We are still working out the after the 6-week part. I have read your book and I am thinking about letting the rest of the discipleship period be organic. Co-incidentally, I amalso considering that gospel-centered life resource for a continuation. The other motivation was that the peer leaders were so excited and wanted to work. So many of them have their own groups on campus. I support them with resources and sometimes my attendance, but basically they have their own, ministries! To further answer your second question — After they get the gospel, right now, nothing. I am considering along with the World Harvest material, some issue-centered stuff like Porn-Again Christian, but I’m not sure yet. I don’t like most of the resources out there to much how-to and not enough why!
thanks. sounds like good stuff. i hear your struggle with curriculum and am fully aware that its tough to find anything that’s good, hits the issues, and isn’t (as you say) simply a bunch of “how-to’s.” that is going to change though…working on that. But, i love the idea of having the students “have their own ministries.” i’d be interested to see how that plays out long-term…
You can follow a few of their ministries on facebook at “Rice Impact”, “Good Hope Young” and “Magoh Bros” (Magoh stands for Men After God’s Own Heart — they have some funny videos online). You can follow me @pngwolo on twitter and i blog at godwithus1.wordpress.com. Continue to let the grace of God use you, you are blazing a trail for many of us to follow.
Thanks for promoting this discussion, Chuck! This is important stuff, because it’s amazing how little we’re aware of what others do out there – but broadening our horizons helps us learn how many choices we actually make when establishing our college ministry methods (whether we realized we were making choices or not!).
Coincidentally, I just posted the intro to a new series at my blog last night, looking at the various “poles” in college ministry – including some of the things you’re talking about in small groups. So I’m excited you’re having this discussion this week, and I’ll be sure to point back to it when I start talking about small group “poles” (like coed vs. peer, adult vs. student leaders, Bible vs. “material,” etc.). It’s good for us all to realize HOW MANY college ministers use all of these methods – and then to discern what we believe is best for our groups.
So, again, thanks!
We use our small groups to develop authentic relationships with each other and we use other books to springboard discussion. the books are a launching pad to get students talking about where God is working, questions they have about faith, and where they might be struggling. we typically follow school semesters, but depending on the study we may keep the same book for most of the year.
our groups are peer led. they used to be guys and girls small groups, but we moved to coed groups a year ago. we switched mostly b/c we had no girls w/ spiritual gifts in teaching or leadership in our small ministry. i’ve found a little less depth in accountability questions. but since many college guys enjoy goofing around in groups, girls never saw any spiritual depth to them until we combined groups…so it has been a good thing.
Casting the vision: They’ve been a part of one of our groups, but may not understand the big picture of why it is structured and functions the way it does and how we think that falls in line with God’s plan for discipling students and reaching our campus. (More specifically, I talk about the four things we’re trying to see happen in each student’s life: growing in the word, in prayer, in serving others and in sharing the gospel.)
I did fail to mention one important part of our small group structure. I meet with the guys leaders in small groups and take them through whatever we’re studying before they proceed to lead their groups through the same things. It allows them to see the group in action, make sure they fully own the material to be addressed (and ask questions if they don’t) and then they’re free to tweak things here or three (but not to completely change course) to accommodate their own personality and style. Not everyone will have this luxury, but my wife does the same thing with our women leaders.
Our small group ministry has been strongly impacted by Robert Coleman’s Master Plan of Evangelism.
Jason, I like how you make sure you lead people through what they’re leading others through, and before they actually do lead others through it. This way you can model what you’d like them to do. nice.
At the Austin Stone Community Church, we have small groups that we call Missional Communities. They are primarily peer-led by students, we have freshman missional communities that are gender-specific and then general college missional communities that are either co-ed or gender-specific depending on the preference of the leader.
Co-ed groups battle the typical gender role issues of male leadership and female submission that can either go really well or be a struggle at times depending on the leaders.
We find leaders through application process, but also ask students to start groups from scratch in their dorm, major, organization and as that takes root, we assist them with formal training and ongoing guidance.
We have monthly leader gatherings of all our leaders, but our primary training mechanism is through what we call “coaches” who have about 2-6 leaders they invest in for the entire year. In some cases this means discipleship, in others it is accountability and guidance. The coaches are typically college graduates who want to be involved in college ministry.
As for time frame, we cast the vision that when a group finds a specific mission or target, rather on campus or serving the city (i.e. serving at a local high school, the pom squad, the band) that those groups try to create a cycle of leadership where they are always developing new leaders to take over so the group never dies. This works for the portion of our groups that find a mission, the others we ask for a sept.-may commitment.
At Wiregrass Church, our Middle School and High School are separate environments. Xtreme is 6th – 9th grade. We do a large group production with them on Sunday morning. We start in small groups with a connection activity, then large group considers a band, host that plays games with the students, communicator, and video elements, then the students will end with small group discussion.
We decided to put 9th grade in Xtreme to make a better transition for 9th grade students. Because our Inside Out (High school) is centered around small groups. We do coed small groups during the week on Monday nights. This has been a huge WIN for our high School students. We don’t do a service for them, because when we were, it seemed too much like a competing system for us. We Challenge them to invest n Invite to our Sunday morning service, and then get involved with Student Impact by serving in our other environments on Sunday morning.
Our Monday night Inside Out groups are coed and are led by adult leaders. We start out by eating dinner around 6:00 for about 30 minutes. The students pay for the dinner by bringing $2 a week that pays for the food the following Monday night. Around 6:30 we get everyone together to go over announcements, then we watch a video or I will give a live talk. After the video, small groups will happen gender based. To give the students an opportunity to bring their friends to group, on the first Monday night of the month we will do a Bridge Gathering (an event to get the students to bring their non-churched friends) hopefully to help the students get connected to where they will want to come back to group the following week.
Going back to 9th grade. To help better their transition into High School, they are allowed to do Xtreme and Inside Out. So if you have a student who is not ready to go to just a small group environment and loves the games in Xtreme they can continue to go to Xtreme. But if they are past the messy games in Xtreme, they can go to Inside Out. Or they can do both and get the best of both worlds.
One of the coolest small group Outings that the students will not stop talking about was our 6th grade girls small group got their group together to serve at the local Humane Society. What was really cool about it, was that churches usually don’t help the Humane Society that much and the workers were amazed when the girls told them they were from a church. They washed dogs, cleaned windows, etc. They loved it.
Another thing we decided to do concerning small groups was change the way we do Walking Wisely Weekend (Our spring weekend retreat). Every event that we do (3 big events a year), each of them has to do with one of the three vital relationships: Intimacy with God, Community with Insiders, and Influence with Outsiders. Since Walking Wisely has to do with Community, we decided to make everything about the small group for that weekend. We didn’t do any production sessions, and we decide to make everything about the small group.
We did have curriculum for each group over the course of the weekend, but we wanted them to do everything together from getting their groceries together all the way to playing games together. We went ahead a pre-arranged where the groups would be staying. Some were at the beach in a condo, some were at a Lake house, some were in cabins, some were in host homes in Dothan, Alabama. The cost was $35 and all the money went into the pot for that group. So if the group had 20 students they would get $700. And they would have $700 for their food, activities, etc. It was the best event we have ever done. They built Community like we have never seen them do before. It was awesome!
The most effective training we have done was on the 5 Essentials to being a great small group leader! We laid out the 5 Essentials and we continue to put those things in front of them week in and week out. We do a 10B4 meeting with all the small group leaders before our environments start each week. Each week we share stories and wins, then I will talk about one of those essentials!
For those of you who dont know the essentials, they are:
1) Fill up First (Working on your own relationship with God)
2) Time on their turf (Go to games, activities, etc)
3) Partnering with the Family
4) Keeping it Real (Being comfortable in who you are, Don’t be fake)
5) Realizing it’s a Journey (Building relational bridges strong enough to bear the weight of truth)
They have been able to wrap their minds around these essentials. And our small group leaders are doing them!
As far as recruiting new leaders, we encourage every leader to replace themselves by going to find their friends parents, etc. They are our best recruiters!
I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions, and I would love to hear what you guys are doing!
Adam Roberson
Wiregrass Church
http://www.wiregrasschurch.org