Eddy Hall is a senior consultant with Living Stones Associates (www.living-stones.com), a consulting team that partners with local churches to improve health and enhance ministry effectiveness through integrated planning of ministries, staffing, facilities, and finances; through equipping the core leadership team; and through short-term and long-term coaching of paid and unpaid ministry leaders. He is coauthor of WHEN NOT TO BUILD: AN ARCHITECT'S UNCONVENTIONAL WISDOM FOR THE GROWING CHURCH (Baker).
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.
In practice, most Christian small groups prioritize community over evangelism. Carl George, in Nine Keys to Effective Small Group Leadership, reports that in a given year, one Christian small group in four will “win someone to faith in Christ” (p. 6). That means that three out of four will not.
We had tried a half-dozen babysitters during our meetings.We had tried letting children play without a sitter.We had tried keeping them in the meetings with us.Nothing we tried worked very well for very long.The “babysitting problem” stubbornly resisted solution.
Eddy Hall is a senior consultant with Living Stones Associates (www.living-stones.com), a consulting team that partners with local churches to improve health and enhance ministry effectiveness through integrated planning of ministries, staffing, facilities, and finances; through equipping the core leadership team; and through short-term and long-term coaching of paid and unpaid ministry leaders. He is coauthor of WHEN NOT TO BUILD: AN ARCHITECT'S UNCONVENTIONAL WISDOM FOR THE GROWING CHURCH (Baker).
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