We needed a strategy. Northeast Christian Church had been doing a fairly good job of getting people to our weekend services, and the leadership of the church believed strongly that real life change happens best in small groups. The problem was that we were not effectively getting people from the large group events to small group community.
Two things were needed: a small groups pastor (the church had been without a point person for the small groups ministry for some time) and an assimilation strategy that worked. In Fall 2001, the church hired me to serve as Small Groups pastor, and at about the same time, the adult team found an approach we thought would work for our church when we visited North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, Georgia. There we discovered the strategy of using environments "where people are encouraged and equipped to pursue intimacy with God, community with insiders and influence with outsiders." (See their web site at http://www.northpoint.org for more information about the church and their strategy.)
We decided to adapt this model to our situation, using the three environments: Foyer, Living Room, and Kitchen. On our website at http://www.necchurch.org, we describe these environments like this:
Foyer
If you have attended one of our weekend services, you have experienced a foyer environment. The key word in the foyer is "guests." At Northeast, we are expecting guests every weekend and we try to tailor everything we do during our weekend services to demonstrate that readiness. We also have other "foyer" events that are simply events that provide an entrance into Northeast. If you are currently in the "foyer" we welcome you and we want to encourage you to take the next step into connecting at Northeast. If you haven't attended the "Discovering Northeast" class, that is your next step.
Living Room
Our Living Room environment is an opportunity for you to move from the large group gathering of our weekend service to more of a medium size gathering. The key word in the living room is "friends." Our primary event in the living room environment is called Area Fellowships.
An Area Fellowship is basically a monthly party that is geographically oriented. It is a place where you can interact and really get to know other people who attend Northeast and live near you. It's a great way to connect with others and begin to see some familiar faces during our weekend services. As you become comfortable with Northeast and some of the people you meet at an Area Fellowship, we will encourage you to move to our next environment, the Kitchen.
Kitchen
The Kitchen is where you can develop lasting relationships with a small group of people going in the same direction as yourself. The key word for the kitchen is "family." Life change happens best in a small group of 3-12 people who meet together regularly (usually weekly). They discuss and apply God's Word to grow in their faith together. Small groups are facilitated by trained leaders, and everyone has an opportunity to be involved in the life of the group. This is a safe place to ask tough questions, share what's on your mind and heart, and just be yourself in an environment where you will be accepted, encouraged, and involved.
Before making the transition to these three environments, we expected "guests" at our large weekend events to make the leap to becoming "family" in our small groups. The missing piece for us had been the Living Room environment where friends are made in a fun, fellowship-oriented, friendly atmosphere. We needed this nonthreatening, relaxed place where people could take the next step, not a huge leap!
Living Room events happen almost monthly in designated areas of town, arranged by zip code boundaries (sometimes several zip codes are together) in what are called "Area Fellowships." Each Area Fellowship consists of a team that plans and carries out each event. Area Fellowships have hosted dinner parties, luaus, pool parties, theme parties at local restaurants (i.e., Italian night), picnics, Derby parties, and other fun events. The goal of each is to help people begin to connect with people who live near them and have things in common and lead them toward a small group.
The Area Fellowship team includes a coordinator, social person, welcome person, recreation person, and Small Group Liaison. Small Group Coaches oversee the small groups in their designated areas (usually in the areas in which they live) and are actively involved in Area Fellowship events, although not part of the planning team. The Liaisons work with and report to the Small Groups Coaches in their Areas. They are members who are passionate about small groups, have a desire to see other people connect with a small group, often have a strong testimony about how small groups have impacted their lives, and are skilled at communicating in front of people as well as one-on-one. They:
- Spend about 15 minutes at each Area Fellowship event talking about small groups and introduce coach(es) and facilitators for area. From time to time they schedule brief (5 minute) testimonies about small groups from group members. They announce upcoming Small Group Connections.
- Keep updated information about each of the small groups in the Area Fellowship.
- Act as a "matchmaker" in the Area Fellowship between people interested in being in a small group and small groups actively seeking new people. When possible, they introduce them to one another at an Area Fellowship event.
- Follow up with people interested in being in a small group by telephone the week after Area Fellowship to help them connect with a small group. They provide them with information about a small group and let them contact the facilitator (or other contact person) to get directions to the group meeting place.
- Contact people seeking a small group through other means than the Area Fellowship (e.g. special bulletin tear offs, contact with someone at weekend services, phone calls to office). (1) Encourage them to come to the next Area Fellowship. (2) Help direct them to a suitable small group.
- At the Area Fellowship event, introduce people who are interested in forming an adult small group to one another. When a group can form naturally in a neighborhood or among friends in the Area Fellowship, the Liaison works with the Coach to help get the group started with a "Starter Curriculum."
- Help in the Connecting Point area on a regular basis. (Connecting Point is an area we are building in our Foyer where we will provide information about Area Fellowships and Small Groups.)
We are also transitioning other "middle-sized" groupings into Living Room environments. These include one larger adult Sunday-morning class, a monthly men's breakfast, large women's gatherings and classes, and other events. Basically, we've combined North Point's environments strategy with the midsize "community group" assimilation strategy of Pantego Bible Church and others. (See Pantego's website at http://www.pantego.org for more information about this church and their assimilation strategy.)
We are still on the front end of the learning curve for implementing and utilizing the environments strategy at Northeast. Yet we have seen incredible things happen as a result. One particular testimony (of many) involved a group leader named Dennis who had apprenticed previously in a group, had gone through my training class, and wanted to start a small group in his area of town, but had struggled to find people. He then gave it over to God and asked Him to bring the group together according to His purpose and timing. At the June Area Fellowship, God did just that! Dennis showed up at the Area Fellowship swim party with 2 people in his group: himself and his wife. He left with 12 people in his group! The Small Group Liaison and his coach teamed together with Dennis, as they collectively partnered with God, to connect people in authentic Christian community.
When we connect people in small groups, we want to connect them in real community that is more than just a once-a-week meeting. Because of the natural proximity that people have - and often the affinity they also have - this kind of revolutionary New Testament community can grow.
We are now piloting several "Neighborhood Small Groups," which are groups of 4-12 adults (or 2-6 families with children) from a particular neighborhood or subdivision. Participants live within walking distance from one another. Their purpose is to build authentic Biblical community, living out all the one another commands of the New Testament together, to team with God in reaching out through friendships to their unchurched neighbors, to grow together into mature followers of Christ, and to send out those mature Christians into the Harvest Fields to form new groups in their neighborhoods. (See my article on Neighborhood Small Groups in the May issue).
My goal is to eventually have at least one Neighborhood Small Group in every subdivision in our area. Imagine if we could assimilate people in groups in their own neighborhoods where they can have life-changing interaction on a regular basis with their group! We will always have other kinds of groups as well, such as men's, women's, and singles groups, for instance, but even those we hope to make more geographical as they continue to grow.
This article has provided the nuts and bolts of the assimilation strategy we are now using. There are many facets of the strategy that we have or are still working out, which I have not attempted to include in this article. Many of those specifics have to do with our culture here at Northeast in Louisville, Kentucky. If you chose to adopt a similar strategy, you will need to work through the process as a team to develop your own strategy - one that will work for you in your church situation
I have tried to assimilate people into small groups in other ways at other churches, and have found that the best way of connecting people to community is to decentralize it. At Northeast, our Coaches and Liaisons have a passion for connecting people into life-changing community in their areas. They are taking ownership over the areas where they live, shop, and where their kids go to school. They are fulfilling our Small Group Ministry Vision: "to make disciples of all nations … one home, one neighborhood at a time … ."
