When a church is launching or casting vision for its small group ministry, the focus is usually on getting people already a part of the church to become part of a small group. What if we turned this on its head? What if we trained up small group leaders, like we do church planters, and sent them out to plant new small groups among those who do not yet know Christ? Imagine if a church made their primary concern connecting people outside of their own community of believers (Romans 15:20)!
One of my professors from seminary actually started a house church by putting an add in the classifieds of the local paper inviting people to come and learn more about how the Bible speaks to life today. Rich community resulted from that invitation which continued for years and helped many people discover Jesus. Like my professor, I have found it more energizing and easier to launch new groups made up of unchurched people than attempting to create satisfying groups for people who, for years, have been an active or inactive part of the church.[i]
Unchurched people tend to come with less expectation and more anxiety because they have no basis for comparison. If anything, their perception of church is a religious one, and small groups present a wonderful opportunity to show them that God is not interested in our religion.He wants relationship with us. The best way to communicate this message is to show the unchurched what authentic, loving relationships look like.
Small groups provide ways of initiating spiritual conversations, and they augment a believer's influence through relational evangelism. When believers are engaging in relational evangelism, they invest in the people they are reaching by taking the time to learn about them, to meet them where they are, and to enjoy life together with them in a variety of settings and seasons. This can happen with people they already know through a shared activity, work environment, or cyclical interaction (e.g. grocer, hair stylist, local business contact, etc.) Over time, believers can cultivate the soil of their social circles with references to the meaningful friendships they have developed within their small group.
Believers can look for common ground by sharing about things they have learned or done in their small group that might pique the interest of their unchurched friend. They can communicate the importance of their relationship with God as they share about their own personal enrichment through their group experience. While sharing personal stories of how their small group relationships have impacted their lives, they can also convey the value their church places on community in general. This helps to peel away the perception of some unchurched people that the Church is religious or impersonal.
Your influence through relational evangelism can be further enlarged through community evangelism. Community evangelism is like relational (friendship) evangelism, with an emphasis on building relationships with the unreached within the network of relationships that already exist.Here is a suggested approach to this kind of outreach that you might find helpful:
- Build fun, social relationships with unchurched people in your sphere of influence based on activities that relate to where you and they are in life right now (e.g. if you are a young family it might be going together to a park or on an outing that would be fun for the kids).
- Think of the people God has placed in your small group / church family, particularly their occupations.
- Invite the people you are reaching to activities that would benefit them, while putting them in touch with people in your small group / church community, (e.g. going to a store where a member of your group / church works or inviting them to participate in an activity their kids would enjoy doing.) It makes a difference in reaching people when they can see you interrelating with people in your church outside the church building. It helps them to see that you are a real person just like them and it exposes them to friendships that already exist between you and others from your church community.
- Introduce them to multiple people in your small group / church IN your community. What you are doing is introducing them to the life of your church community IN your community. This way, your life as a part of the family of God will naturally weave into the conversations you are having with the people you are reaching out to with God's love. This is the essence of community evangelism.
- Ask your new friend to come to your small group or an event at your church that would be meaningful to them. By the time you ask them, they will have warmed up to the idea of coming because they not only know you, but they know several friendly faces in your church community. Relationship building within your network of believing friends helps to overcome the negative notions some unchurched people have about "Church".
Take your time and let the relationship develop naturally; it could take months or weeks. Small intentional steps in the same direction go a long way.
Another approach is to create "living room events" that are designed with the unchurched in mind.It is important that they are relaxed and interesting, free-flowing and fun. [ii] Invite members of the church to use these events as opportunities to bring their friends or associates that might have an interest in the topic. Take it to another level and get the word out through the local paper, posting flyers, and doing radio spots! Who in your church has connections with people in the community to help you get the word out?
Highly relational and relevant "living room events" that present an option to continue the conversation in the context of a shared interest group is a strategic way of inviting the unchurched and unbelieving to experience the life-giving community we enjoy in Christ. In a book called, The Shaping of Things to Come, the authors, Michael Frost & Alan Hirsch, discuss how missionally-intentional relationship building can help the Church fulfill its purpose:
The missional-incarnational church should be living, eating, and working closely with its surrounding community, developing strong links between Christians and not-yet-Christians. It would be best to do this in the homes of not-yet-Christians and in their preferred public spaces (the skydiving hangar, the favorite coffee shop, etc.) but also in the homes of Christians. By creating a net of deep loving friendship, more and more people will be swept into the community…An incarnational mode creates a church that is a dynamic set of relationships, friendships, and acquaintances. It enhances and "flavors" the host community's living social fabric rather than disaffirming it. It thus creates a medium of living relationships through which the gospel can travel. It emphasizes the importance of a group of Christians infiltrating a community, like salt and light, to make those creative connections with people where God-talk and shared experience allow for real cross-cultural Christian mission to take place.
Many evangelistic opportunities and strategic new ministry initiatives can sprout as a result of a church sowing the seeds of shared interest groups in the turf of its surrounding (host) community.
For example, what if you called the people of your church to step out and facilitate a short-term group (3-6 weeks) open to the public that is focused on something they feel a passion for or a subject matter with which they have some expertise.This can effectively create a shared interest group?[iii]
Small groups are essential for a church to minister like Jesus (incarnational) so it can be effective in sharing the Gospel in word and deed (missional) with all those within its sphere of influence.[iv] They provide the practical means for the Church to continue Jesus' earthly ministry in ways that work within the rhythms of specific people groups and subcultures that make up every community. They reveal the loving relationships of believers and thereby allow the world to taste the salt and see the light of Christ (Matthew 5:16).
Another way you can expand your church's community life beyond its existing membership is by promoting outreach as a core value and primary purpose of all small groups. In essence, start groups with the emphasis on evangelism! Pre-launch emphasis on small group outreach goes a long way in helping groups to remain intentionally-evangelistic. What we communicate on the front end has enormous imprinting power to the core values a group subconsciously adopts. For existing groups, consider appointing a champion of going or mission in the group and engage in periodic servant evangelism projects.[v]
It is as important to talk about how we are doing in connecting with people not yet a part of the church as it is to talk about the level of connectivity within the church. This will help build a culture in favor of ever-growing biblical community where these two truths are taken to heart: 1) Discipleship and evangelism go hand-in-hand theologically and practically, and 2) Small groups are a vehicle for taking discipleship and evangelism from being activities we do to the defining lifestyle of our groups and church at large.
Taking the time to discuss and develop strategies of grouping people outside the church helps small group leadership think evangelistically. This outward orientation to small group thinking will help a church's small group ministry launch more groups and reach more people for Christ.
[i] When a church is growing, there is the influx of many different people in different places spiritually. I have identified four major types: churched believers (transfer growth), churched unbelievers (nominal or notional Christians), unchurched believers (Christians returning to church after being absent for many years), and unchurched unbelievers (seekers). The focus of new small groups, new ministries, and even new churches tend to be oriented toward churched Christians. There is some logic to this, but it brings some disadvantage as well. The most challenging type of people to work with are those coming from a churched background because of the expectations they bring with them.
[ii]A "living room" event is an intermediate event that helps to meet people (occupying varied spaces of belonging) where they are and to facilitate movement from the large group to a small group. They are usually oriented around a subject of interest, presented live or via video, and attract certain affinity group(s). Discussion groups based on the teaching content immediately follow the large group presentation, and the event concludes with a non-obligatory option for participants to continue in a short-term group experience (3-6 weeks), which builds upon the discussion that began at the event. It is best to offer living room events based on things that are generating spiritual conversations in our culture (e.g. a popular book, movie, TV program, or a cultural issue, which needs not be controversial or religious in nature). It is important to create a fun environment where people can BEGIN to connect relationally and discuss a relevant topic in a light-hearted way.
[iii] See Ted Haggard's book entitled: Dog Training, Fly Fishing, & Sharing Christ in the Twenty-First Century (Thomas Nelson) where he talks about "free market small groups."
[iv] This is at the heart of Rick Warren's new P.E.A.C.E. Plan (www.saddlebackfamily.com/peace) that is scheduled to go fully public in fall 2007. The P.E.A.C.E. Plan is a systematic strategy for mobilizing God's people in mission (personally, locally, and globally) through small groups. Small groups are what make this grand vision possible.
[v] In the book, Conspiracy of Kindness, author Steve Sjogren suggests many practical examples of how groups of two or more people can reach out to their neighborhoods and community.
