Using Midsize Groups to Incubate Small Groups

Develop the idea of small groups among your congregation.

Mike Shepherd

To Incubate: (Webster) — 1: to sit on (eggs) so as to hatch by the warmth of the body; also: to maintain (as an embryo or a chemically active system) under conditions favorable for hatching, development, or reaction 2: to cause (as an idea) to develop.

Now I know some of us sometimes feel like we are a mother hen with our small group leaders but this article is not about sitting on a nest. We are referring to definition #2: to cause (as an idea) to develop. Our idea? Small Groups.

An ongoing challenge for any growing church is not sitting on the nest, but hatching new groups and assimilating all of the new people into those groups. Many people who are seeking spirituality or a church usually check out the worship experience before they do anything. Likewise, we are not seeing a large percentage of people coming to our churches "through" our small groups either. So if worship is the common front door, how can we capture them? ANSWER: On-campus Connection Groups. This is one of the most effective ways I have found to get people into small groups quicker than the normal methods. I call them "Connection Groups."

What is it?

A Connection Group is a group of 15 or more people led by a Master Facilitator who meet initially to "try out" community. The midsize group is divided up into subgroups of 6-8 people who are led by subgroup facilitators. These facilitators have been planted there on purpose. If the process goes well, they are potentially the future group leaders for that sub-group. That sub-group incubates with that leader for anywhere from 6 to 52 weeks before it leaves the larger nest to become it's own self-supporting group.

How is it done?

There are many different ways to do it. I would encourage you to look at how Saddleback Church in Mission Viejo, CA. is doing it (www.smallgroups.org). Also study Pantego Bible Church in Arlington, TX. and their version of this strategy (www.pantego.org). The following 10 steps are what we did at Flamingo Road Church in Ft. Lauderdale (www.flamingoroad.org).

1. Championed the value of community by:

All staff members modeling the value of Small Groups by: personal participation, only enlisting ministry leaders who regularly attend a small group, and holding all lay leaders accountable to attend their small group,
The teaching pastor referencing it in every message,
Identifying story teller (in weekly message) by what small group they attend,
Closing every service with a small group challenge. Humor is heavily used along with video clips, well done dramas, etc.. Small group leaders do this.

2. Surveyed the felt needs of the worship audience (through the bulletin 2 or 3 times a year) to get a pulse on current felt needs. Connection Groups would target these felt need topics when starting the new group. We would assist the Directional Leader to identify curriculum that would be most effective to address the felt need they were going to address. We wanted highly relational material. We were not doing inductive Bible study in these groups.

Took apprentices from existing groups and trained them to launch a connection group. These were often from an existing connection group. They already had the hands-on experience, so we had them attend a four-hour workshop to pull everything together they had learned in the lab. These leaders had to have the skills to lead a large group as a master facilitator (not master lecturer). Not all group leaders have this skill and should not be put in that situation.
Assisted the directional leader of the Connection Group to put together their team. This team would include Party Team, Care Team, and Sub-group Facilitator Team. As the connection group got going, we would look for apprentices to emerge from within the sub-groups.
Marketed the Connection Groups and their "hot topics." We would do this through the worship bulletin, brochures, and the information table at the entrance to the worship center. We would market it for a month encouraging people to register. We could take as many people as we had seats and facilitators for. Our largest classroom could hold 200 people. Our average room could hold 40-50. We regularly had 25-40 in most connection groups. We tried to do have 4- 6 connection groups at a time each with their own topic to hit a broad spectrum of people. Some of these topics would be around relationships, marriage, money, stress, parenting, etc.. Key times for launching these groups were September, February, and Easter.
Made attendance doable. We would ask people to commit to 4 weeks of this group. It is sold as a no obligation opportunity to check out one of our core values-"community" - in four weeks. Once we came to the end of the four weeks, we would ask people if they would like to continue, the majority would and then we asked for a 13 week commitment on a new topic or the same one. Some groups would incubate for a year and then spin these sub-groups off into new small groups. Some would spin off immediately and form a new group. We gave permission for each group to make their own decision about when the time was right for the incubation.
Made the groups available after worship. We offered these connection groups on Saturday night and Sunday mornings after each service. At the end of worship, we would say, "The best part of our church is community, we want to invite any of you who are not in a group to check community out through one of our connection groups right after service. Since you are already here and it is only for one hour, we encourage you to check it out. We will take care of your children. Go by the information booth and someone will escort you to the group of your interest. By the way they have great food too."
Scheduled one or two kickin' parties during the first four weeks.These were pre-planned before the Connection Groups ever started. This could be anything from pool parties to picnics or any number of fun interactive events. The parties would go a long way to insure the group going beyond 4 weeks. If people connect they will stay regardless of the topic. Relationships are the glue for life change to happen long term.
Coached the connection groups through the incubation process. Connection Group's leadership teams would be in communication weekly and participate in monthly training to monitor the progress of the group. Guidance would be given for the identification and training of apprentices as will as timing on incubating new groups.
Assimilated these new emerging groups into the small group system.