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You say it from the pulpit all the time: Nobody grows alone. Get in a group. Find people who really know you. It's some of the best counsel you give your church.Then Sunday ends, and you drive home the loneliest person in the building.Most pastors have no close friends. We shepherd from behind a professional distance, urging our people to build the very relationships we've never built ourselves. I understand why. It feels safer. But it isn't sustainable, and it isn't biblical.Let me say it as plainly as I can: I could not have pastored Saddleback Church all those years without my small group.You can't follow Jesus aloneThe Bible says, "In Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others" (Romans 12:5 NIV). That verse has three very important words: body, member, and belongs. The Christian life is not just a matter of believing; it's a matter of belonging.A lot of people think following Christ means, "It’s just me and Jesus. I don't need other people." Nothing could be further from the truth. A hand cut off from the body shrivels and dies. A Christian without real community is like a bee without a hive.The Living Bible paraphrase says, “You belong in God's household with every other Christian" (Ephesians 2:19). In fact, the New Testament uses the phrase "one another" 58 times: love one another, encourage one another, pray for one another, carry one another's burdens. You cannot obey the “one anothers”  in a crowd. You can only obey them with a handful of people who are committed to you, and you to them.Pastor, that verse doesn't come with an exemption clause for church leaders.If Jesus needed a small group, you need a small groupThink about how Jesus began his ministry. He went out to the Jordan, John baptized him, the Spirit descended, and the Father spoke over him. Then the very first thing Jesus did as his ministry launched was form a small group.If Jesus needed a small group, and Jesus knew the importance of a small group, and Jesus did his ministry through a small group, then if I want to be like Jesus, I'm going to be in a small group.Look at how his ministry ended, too. Facing the cross, Jesus took his inner three aside in Gethsemane. He didn't hand them an assignment. In effect, he said, "I don't need you to pray. I don't need you to talk. I don't need your advice. I just need you to be with me."There is power in relationship. It is the power of presence. If the Son of God wanted friends beside him in his darkest hour, why do you believe you can white-knuckle through yours alone?My small group kept me in ministryThe small group I was in for years went from vacations to devastations together. We faced cancer. We faced bankruptcies. We faced problems with children, mental illness, tax troubles, and unemployment. We took each other to the emergency room at least 10 times, and we sat with each other through the night.Those couples carried Kay and me through seasons we could not have survived on our own, and we carried them through theirs. That is the mutual ministry of the body of Christ, happening in a living room.And here's what I learned as a leader: If you want your people to be in a small group, then you must be in a small group. Tell stories about it. Let your church hear how it has ministered to you. Your people will never value community more than you visibly do.Let someone speak into your earReal friendship also means letting somebody tell you the truth. Years ago I asked my friend Os Guinness, one of the wisest men I knew, to serve as a personal advisor to me, to speak into my ear and give me input before I stepped into hard rooms. I had been preaching for decades. I still needed a trusted voice with access to my life.So who has that role in yours? This can’t be a podcast preacher you admire from a distance, but a friend who knows your number and uses it.Every climb needs a teamSir Edmund Hillary wrote in his autobiography, High Adventure, that you'd be foolish to attempt to climb Mount Everest by yourself. You simply can't do it without a team to support you.That's true of every climb in life. If you want to climb out of debt, you need people climbing with you. If you want to climb out of grief, or loss, or insecurity, you need a team making the climb beside you. Ministry is one long climb, and you were never meant to make it solo.When you're under stress, it helps to have people praying for you by name, not just vaguely from the pews. Jesus said, "For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them" (Matthew 18:20 NIV). That could be Monday morning in a coffee shop or Thursday night in a living room.Success is never a solo act. It takes a team to fulfill a dream.Believe your own sermonPastor, don't wait for friendship to find you. It won't. This week, take the step you'd prescribe to anyone else in your congregation: Get in a group where you can be a person before you're a pastor. Tell your people a story about it. Ask one trusted friend to speak into your ear.You've spent years telling your church they can't do life alone. You were right. If Jesus needed a small group, you do too.

As your church grows, one question inevitably comes up: How can we keep the warmth and personal touch we had when we were smaller?It’s a valid concern—many pastors worry that people will start to feel overlooked as numbers increase. The solution can be summed up in two words: small groups.When you build a network of small groups—based on purpose, interest, stage of life, location, or other common ground—you create spaces where every person can be known, loved, and cared for. In a big church, small groups make the church feel small again. While large gatherings inspire people with vision and momentum, you can’t share personal prayer requests in a crowd. In a smaller setting, people know your name, notice when you’re missing, and follow up when you’re struggling. In times of crisis, they become your first line of care.One of the best ways to connect new members is to start new groups regularly. Don’t expect people to join long-established groups; it’s much easier to bond in a brand-new setting. That’s why launching groups right after your membership class can be so effective—people already have their “newness” in common. It doesn’t matter what the starting point is—shared hobbies, neighborhoods, life stages, or ministries. What matters is that groups keep forming so people can build relationships from the start.Meeting in homes has unique benefits. Homes are everywhere, making them infinitely expandable. They give you the freedom to minister beyond your immediate campus. They allow you to be good stewards of resources by using space others already pay for. And they foster closer connections, because people tend to relax and open up more in a home setting.The bigger your church becomes, the more important small groups are for pastoral care. They are the “lifeboats” of your congregation—ensuring that no one drifts away unnoticed. People who are deeply connected in a small group rarely slip out the back door. They’re engaged, supported, and growing spiritually.Pastor, your role isn’t to personally shepherd every single person—but it is to make sure everyone is shepherded. That happens best through a vibrant network of small groups. Start more groups. Train more leaders. Encourage your people to connect in smaller circles where they can be truly known. If you do, you’ll create a church that feels like family—no matter how big it gets.

Your church’s small groups have incredible potential to be evangelistic hubs in your community. Evangelism, like the other four purposes God has for us, cannot be accomplished alone. We need other people in our lives because we’re better together. We’re more evangelistically effective when we partner with others. Small groups are the perfect place to put this into practice. That’s why it’s so important for you to encourage your small groups to PARTNER together to share their faith. Here are a few specific ways they can do this. P - Pray for their lost friends. We can’t force anyone to love God, but we can pray for them. Prayer can do what God can do. Prayer melts hard hearts and warms up cold ones. I have seen it thousands of times.Your small groups can pray for opportunities to share the Good News. Early Christians did this, and you can too: “Pray for us that God will give us an opportunity to tell people his message” (Colossians 4:3 NCV).When small groups consistently do this, God will give them opportunities. In fact, they will start seeing them everywhere. As they have more opportunities to share the Gospel, they should keep a list of people who need to come to faith in Jesus—and regularly pray together for those people.A - Appeal to common interests. Before your small groups can effectively share the Gospel, they need to establish relationships with non-Christians through shared experiences, common interests, and mutual challenges. Encourage them to make a list of people in their lives whom they can connect with over these elements. For example, maybe they know some other young moms they can build relationships with. Or maybe they can build relationships with fellow football fans. Building relationships with non-Christians through shared interests forms deeper connections and creates natural opportunities to tell people about Jesus.R- Reach out in love. It’s critical to have the right motive for evangelism. Evangelism should be an act of love. God has given us the greatest news in world history. We share that message because it is fantastic news for the people in our lives. The Creator of the universe wants to have a relationship with us. That’s good news!But we also share the Gospel as an act of gratitude. Jesus has forgiven everything we’ve ever done wrong. We owe him everything, so we tell people about Jesus out of gratitude.T- Tell their stories. Your group members’ personal stories of coming to faith and responding to life’s challenges through God’s strength can play an important role in people coming to Jesus. Encourage your small group members to write out their testimonies and practice sharing them with one another. When they do this, they’ll build confidence and have a powerful tool they can use for evangelism.N - Nurture friendships. We all want friends we can count on when we need them the most. Everyone has acquaintances. Very few people have deep, meaningful relationships. Encourage your small groups to partner together to nurture their acquaintances and turn them into friendships.One of the best ways to do this is right in the Bible: Throw parties! Jesus did it. In fact, he was such a party animal that the religious leaders of Jesus’ day called him a glutton and a drunk (Matthew 11:19, Luke 7:34). But he taught his disciples to do the same thing (Mark 2:13-17).Your small groups don’t need a fancy agenda for these parties. Encourage them to host a backyard barbecue and include people who don’t know Jesus. It’s really that simple.E- Expect God to act. God works in people’s hearts when we expect him to. The Bible says, "According to your faith let it be done to you" (Matthew 9:29 NIV). I don’t fully understand how it works, but I know that when I pray and expect people to respond, it makes it easier for them to choose the right path. God never forces anyone to choose him, but our prayers can soften hearts.R- Represent Christ with their lives. We need more audiovisual Christians who walk the walk and talk the talk—Christians who both live out and speak the Gospel.Every person in your congregation has people in their lives who need to meet and respond to Jesus. God won’t write the Gospel in the sky for these non-Christians. He puts your congregants in their lives so they can show them how to get to heaven. Your small groups should help members grow into the kind of Christians who can live their faith out in front of their unsaved friends. This week, choose a few of the actions from the list above and encourage your small groups to PARTNER together to share their faith on a regular basis. Imagine what God could do through your church if you could mobilize every small group in your church to consistently put this into practice!

Spiritual growth isn’t a solo affair. We grow in community. You can read the Bible on your own. You can memorize a verse on your own. But you can’t grow spiritually by yourself.  The New Testament uses the phrase “one another” 58 times. We’re told to care for one another, pray for one another, help one another, and so on. But our church members can’t do any of those things if they’re not involved in small groups.   True growth happens with other people. That’s why, when we do spiritual growth campaigns at Saddleback, small groups are at the heart of them. In fact, spiritual growth campaigns are a factory for creating healthy small groups.  So, how can you leverage spiritual growth campaigns to get more people connected in small groups? First, provide great small group content.  For many years, I emphasized the wrong aspect of small groups as I tried to encourage people to get plugged-in. I would tell them that small groups will help them build relationships. But that didn’t motivate the response I was looking for, because most people have plenty of relationships and feel like they’re too busy to invest time into more.  But when I began offering people resources they couldn’t get elsewhere during spiritual growth campaigns, they joined small groups in droves. Our spiritual growth campaigns impact lives by helping people study the Bible, discover their purpose, pray, and stretch their faith like never before. To get the most out of our campaigns, they must be in a small group. Now, people join our small groups for the fresh content, but they stay for the relationships. Saddleback is probably one of the few churches in America where more people attend small groups than attend weekly worship services. That’s because we’re not only giving them resources they can’t get elsewhere, but they’re building life-changing relationships in the process.  Second, explain it’s a short-term commitment.  We don’t ask people to sign up for a small group they’ll be in for the rest of their lives. When people are new to the idea of small groups, they’re often hesitant to make a long-term commitment. What if the time doesn’t work? What if they don’t sense a connection with their group members? What if the whole experience is awkward? Most people can commit to anything for six to eight weeks. If they don’t like it, they can try something else. This is also a good length of time for people to develop meaningful and lasting habits. Jesus had six or seven major campaigns during his three-and-a-half years of ministry. During these periods, he’d focus on heavy ministry for five to seven weeks. Then he’d pull back and rest so he wouldn’t burn out his followers. Jesus understood the power of seasonal growth. Third, be intentional about what you call your small group leaders. The responsibility of leadership is often one factor that could limit the number of small groups your church can start. We had this issue at Saddleback for years. But then we discovered that our description of the role greatly impacted the number of people interested in getting involved.  At first, we called our group leaders “lay pastors.” We only recruited dozens of people that way. The term “lay pastor” scared people. People reasoned that they weren’t pastors and didn’t respond. Then we went to “lay shepherd.” That was even worse. No one knew what a shepherd did, let alone spend time with sheep.  So we changed the name to “small group leader,” but many people didn’t want to be called a leader either. We saw a similar response when we changed the name to “small group teacher.”  That’s when I started thinking, for every person in our church who has the spiritual gift of leadership or teaching, there are probably 50 people with the gift of hospitality. So I finally changed the name to “small group host.” Anyone can host. All you have to do to host other people is be nice to them.  The term HOST stands for four qualities we look for in small group hosts.  H - Have a heart for people. (You do have to like people.) O - Open up your home. (You can also open up your office or invite people to your favorite coffee shop.)  S - Serve refreshments.  T - Turn on the DVD/video teachings.  If a person can do those four things, they can be one of your small group hosts. When I first changed the title of leader to “small group host,” 3,200 people signed up to host a group for six weeks.  Small group involvement grows the most during spiritual growth campaigns. I believe spiritual growth campaigns can be a transformational part of your small group ministry as well.  ______________________________________ Are you looking to mobilize your people to get into small groups? Try launching a spiritual growth campaign in 2022. Click HERE to explore our spiritual growth campaigns, and watch your congregation grow relationally and spiritually!