Add “Small Groups for the Rest of Us” to the Recommended List

I spent some time with a new book from Chris Surratt you are definitely going to want to pick up. Small Groups for the Rest of Us is a great read and is packed with the great insights that only come from a seasoned practitioner accustomed to figuring out how to connect the people you aren’t already connecting and actually make disciples.

There are a number of things to really love about Small Groups for the Rest of Us. First, I love the fact that Chris has been there and done that. He’s a veteran who has wrestled honestly with how to connect the people who aren’t easy to connect. His season as small group pastor at Cross Point Church in Nashville provided him with all the hands-on experience needed to keep tweaking the strategy until they began to have the results they were looking for.

Another very important thing to love about the book is that while it is easy to read, every chapter is packed with takeaways you will find very helpful. I’ve had the opportunity to study just about every book on small groups that has been published in the last 20 to 25 years and found some very wise perspectives and unique twists on ideas in Small Groups for the Rest of Us.

While “the book is not designed to be a how-to for doing small groups in your church,” the issues covered here are the ones all small group pastors find themselves trying to figure out. How to connect the people at the fringes, how to find the leaders you need, how to construct a system that truly makes disciples and how to figure out whether you need to just start over are all included. Small Groups for the Rest of Us doesn’t present a ready made template or plug-and-play system. Instead, it wisely walks the reader through the challenges at Cross Point and the thinking behind the strategies they adopted.

Finally, I like the way every chapter concludes with a set of questions that will make this a great book to read and study as a team. If your team is like mine, they’ll also come up with their own questions but this is a very good starter set.

I have a set of books I recommend every small group pastor should read and be familiar with. Small Groups for the Rest of Us is a very good addition to that list. I loved this book and I think you will too.