I sometimes refer to the process by which people get into small groups as the "funnel." A funnel is a device which has a wide opening at one end and a small opening at the other end. Funnels help get things into small, hard-to-access openings.
The idea here is that small groups form and grow as people are drawn to do life together out of larger groups of people. How people get from the larger group to the smaller group is the "funnel" or the pathway used to bring people into community. I have personally experienced the use of three different funnels in church small group ministries. While I have developed some biases about which funnel works best, I will try to share some observations along with some ups and downs I have experienced with each strategy. The bottom line is that regardless of which funnel you use, the long-term results of your small group ministry will depend on the core values instilled as people travel through the funnel into small group communities.
The first funnel I call the Silo Funnel.
The idea here is that every church has "small groups" whether they try to or not. Every church has relational clusters that exist. Those clusters may exist in small Sunday school classes or music choirs or even what some people might call "cliques." One way to form small groups where spiritual development is a core value is to utilize the relationships that are already there, the "groups" that are already there. All you really have to do is add some intentionality to it—train a leader, recommend a meeting schedule, provide an agenda, and have a church leader draw a circle around them and call them a group! Obviously, healthy disciple-making groups do not always self-initiate, so the silo funnel can help it happen. To help people embrace the new values of group life, many times a special catalytic event or campaign is used to help launch new groups. New groups can be established whenever existing relational connections can be identified, a leader/host can be established, and some basic training is done.
My observation has been that small groups that are formed through pre-existing relational connections are very strong and sustainable for long periods of time. These groups can also have great discipleship potential initially as existing relationships flourish from the added injection of intentional Bible study, consistent purposeful fellowship, service, and accountability. When these groups form and are continually engrained with strong values of outreach, service, and multiplication, they can become consistent disciple making communities. However, my experience has been that these groups easily drift toward non-reproducibility and in the worst cases become unproductive holding tanks. Good friends form a small group to do Bible study and service. The community is rich and the group instinctively protects the safety of the environment by either subtly discouraging new members from joining or turning down new opportunities for mission that might disrupt the group life. The result is that new people and ideas come and go, but the inner circle remains strong and resistant to change.
My experience has been that this funnel alone can establish several stable groups, but many pre-existing relational clusters will never embrace the change in group dynamics and thus only a relatively small percentage of the whole church congregation becomes connected to an intentional small group focused on spiritual development. The groups that remain tend to have intrinsically low motivation for outreach and multiplication over time.
The second funnel I call the Fishing Pond Funnel.
This strategy involves raising up and training small group leaders. These leaders then "fish" for their own group members in different "ponds" of people already connected to the church. The ponds are near the large end of the funnel and are generally made up of people-groups who have been drawn to the church through other activities like worship services. These ponds may include first time worship service visitors, new members, singles, sports ministries, or the infamous "those not in a group" list. Building and growing groups revolves around personal invitation with some help from church leadership to direct leaders toward the ponds.
The Fishing Pond Funnel works best in church situations where new people are consistently drawn to large group events like worship services and where there is a mechanism to continually raise up new leaders. In many cases, the bigger the pond, the easier it is to find both new leaders and potential group members. This funnel can lead many into groups and has the potential to capture new people in groups on an ongoing basis. The effectiveness of this funnel is really dependent on new leader development, ongoing leadership support, and the curriculum or "recipe" used to help the group through the phases of community development since leaders and group members do not often have prior relational connections.
While the potential to connect a larger percentage of the congregation is increased with this funnel, I have found these groups tend to be less sustainable because groups do not typically form around pre-existing relationships or geography. Many times individual ministries of the church (men's, women's, greeters, music, youth, etc.) develop their own way to funnel people into groups which can lead to confusion of values and even competition. Also, leadership development and leader coaching is critically important since many group leaders have had few previous small group experiences. Without leader support, many groups tend to end prematurely, become less purposeful, or eventually become holding tanks rather than disciple producers.
My experience is that the more leadership support and leader coaching there is, the more effective group and leader multiplication tends to be, and the higher the percentage of the congregation can potentially be involved in small groups when using the fishing pond funnel.
The third strategy is what I call the Farm-System Funnel.
The first two strategies involve some centralized feeder system where the larger church becomes the main feeder into the small groups. In the Farm-system Funnel groups develop their own farm system with respect to outreach prospects. Each group's spiritual cultivation, seed sowing, and sometimes even harvest is mostly decentralized from the larger congregation. The farm system focuses on establishing relationships and inviting people to their group from their sphere of influence, whether that be their family, school, neighborhood, or workplace.
What seems to make this strategy work is that the focus is on developing relationships with those in your "neighborhoods" prior to inviting them to your group. This funnel will reach people the large group gathering approach might never reach. However, the Farm-system funnel requires a different paradigm that allows individuals in the group to see outreach and service being their job and not "the church's job". Because of that difficult paradigm shift, the Farm-system funnel is less effective in church situations where established members have their whole relational network within the church congregation itself. Establishing relationships with unchurched people is time-intensive, and a heavy "church" activity calendar can actually be a barrier to establishing these relationships. Strong ongoing leadership support is also vitally important in this funnel.
My experience is that if the value of small group outreach beyond the "walls" of the congregation really takes hold, there will actually be significantly more people in small groups than there are those who attend the large group worship service. In fact, I have found that getting new small group members to attend large group worship services in a decentralized paradigm sometimes becomes as much of a challenge as getting large group worship service attenders to connect to small groups in a centralized paradigm.
As you evaluate which funnel to use in your church, the reality is that you are likely going to have some of all three strategies (and more) going on in your church simultaneously. Depending on the size of your small group ministry, it may be strategic to have all three funnels in use. However, when establishing or transitioning a small group ministry, my experience has shown me a couple of things:
- Make sure you and your leadership are as clear as possible on which funnel you are using to grow and reproduce your groups, and teach and demonstrate those values from the top down in your leadership structure. Also, select your funnel in the beginning with the end in mind. If you start small groups congregation-wide with the silo funnel approach and then a year later want your groups to start reaching out to the neighborhoods where they meet, this will become a hard sell for most of your groups. Whichever funnel you choose, promote and train your people to have a long-term vision and strategy for keeping groups healthy and growing. Otherwise, there will be the potential for groups to become holding tanks rather than disciple-making vehicles.
- The more restricted the large end of your funnel is, the more difficult it is to maintain group health and group growth over the long haul. A funnel with a narrow opening (Silo Funnel) can produce an incredible small group initially, but the longer-term prospect of keeping this group embracing mission and multiplication can be a more difficult process from my experience. On the other hand, groups that are formed from the Farm-system Funnel tend to be less cohesive and stable initially but, with good relational leadership, come to function as dynamic Christian communities and tend to have values of outreach and multiplication more engrained in their DNA.
Selecting and casting the vision for your selected funnel is important. Regardless of which funnel you are using, the most important thing is that what comes out of your funnel are small groups that have the core values that can be sustained over the long haul. From my experience, the best way to do that is to select a funnel that has the widest opening you can! Leaving our funnel open to those outside the walls of the defined church, including our neighbors, co-workers, classmates, and others is critical to our own mission and growth as Christ followers.
