How’s that for an awkward headline?  Familiar with Central Christian Church in Las Vegas?  We’ve mentioned a couple of their church-wide campaigns here.  They’re definitely onto some good ideas from a group standpoint.  Tripped across a relatively new blog by Tracey Smith, one of Central’s small group pastors.  Small Group Pastors might be an interesting one to watch…or even to jump in on!

And the Oscar for Creative Use of a Star Wars theme goes to…Fusion Church

Yoda Groups from Fusion Church on Vimeo.

Thanks to Monday Morning Insight for the link!

Redefine your evangelistic starting point.  God responding to the cries of a broken world.  That’s the starting point.  “I’ve heard your people crying.”  Exodus 3:6  When we stop hearing the cries of people…

Identify God’s response to the brokenness of your own life.  When we begin to feel like we’re fixed and we are now fixers…we’ve missed the point.  We’re still being fixed.  We haven’t arrived.  If we don’t know that, evangelism becomes information.  Not transformation.

Move from a basketball christian to a football christian.  When you’re a football player you run through the line, get knocked down, pounded, get back up and are ready to run again.  When you’re a basketball player you only have to be touched to go to the line for a free shot.

Identify and love the brokenness of the people in your church.  People are crying all around our churches.  People are crying in our cities.  We need to know it’s there and we need to do something about it.   “The only thing that travels faster than light is darkness running away.”

Reestablish your evangelistic priority.  Who’s your neighbor?  The church is the only organization ever created for the people who aren’t in it yet.  What will kill your ministry, your church, will be keeping it to yourself.  What won’t kill it?  Doing what Jesus did.  Going where He went.  Being with the people that He went to be with.

Oh my…I wish you had been here.

Dr. Will Miller was hilarious last night.  I have to tell you that that is a HUGE understatement.  When he was telling about driving someone else’s beater car I very nearly wet my pants, which according to Bill Search is about the bladder (as opposed to the bowels as John Burke mentioned).  Ever seen Will Miller?  Click here to see a short clip of a previous talk.

My cool friend Bryan Doyle gave me a copy of The Tangible Kingdom the other day and it caught me right away!  You won’t find a more engaging book about incarnational community.  The story of Hugh Halter, Matt Smay and Adullam will grab you by page 3.  When you get to the chapter on the 1700 Year Wedgie…you’ll be toast.  Good stuff.  If you aspire to get Hirsch but end up rereading the same line again and again…this one’s for you!

You can pick up your copy right here.

Looking for leader training ideas?  Simple Small Groups, newly released by Baker Books and written by Bill Search, a veteran small group practitioner, is a great new resource designed to make effective small group ministry simple.

Rather than over-complicate the subject, Search isolates three simple and essential ingredients that every effective group must have, identifies them with a single word, and then proceeds to explain the role played by each of them.  The best part?  He goes on to flesh out the nuts and bolts of how it works.

There are a number of really helpful sections.  My favorite aspect is that each section concludes with a diagnostic set of questions to help determine what your next step is in the development of each essential component.  I can easily see this getting a lot of use!

If you’re like me, you’re looking for resources that are about how it can be better. Simple Small Groups is one of those.  You can pick up your copy right here.

When do you start thinking about January?  Are you already there?  One of the most under-appreciated habits is looking ahead.  Do you have that one?  If not, you need to develop it.  I believe it is at the heart of what separates success from failure many times.  Why?  Like an Indy car driver who never learns to look ahead to the turn beyond the turn he’s in, you’ll always be a little out of control.

So how does it happen?  First, you need to develop the practice of looking at the year.  Schedule a time to talk with your pastor about the year.  I know, I know.  You’re not necessarily in those circles.  This is big though.  If your pastor wants to become a church of small groups (blah, blah, blah) this is not optional.  And you can tell them I said so!

Second, develop an understanding of the connection between the seasons, events and series of your church.  If you’re having to work too hard at it, there may be less of a connection than there needs to be.  A quick example?  Here you go:

November is a great opportunity to develop a mailer type invitation to your Christmas Eve services that will be stuffed in your bulletin all month in December.  “This is not for you.  It’s for you to give to your friends to invite them to our Christmas Eve service.  On Christmas Eve you include an invitation to your January blockbuster message series on a subject that the kind of person who comes to your Christmas Eve service would care about.  In January you promote a Small Group Connection and choose a study that is about “building a foundation for a great year.”

Does that give you enough?  The key to developing a connection between the seasons, events and series is thinking ahead and looking for opportunities to thread things together.

Third, to really work well this will be a “rolling” exercise.  That means you meet periodically and continue to look ahead beyond the next turn.  Meeting once a year isn’t sufficient because it will always be a week away from the 53 weekend.  Make sense?

“We’ve launched 25 new groups.  How can we help them continue to meet?”

With the development of the HOST strategy it is not hard to launch a wave of new small groups.  Very easy to do.  But like I always say, “There’s an upside and a downside to everything.”  What’s the upside?  They’re easy to start.  The downside is that they come with a life expectancy of about six weeks.

Six weeks?  That’s all?  Isn’t there anything that can be done?  I’m glad you asked!  And the answer is “Yes!”  Here are the five keys to sustaining new groups:

1. Give them a coach on the front end, before they even begin, who will connect on a weekly basis, walk alongside them and help them get started.  This is important.  We’ve talked about this before. New hosts are usually very receptive to this idea in the beginning than they ever will be again.  Caution: It is important to recruit coaches based on who’s right for the job, not who’s available.  The best candidates are almost always already serving.  Freeing them up to move to the right seat on the bus separates fruitfulness from “in-name-only.”  Don’t give in to the temptation to fill an org chart with available bodies.  If you want to sustain groups, you’ll need the right people.
2. Give your new groups material that is easy to use.  There is a growing number of great studies to choose from.  I’ve written about some of them right here. Caution: The study you choose will determine how easy it is for hosts to invite friends.  I’ve written about what I call the Easy/Hard Continuum.  If you want your hosts to fill their own group you’ll need to find a topic that is very invitation friendly.
3. Encourage your new groups to take turns facilitating.  Session one ought to end with a brief look at the calendar and the invitation for group members to share responsibility for the group by taking a turn bringing refreshments, coordinating the prayer list, or even facilitating a session!  Recruiting one member in advance to take a turn is often all you need to prime the pump.  Groups that rotate facilitators are much more likely to continue meeting.  Caution: Do this in a way that is not forced.  “Everybody needs to take a turn” is not the idea.
4. Encourage your new hosts to find at least one other member who is willing to open their home for a meeting.  Groups that can meet even when the host is out of town are much more likely to continue.  Caution: It should be nearby.  Moving week four’s meeting to a home 15 miles away is not a good idea.
5. Give your new groups a study to do next that is similar in kind and do it by week 4 or 5.  There are two important parts to this key.  First, what you give them to do next must be similar to the study they start with.  DVD driven?  Give them a DVD study to do next.  6 weeks?  Give them another 6 week study to do next.  Easy to prepare?  You get the idea.  Keeping them in a similar format ensures that your new hosts will not be intimidated.  Second, telling them what’s next by week 4 or 5 catches them while they’re beginning to develop a rhythm of getting together.  Caution: Allowing each group to come up with their own follow up study almost always leads to the selection of a study that is too hard or too long.

Great question this morning in my email inbox:

I don’t know how to address the issue of alcohol that is being served at small group meetings.  Do you see alcohol consumption, in moderation, as a problem at small groups?  I’m not coming at this from a judgmental standpoint.  I don’ t have a problem with folks who wish to drink alcohol outside of their group time, in moderation.  However, it doesn’t seem to be a healthy thing for group leaders to allow during their weekly meeting.

Here’s my answer:

There are two key questions that must be asked.  First, what’s your church’s position on alcohol?  Second question has to do with who’s in your group?  From the standpoint of giving preference to the stumbling issues of members, individual freedoms might need to be set aside.  I’ve talked about it with our leaders by teaching on Phil. 2:3-4.

What do you think?

We recruited HOSTS to open their homes for six weeks, serve a few refreshments and tell a few of their friends…but how does a HOST burn into a leader?  Isn’t that more than they signed up to do?

Ever asked that one?  It’s a great question and one being asked everywhere that the host idea is being used.  Everywhere.  So what’s the answer?  What’s the recipe for starting with a host and ending up with a leader or shepherd?  Healthy doses of intentionality and time are the most important ingredients…with a dash of awareness that there is no problem-free.

What are the issues?

• Recruiting hosts can easily yield candidates that are only available/willing to take responsibility for six weeks.
• Recruiting hosts can easily yield candidates that are outgoing, relational people that aren’t growing spiritually (or ready to commit to much more than they’re already doing).
• You can’t recruit someone to host for six weeks and then expect more (with integrity).  You can offer more and make more possible as long as you’re also commending and rewarding a six week commitment fulfilled.

What are the steps to the transition from host to leader/shepherd?

1. Reaffirm their six-week commitment at the orientation.
2. Prepare your hosts for the possibility that they may feel called/inspired to continue by what God does in their group.
3. Connect each host with a "coach" who will begin to form a relationship that could continue beyond the launching series.
4. The coach should understand that a win is "doing to the host whatever you want to happen at the member level in the group (praying for members, caring for them, developing transparency, etc.).
5. A weekly check-in for six weeks will often lead to enough of a relationship between hosts and coach that it will continue regardless of the host’s path.
6. Activities and the beginnings of intentional shepherding can be introduced in the first few weeks that will make it easier to develop a leader/shepherd over time.
7. Whatever you want the coaches to be doing to and for the hosts…must be being done to and for your coaches.

Is that a problem-free solution?  No.  Will it produce more leaders/shepherds than what you’re currently doing?  Probably.