Attendance: 1900
Small Groups: 126 (Fall Semester)
# of people in groups: 1178 (62% based on survey in Feb 04)
Background
Lakeview Christian Center has recently decided to become a church "OF" small groups. This has been a cultural change among the leadership of this 86 year old Assembly of God church. God has challenged the congregation of Lakeview to begin to live out the commandment to "love one another" by jumping into small groups. The current Senior Pastor, Ron Bontrager, has launched this effort into small groups from experiencing a small group himself. "God showed me that I was experiencing something that my own people were not, the dynamic of a small group" Pastor Ron said. Pastor Ron Bontrager is the 4th Pastor in the history of Lakeview Christian Center. He came to Lakeview Christian Center in 1994 as the Senior Pastor and has taken the mantel of Preaching and Teaching the Word of God to hundreds on Sunday morning and evening. Pastor Ron realized that true worship, true love for one another happens Monday through Saturday, and not just on Sunday. As God began to stir his heart toward relationships, he made a bold statement to his staff Pastors and team; "If we continue to be a non-relational church, we will attract non-relational people." This would turn out to be the pivotal point in defining what Lakeview would become. During the time God was developing this vision in Pastor Ron's heart, he found himself standing in a church holding a book that has been the springboard to Lakeview's current structure of Small Group ministry. It happened when he was visiting his brother's church (New Life Church) in Colorado Springs, CO. Pastor Ted Haggard had just released his new book, "Dog Training, Fly Fishing and Sharing Christ in the 21st Century." Pastor Ron says "it was not accident" that he happened to be at that church at that time. He read the book and bought several for his board and staff to read.
The Vision and Leadership Environment
Soon realizing that Lakeview Christian Center must embrace a model of ministry that would change the way they do Ministry, Pastor Ron remembered a conversation with a lay-minister over 6 months earlier who shared with him a vision and call into ministry to help bring people together in order to love and encourage one another. Pastor Ron recommended that this lay-minister read the new book on small groups and to let him know what he thought. Soon after reading the book Pastor Ron asked him to come along with him to Colorado Springs to visit New Life church. After the visit, it was clear that God was orchestrating this divine connection of vision between lay-minister, Shane Frazier, and Pastor Ron. In January of 2002 Pastor Ron Bontrager hired Shane to begin to work on his vision of small group ministry for Lakeview.
The first taste of small groups in it's new form was in conjunction with the 40 Days of Purpose campaign in January of 2002. The first launch was a great success as 92 small groups were launched to do study in homes for 6 weeks. This was a great way for them to begin, says Pastor Shane. "I remember praying that God would give us 50 groups with at least 10 people in each group…500 people would be connected. We had 3 services that day and had a "connection event" between each service. By the end of the 2nd "connection event" we already had 56 groups that agreed to meet and the biggest group was yet to come in, I was ecstatic." These groups helped people realize that ministry can happen in the home Monday through Saturday as people gathered together and shared a meal together. The greatest thing that happened during this time was the manifestation of God's Spirit as healings began to take place in peoples lives. Both emotionally and physically as people were healed of cancer and marriages were renewed. This was a great "testing" ground to show how much small groups were needed at Lakeview Christian Center.
During the campaign Pastor Shane studied diligently models from Willow Creek, Saddleback and New Life among others to fine tune what the structure would look like for Lakeview. After the 40 Days of Purpose campaign was over, about 50% of the groups continued to meet for the summer months. Lakeview launched the new "Free Market" small group model in September of 2002 with 86 brand new small groups that had never been a part of the ministry structure of Lakeview Christian Center.
What happens in your church's small groups?
Lakeview small groups meet all over the city and at different times on different days. The only prerequisite Lakeview places on each group leader is that they administer one of the four following components into their group time: Prayer, Bible Study, Personal Testimony or Worship.
One example would be the Lakeview Men's Basketball Small Group. They meet each week and take prayer request and then play ball. "It's about doing your every day life with Christ and with others" Pastor Shane said. "It should not be a burden for people to get together with other people and pray, share a testimony in your life, study Scripture or Worship. It's fun, deep and most of all, life-giving" he added.
"Lakeview Christian Center has become a pursuer of becoming an Acts 2 church. Doing small groups based on the model designed by Ted Haggard, the "Free Market" model seems to work best in this type of culture and has the greatest impact on the person as a whole." Pastor Shane shared.
What has been done to grow the involvement of people in Christian community?
Part of the culture of "Free Market" small groups that is very attractive to the Christian community is it's flexibility. The brilliance of a semester format gives people the opportunity to come and go as their life experience dictates. Instead of the Pastor deciding where they need to be as a person, the person takes ownership and decides where they need to be. Pastor Shane shares a real life example: "A staff Pastor came to me telling me about his love for hunting one day and explained that he wanted to start a small group on hunting. I laughed at first, but began to realize that he was exactly on target, no pun intended, for what we mean by free market ministry. His eyes would get huge and he would move his hands like he was in a silent box trying to communicate something beyond excitement. Then he dropped the bombshell on me when he said: "We are going to call it B.L.A.S.T. Believers Living And Shooting Together." I about lost it I was laughing so hard. But I was more excited for him than anything. I encouraged him to do this group and God was the one laughing at the end. We began to see something amazing. Not only were men coming to the group, but some, who would never go to church on a Sunday morning, were not only coming, but some were bringing their son's along with them. All of a sudden Pastor Bob had helped create an atmosphere of Father, Son time. Soon after that, we began to see these men in church on Sunday morning."
What has happened as a result of what has been done?
At Lakeview, a definition most often stated during this process is "we are turning a huge ship around, and it is taking a while to do so." This has been the primary problem they have encountered as a result of switching to this format. Accompanying this transition they have found that it is easier to say that you are a church of small groups than to live it out in each area. Some grasped the concept quickly while others are still struggling to understand it. The nice thing about the change is that it has forced the staff to come together in unity as each ministry is complementing the other. Perhaps the best outcome of this significant change is the expectation of the Pastor staff to participate in a small group themselves. This is slowly bringing life and vitality to each one who has stepped out.
If Lakeview had the choice to do it all over again, Pastor Shane said they would have slowed down the implementation process. What Lakeview accomplished in 9 months should have taken us up to 2 years according to support staff at New Life Church.
Lessons learned
Although Lakeview has only completed 4 semesters of Free Market small group ministry, they have seen incredible results. People actually believe that God has something in mind for them to accomplish. They understand that they have a gift and that they are expected to use it. They understand that coming to church to "participate" isn't an option. It's about getting in the game, becoming involved and taking ownership over their life and why they attend Lakeview Christian Center. Lakeview realizes that empowering others to do the work of the ministry has been Jesus' plan all along, but now is the season to launch it and let the Lord do what He wants.
