Many churches have small groups for Bible study or fellowship where little real life change takes place. Some groups enjoy being together but rarely get beyond superficial fellowship, while others focus on cognitive Bible study but seldom wrestle with how God wants to transform their lives.
Our church consulting team recognizes that some of these groups will never become disciple-making communities because that is not what the leaders or members want them to be. On the other hand, some groups and leaders are hungry for life-changing community—they just don't know how to get there.
For churches that want to move beyond just "having small groups" to making disciple-making community the very heart of their discipling strategy, we offer the following suggestions.
- First, we tell the church that to grow disciple-making communities effectively, a called and gifted staff member must invest 12 to 15 hours a week in growing cell groups, increasing that time commitment as groups multiply. We work with them to reconfigure staff to make this possible.
- Second, we tell the church that they must make a major investment in providing training to this staff member and to those small group leaders who will be at the core of their new paradigm groups. We then try to recommend a source of training that is compatible with the culture of the church.
- Third, we usually recommend that this staff member identify 8 to 12 leaders who are most passionate about growing groups that function as disciple-making communities and form a prototype group with these leaders, just as if the church were starting small groups from scratch.
- Fourth, we suggest that at first they leave those groups alone that are not interested in transitioning as long as they are not being divisive. They are probably better than nothing, and it will be a while before there will be enough apprenticed leaders to offer disciple-making community groups on a large scale.
- Fifth, we emphasize the organic growth of the new paradigm groups, much as if the church was starting small groups for the first time. Some of the existing groups may buy into the new paradigm, and new groups will also form.
- Sixth, as all groups have a natural life cycle, by putting most of the nurture into the new paradigm small groups, in time the old paradigm groups will decrease by attrition. If the new groups are healthy, people will be drawn to them, and some of these people will be drawn from the old groups.
- Seventh, expect it to take the church three to seven years for the new paradigm group to be normative for the church and for two thirds or more of the teens and adults to be part of such groups. (Include children in that number if your primary paradigm is intergenerational groups.)
- Eighth, give a high priority of time, money, and energy to equipping. This involves the apprenticing process, taking group leaders and interns to at least one workshop per year (or bringing the workshop to your site), and especially developing a strong coaching system. Don't expect the staff member to do all the coaching once the number of disciple-making community groups exceeds 5 or 6. This last area of equipping is probably where we see churches fall down most often.
The general idea is that what powers the transition is people tasting and seeing a better way of doing groups that will cause them to stand in line for the opportunity to be a part of one. Shutting down existing small groups because they are "not good enough" is counterproductive unless those groups are being divisive. True, many people are content with a superficial level of small group life, but for a lot of them, they are content only because this is the closest thing they have experienced to community. Give them a taste of the real thing, and many will quickly leave the bone behind to dig into the steak.
