Small Groups

Most of us are convinced spiritual growth is supposed to be natural and normal for healthy believers. Because of this we put a collection of growing believers, seekers and new believers together in a small group, give them a Bible and a curriculum and set them on their way to grow spiritually. And amazing stuff often occurs! People make exciting discoveries about how God designed life to be lived. They readjust their lifestyles to incorporate biblical values. Life destroying habits are broken. Lives are changed. In short, grace happens.

Yet, down deep inside there is a gnawing for those of us with equipping gifts. How well are we really doing? We love those we shepherd and we want to make sure, not just hope, that they are healthy, that some life-dulling virus hasn’t invaded the body causing fatigue, depression and even death. But how do we diagnose these? We don’t really want to impose some rigid, grace-numbing inoculation on the body for a symptom that’s really a pet-peeve of a vocal individual or minority. We’d much rather have a clear picture of what is and what is not going on. Then we can get some help to write the best prescriptions for growth.

It was in the incubator of this kind of thinking that GrowthFinder was conceived and birthed. GrowthFinder was designed to use the Internet as a tool to help individuals, small groups and whole congregations see clearly how they are growing. It also gives them quick, customizable access to the very best tools available to focus on needed areas of attention. Here’s a quick ultrasound:

Biological growth is recognized by maturity of different systems of an organism. In humans these include the cardiovascular, skeletal, reproductive, digestive and nervous systems. Similarly, spiritual growth can be recognized by the maturity of different spiritual systems. There are many models of these systems among churches today that are very useful for patterning and tracking individual spiritual growth. Willowcreek’s five G’s and Saddleback’s baseball diamond are among the best known. GrowthFinder is built around a generic discipleship model that has been around for many decades. The systems of this model are knowledge, skills, character and perspective. GrowthFinder uses 12 categories within each of these four systems for a total of 48 spiritual growth discovery subcategories.

Churchteams.com offers churches and other ministry organizations GrowthFinder as a tool to diagnose individual spiritual strength and growth areas. In a matter of minutes a personal spiritual growth report will be ready to print, pray over and apply. This report can then be used in mentoring or small group relationships to design projects for study and spiritual growth. The GrowthFinder Resources page even provides recommendations for each area of spiritual growth, complete with a link to that resource on the Internet for review and purchase.

The GrowthFinder report itself is free, but if churches or organizations want to maximize its use, we suggest that it be used in conjunction with the GroupFinder tool. Here’s why:

1. Individual reports can be confidentially stored for review and tracking growth.
2. The Small Group Leader report (a summary of individual group member reports) empowers leaders to more intentionally develop a discipleship plan for their group.
3. The Pastor’s Report provides an up-to-date diagnosis of congregational health and discipleship needs. This is an incredible tool for sermon and other program planning.
4. A pastor or other church leader can customize resources.

These features don’t even take into account the tremendous benefits for small group placement, management and communication that GroupFinder offers by itself.

These tools aren’t the cure for congregational cancer or even the common spiritual cold. That’s the work of the Holy Spirit in and through the body itself. But, we can use technology like an EKG to diagnose what’s going on in the body. By taking advantage of the Internet we can provide customized prescriptions for spiritual health and growth.

Take the GrowthFinder profile now.

Find out more about using GrowthFinder and GroupFinder together.