Harvest Community Christian Church
P.O. Box 33
Whitestown, IN 46075
General Information
Approximate Sunday worship attendance: 100
Approximate Small Group participation: 150
Current number of small groups: 7
Background
Harvest began as a small group of 5 families (9 adults and 6 children) in 1999. Later, in the start-up, 6 more families made the commitment to come and form the core of approximately 35 people. The core group came from a sponsoring church: New Hope Christian Church, Whitestown, IN.
Harvest was launched and structured around a relationship-based focus rather than a program-based focus or an event-based focus. In many ways the church functioned around a cell-church model where relationships and small groups were seen as the hub and focus of ministry life. And, in fact, the church originally met in small group format until the original small group multiplied into two small groups. Shortly after, a Sunday worship began as a time of worship, teaching, celebration, and reunion of the now multiplied small groups.
The guiding mission and values of the new church included the following:
Mission Statement:
As God's children, we are the church. He has commissioned us to Make, Mature, Mobilize and Multiply disciples into His work.
Core Values:
People are the church, not the building
We will actively seek the lost
We will focus our energy at making current disciples better disciples (spiritual growth)
We will have a relationship-based focus
We encourage everyone in the Body to minister
We allow freedom to minister
We will regularly check our actions against scripture and our understanding of our calling (our values)
When the initial small group birthed and a weekend worship began, the original small group evolved into a leadership group which served in the role of elders and teachers at the Sunday worship gathering. Also, this original small group became "keepers" and "vision casters" of the core values.
None of the Harvest leadership had been formally trained in ministry, although many possessed ministry experience. No senior position was designated; rather each Christ-follower at Harvest was called on to recognize their calling and was declared to be servant ministers. Traditional "Pastoral" leadership and care came primarily from small group leaders.
The Vision and Leadership Environment
In many ways, Harvest leaders wanted the church to "look" like the first century church of Acts 2 where ordinary Christians can have extraordinary roles in making disciples. A relational ministry structure obtained from the Bible League's Church Planting ministry (www.wheresphilip.com) helped form the vision for the relational ministry structure of Harvest. That vision included seeing all Harvest people bring each of seven relational connections under the Lordship of Christ. Those connections include:
• Relationship to God
• Relationship to a spouse or close friend
• Relationship to family
• Relationship to a small group
• Relationship to a church
• Relationship to God's Kingdom
• Relationship to the lost world
Much emphasis was placed on being ruthless about incorporating ministry activities into each person's life that would directly enhance one of those relationships.
Along with the connections, there was a strong emphasis on family being our most basic small group of the church and so personal and family devotions were given a high priority with successes in this area routinely celebrated during Sunday worship through testimonies.
In place of a formal membership, a discipleship training process was initiated that acquainted individuals with basic doctrine, Harvest's core values, and began to train them in relational ministry skills. This training process is called commissioning. This discipleship training typically occurred in a relational setting (one on one or in very small groups) and took many relational appointments to complete. Potential small group leaders were required to complete the commissioning process prior to leading a small group.
A couple of years into the process, a new discipleship group tool was introduced to the congregation as a result of a leadership conference several attended. That tool was the Life Transformation Group (LTG). LTG's involve holding two or three individuals of the same gender holding one another accountable for weekly Bible reading, confessing sins to one another, and praying for lost people in their sphere of influence. LTG's evolved into a primary accountability and encouragement method for personal and family devotions.
What happens in your church's small groups?
Small group gatherings very commonly begin with a time of eating a meal--sharing supper or dessert together. Eating and talking together is a very important component of group life. After sharing a meal, a time of singing and an opening question or activity is done allows the group to "warm-up" and break the ice. Commonly adults and children can participate in these activities together. This leads to the Bible study where the goal is to allow the truth of God's Word to intersect with the truth about us and the things we share about our lives. Children typically have their own time together during the adult discussion time. Children may or may not have a lesson and are supervised by a paid babysitter and sometimes one adult from the group rotates in with the kids. Small groups typically conclude with prayer for each other and for those who need Jesus.
Additionally, the Sunday morning gatherings have a small group emphasis. Sunday gatherings include a time of family worship where adults and children sing and share testimonies together. Then children have a special time of teaching and activities while the adults have a teaching (sermon) time led by one of several teachers (also known as the teaching team). After the teaching, the adults gather around tables and a table leader facilitates a discussion about the scripture and thoughts shared during the teaching time. Communion is also shared each week around the tables as we remember and celebrate what Christ has done for all of us.
What has been done to grow the involvement of people in Christian community?
With a relationship-based, rather than an event-based focus, there needed to be a change in the way of thinking about small group outreach. Rather than defining success by whether a new person showed up at the next group meeting or at the Sunday worship, instead success was defined by how faithful you were at investing your life in Christ on a regular basis with one or two others outside the group? This could be as simple as having lunch with a non-believing co-worker or disconnected church member twice a month just so you could get to know them? Or, sharing a garden plot with your unchurched neighbor where you could routinely work together. Or, regularly car-pooling to a child's or grandchild's sporting event with another family whose child is on the team. The goal is establishing friendship and trust between you and the person you are reaching out to. Then, over time, making suggestions that you read a book together about how to become a better parent from a Biblical perspective or share a Biblical teaching on CD and agree to get their reaction to it the next time you get together. The interaction small group members have with folks they are reaching out to was called an O-group (outreach group)
A small group member might apply this strategy with one or two or more people they would like to reach out to. These O-group people are not isolated from the main small group because while these outreach relationships are being established, you and your small group are praying for these outreach individuals by name. This strategy can make outreach attainable for everyone.
So the Harvest strategy for moving more people into community looks something like this (although not always in this order):
O-group relationships > small group relationships > Sunday worship relationships
(each phase also utilizes family devotions and LTG's as processes in growing disiciples)
What has happened as a result of what has been done?
Initially the strategy of moving people into Christian community was targeted at reaching non-believers. However, in the first two years this strategy was employed most of the growth of groups and Sunday worship came from Christians who had recently had troubled experiences in "traditional" churches and were looking for something different and fresh to ignite and heal their souls. In fact, several former pastor's committed and became involved at Harvest and began the commissioning process. As small groups grew and multiplied again, more unchurched from various backgrounds started making their ways into newly birthed small groups. Also, several churched people who worshiped with other congregations, but who did not experience true community in other congregations, began to be attracted and connect in Harvest small groups.
Groups continued growing, but several concerns began to arise:
• As groups grew and multiplied fewer potential leaders were available who had completed the commissioning process and it began to be difficult to find individuals who wanted to complete the "commissioning training" process because of the time required. As a result leadership development started to lag group growth.
• For existing small group leaders, as new group leaders were multiplied, more need arose to develop relational systems that would support new leaders and continue to train them for the task of discipling their group members.
• There was also difficulty getting new small group members (both churched and unchurched) to commit to attending Harvest Sunday worship. They either wanted to continue worshiping at their church of origin or remain unconnected beyond their small group.
• Overall church leadership was becoming a more difficult and complex task, taxing the servant leadership team (elders).
Lessons learned
Currently, the up-front requirements (commissioning process) for someone to enter small group leadership is being re-thought in order to allow more people to potentially become eligible to lead a small group. Along with streamlining up-front training requirements for group leaders, a stronger on-the-job leader support system is being implemented that includes all leaders being part of small leadership communities (called A-groups) that meet regularly and are made up of leaders who originated from the same "group family tree" and are typically facilitated by one of the servant leadership team members (elders).
Also, while we don't want to prevent small group members who come from other church congregations, we are making stronger appeals to individuals to "buy in" fully to our whole church community and all it can offer for growth and fulfillment of the Great Commission. Moving to a highly relational "cell-based" model requires much work to establish DNA.
Maintaining and developing systems that support a congregation of 100+ with all volunteers and team leadership has required each servant leadership team member (elder) to become more specialized and focused in covering specific congregation-wide activities. At a personal level, sometimes this focus of time and energy takes away from the relational focus of each leader. Time will tell how this will play out with more congregational growth.
