Archive for Growing your Group

Growing Your Group

When you hear the words, “growing your group,” what comes to your mind? Do you think numerical increase? Or do you think maturational growth, growth as disciples? Can you have one without the other?

Growing Numerically

We should not shy away from adding more people to our groups. Making disciples of all nations gives the mandate to every Christian, group, and church (Great Commission, in Matthew 28:19-20). And what we have to offer new people is a relationship with God and a group of Christian encouragers built around helping one another meet God in Bible study and living changed, caring lives. We want numbers to increase so there is a chance for even more to become disciples.

Here are four key principles to grow a group numerically:

  1. pray and plan expectantly;
  2. add more group caregivers who will challenge and lead group members to reach out with care and invitations to members AND to FRANs (friends, relatives, associates, and neighbors) who are not members;
  3. add more groups who will naturally add add more caregivers to your Sunday School or small group ministry; and
  4. pray for, care for, fellowship with, invite, and enroll new people.

The measure of numerical success is enrolling new people. In the right caring environment, this mobilizes even more members to pray for, care for, fellowship with, invite, and enroll other new people. This is a measure and expression of maturation and growth as disciples.

Maturational Growth

We cannot assume maturational growth is happening simply because a person is attending a group. Instead, we need to look for evidence of growth. Is the focus of conversation on self, others, or God? Are they having Gospel conversations with others? Do they love God and desire to serve out of their giftedness? Is there evidence they are spending time with God in Bible study and prayer between group sessions? Do their lives exhibit a Christian worldview–is thinking and action influenced by Jesus?

What can we do to foster this kind of environment with our groups (in or outside of group sessions)? Here is a starter list of ideas:

  • seek participation by everyone in group sessions and activities (this requires more preparation, but it increases interest, retention, and ownership)
  • in groups larger than 7 people, break group session into smaller conversational groups for a portion of the time (see the previous one)
  • expect group members to prepare (ask questions, give assignments, help them understand why lessons/topics are important)
  • ask every individual to serve (find a place that is fulfilling for them and for the class)
  • follow up every Bible study session by asking what last lesson was about, what was its point, what they were supposed to do about it, and did they do it?
  • set aside extra time occasionally to study topics of relevance and need for the group, such as parenting or finances or spiritual disciplines, etc. (this might be on Saturday morning or a series of week nights for four weeks)
  • remember that leaders and caregivers appear more real and approachable when they are honest and transparent (even leaders are human and have struggles).

Evaluate Your Growth

Is your group growing? Is your growth more numerical, more maturational, neither, or both? What can you do to multiply the work by tying the two together? Lead your group to grow this year!


Darryl Wilson serves as the Sunday School & Discipleship Consultant for the Kentucky Baptist Convention. He is the author of Disciple-Making Encounters and two blogs: Sunday School Revolutionary and 28Nineteen.

Connect with Prospective Members

You know the scene. You have witnessed it happen time and again. A church guest walks into your Sunday School class for the first time. The excitement grows, but so does the anxiety. The questions begin to crowd your mind? Did I prepare well enough? Will Jill be pushy as usual? Will the guest feel overwhelmed? Will they enjoy the class and come back?

These questions and more come to our mind when trying to connect with prospective members. We want prospective members to join our class for many reasons, the most important being that we truly desire them to grow in their relationship to Jesus. So how can we connect with these prospective members? Below are a few ways we can connect with prospective members who visit our churches.

  1. Make a Joyful First Impression

While welcoming facilities are important, they are not as important as a joyful first impression. Guests do not expect nor really need a gift bag, but what they do need is joy. From the greeters to the ushers, to the members, show the joy of knowing and growing in Jesus. Joy is inherent in the church and can be felt by those who visit. Help them feel and know the joy of following Jesus through genuine smile, laughter, and insightful questions.

  • Make an Intentional Appeal

Many of our guests do not know the various options for Sunday School and since most Sunday School times take place before the service, they do not have the opportunity visit the same day they attend worship. One of the ways to help people connect is for the pastor and/or person who is making the announcements to share what is happening in Sunday School. Avoid listing classes. Highlight a class each Sunday and share what God is doing through that class. This helps to show the vibrant nature of the class and makes it more appealing to prospective members.

  • Make a Personal Connection and Follow-up

One of the most effective ways to connect with prospective members is for Sunday School teachers to make a personal invitation to the guest to visit the class. Encourage teachers to carry extra lesson guides or handouts with them so when they invite a prospective member, they have something to hand them that will be informative of the next class. Additionally, if a guest visits the class be sure to personally follow-up with that person within 48 hours.

God brings prospective members to our churches and when he does, we can take a simple approach to connecting with them. Let’s make a joyful first impression, an intentional appeal, and a personal connection. These three tips can help take a connection to a marriage between the church and the individual.

by Brad Delaughter, PhD, First Baptist Church, De Soto, MO

Reaching Young Adults

I regularly hear church leaders say, “We need to reach young adults,” usually in a church that is struggling to reach and keep young adults. If this is your church, there is hope! Here are three suggestions for reaching young adults.

1. Listen

Listen to God. Why does he want to reach young adults? How has he led you to desire to reach them? How would he have you proceed?

Listen to church members. To whom else in your church might God be speaking about reaching young adults? What wisdom do others have on the subject? (Someone has probably “tried that before,” right?)

Listen to young adults. Build friendships and hear what they are saying about faith and church participation. Avoid the urge to tell them what they should be doing differently. Make sure you are not approaching young adults with a target mentality. Young adults are not a project or a goal to achieve, but individuals to be valued, heard, and loved.

2. Evaluate

What are the possibilities for your church? There certainly nothing wrong with dreaming big, but if there are few young adults in your community or few in your church today, then starting one group or hosting a meal with young adults may be a great start! Your local Baptist association or state convention may be able to provide a demographic study that will help you understand the possibilities, or you can look for yourself at the US Census data for county population characteristics here.

Evaluate the desire of your church’s leaders and members to (1) give up some comfort and control (favorite pew, decision-making, programming, finances, traditions), and (2) mentor and bless new young leaders. These two areas may reveal the biggest barriers to reaching young adults. If you reach young adults but are not ready to invite them into significant ministry and leadership roles, they are likely to go elsewhere.

3. Get to work

Based on 1 and 2 above, recognize that simply starting a young adult class/group or adapting worship style will not reach young adults. Spiritual, relational, and organizational effort is needed.

Spiritual – Invite existing adult groups to pray regularly for young adults as well as you or others who are leading your church’s efforts to reach them. Pray for opportunities to meet needs and share the gospel.

Relational – Weddings, births, kids’ sports, Vacation Bible School, fall festivals, and other events provide natural points of connection with young adults. Be intentional in using these opportunities to begin new friendships. Invite two or three young adults to meet you for breakfast to discuss plans for starting a young adult Bible study. Ask other church members to make a point of getting to know young adult neighbors.

Organizational – Start a new Sunday School class or small group when a core group of young adults are ready to begin. In the meantime, develop one to four young adults through a personal discipleship group or less formal get-togethers. As you reach young adults, invite them to serve in the church. Young adult guests who see young adult greeters, ushers, committee members, and ministry leaders are more likely to believe your church has a place for them, too.

David Adams

Director of Discipleship

Texas Baptists

Sunday School in a Transformational Church

This is article three of a ten part series. Click here to view the previous article.

How Small is Small?

Jeremiah prophesied thusly, For my people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn themselves cisterns – broken cisterns that can hold no water. (Jeremiah 2:13) Well, I’m no Jeremiah, but I believe that Baptist have committed a sin or two when it comes to Sunday School. Just yesterday, I had a Sunday School Director call me about her Sunday School. She shared with me some information about several of the classes and asked, Why aren’t we growing? Enrollment in these classes had topped 40+ and they had either plateaued or declined. When I suggested that these classes needed to reproduce, she immediately shot back, Oh, we can’t split those classes. The members would stop coming; we’d have anarchy, for sure. This Sunday School had dug cisterns which had become broken, and the fountain of living water had been replaced by the Dead Sea. Our role as Sunday School leaders is to keep the fountain flowing; to remove as many barriers as we can to making disciples and transformation and to create an environment in which the Holy Spirit can do His work.

In the Simple Church Rainer and Geiger encourages the church to develop a simple disciple-making process that connects people to God, to other people, to the lost in the community. Sunday School is that second step that connects people to other people in a transformational small community. Any barrier that keeps the Sunday School from connecting people with people should be removed.

My favorite quote in Transformational Church is, We’ve got to move from sitting in rows to sitting in circles to going out and changing the world. Ed Stetzer. Next Sunday in worship try looking at the backs of the heads of people in front of you to see if you can tell who they are. Can you learn anything about a person by looking at the back of his head? Not very much! But when you look him in the eyes, you can see expression, emotion, and response to you. The eyes are indeed the windows to the soul. Stetzer contends that transformation takes place best in small communities among friends both old and new. Therefore, for transformation we’ve got to move from the sanctuary, sitting in rows to a small group, sitting in circles where we can connect with others and provoke one another to love and good deeds and then to going out to change the world. In fact, I take it a step further. In our Sunday School classes we need to move to even smaller learning groups where interaction takes place around the Bible study. In my Sunday School class of around 9-12 people, we are usually in three learning groups of 3-4 each. Sadly, too many of our Sunday School classes are still sitting in rows or either in large semi-circles where people must communicate across a crowded room. Try it. Next Sunday, move out of those rows or that semi-circle and arrange your class in small learning groups of 3-4 each. Let them connect, share stories, and interact with the biblical truth. Create an environment for connection and transformation. For more information see Transformational Bible Study.

I shared with the Sunday School Director on the phone the following principles that help to eliminate barriers and create an environment for making disciples:

  1. When a class reaches maximum enrollment/attendance the class is less motivated to reach potential disciples, ministry diminishes, and growth subsides. Solution: Reproduce – start a new class.
  2. When member / leader ratio exceeds recommended limits ministry and class interaction diminishes; Solution: Reproduce or enlist leaders.
  3. When space is filled to 80% capacity members are less motivated to make disciples – Solution: Reproduce

These principles are based on ideals and of course we must work with what we have and make progress toward the ideal. These principles can help eliminate barriers to transformation and will assist in developing a culture of disciple-making through the Sunday School ministry. They have the potential for changing those broken cisterns we’ve developed and transforming them to fountains of living water for the renewing of minds. Can we follow these principles, eliminate barriers, and still not be a disciple-making, transformational ministry? Absolutely! Everything depends on how transformed and mission-oriented our hearts are. But, you can bet that life will not flow into a dead organization unless we do follow time-tested principles that remove the obstacles to transformational ministry. We can’t just talk about it; we’ve got to do something about it under the direction of the Holy Spirit. Use the chart below to evaluate your small group ministry:



 

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Phil Stone is the State Sunday School Director for the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina.

Is VBS History? Maybe not!

THE SUMMER IS OVER, SCHOOL HAS BEGUN, AND VBS IS HISTORY! (Or, is it?)

Months of preparation, effort, energy, time, and money has been expended in getting ready for Vacation Bible School. Now it’s Friday, the children are gone, and the workers are finishing taking down decorations and cleaning up their rooms. Maybe there’s the closing VBS Celebration Sunday night, but for all practical purposes, VBS is over for another year.  Or is it?

Why do we have VBS? To have an intensive week of Bible studies, mission stories, upbeat music, recreation, and snacks? Yes to all of the above. But the main reason we have VBS is to discover prospects: boys and girls and their parents in our communities who are not involved in a church or Bible study; people who need the saving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

VBS is not over when the last child leaves, the last decoration is packed away, or the closing night celebration ends. VBS is not over until every child and parent in the community has come to Christ.

Do you remember those enrollment/registration cards you had each child fill out during VBS?  Please don’t put a rubber band around the cards and set them on a shelf in the Sunday School office. Those cards are invaluable! They are the reason for VBS! Make copies and have people pray for the names on the cards. Study the cards for names of those who do not have a church home. Send a postcard or letter thanking them for coming and inviting them to Sunday School.

But don’t stop there! Assign the prospects to the appropriate preschool, children, youth, and adult Sunday School classes for follow-up as well.  Think long-term relationship-building.  Use a variety of ways to build friendships with prospects: week one, make a quick front-door home visit leaving SS literature or a magazine; week two, send a postcard; week three, make a phone call; week four, send a text or email.  Invite prospects to other church events and activities.

If there is indifference toward attending SS or church, then focus on ministry to them rather than just trying to get them to attend. For example, ask for prayer concerns, and then follow-up a week or so later. Build relationships without just focusing on their attendance. Keep ministering to your prospects, whether they come or not. Be a friend in Christ’s Name.

VBS is not over on Friday or Sunday afternoon, or even this past summer. The work of contacting and cultivating boys and girls, men and women should continue. Keep those enrollment/registration cards visible and work them. Think long-term and continue cultivating friendships.

For more information on VBS follow-up or Sunday School, contact: Jeff Ingram, adult ministry strategist, Louisiana Baptist Convention, Jeff.Ingram@LBC.org, or 318.448.