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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!

Pastor, do you want your congregation to grow? I’m not talking about numerical growth. Do you want your members to grow in their relationship with Jesus? Nothing will facilitate intentional growth like small groups.  But as powerful as small groups can be in the life of your church, their health isn’t automatic. The values your small groups hold will make the difference between groups that foster growth and groups that don’t.  Here are five small group values that influence spiritual growth: Encourage your members to show up every week to their small groups. Just attending every other week won’t lead to transformational small group experiences. When people attend small groups consistently, they put themselves in a position to grow. Hebrews 10:25 says, “Let us not give up the habit of meeting together, as some are doing. Instead, let us encourage one another all the more, since you see that the Day of the Lord is coming nearer” (GNT). A habit means you consistently do something. You make it a priority. This is one of the reasons we ask participants of our spiritual growth campaigns to commit to a small group for a specific amount of time. Anyone can attend a small group for six to eight weeks. It’s much better for someone to attend a small group every week for two months than once a month for a year. Prioritize humility in your small groups.  You don’t want your small groups to elevate the value of some participants over others. Encourage your congregation to lay aside any egos before they arrive at small groups. One person who comes into a small group with a know-it-all attitude can stifle sharing for the rest of the group.  Paul wrote, “Be friendly with everyone. Don’t be proud and feel that you are smarter than others. Make friends with ordinary people” (Romans 12:16 CEV). Nothing ruins a small group faster than one person in the group acting like they know everything. That doesn’t work. Humility means having a teachable attitude.   Ensure your small groups are respectful of people’s doubts and fears. Sometimes we tend to judge people by how far they need to grow rather than commend them for how far they’ve already come. Respectful small groups do the opposite. According to Romans 15:2, “We must bear the ‘burden’ of being considerate of the doubts and fears of others” (TLB). We tend to believe our fears and doubts are rational and reasonable but dismiss the fears and doubts of others. The Bible says we need to be considerate of people who have doubts and fears, no matter what those issues are. One of my favorite verses in the Bible is Job 6:14: “When desperate people give up on God Almighty, their friends, at least, should stick with them” (The Message). Small groups should be a place where we can safely share our doubts without worrying that others will judge us.  Allow people to share their faults honestly. We can’t grow until we’re honest about our struggles. As a pastor, you likely know how hard it is for people to admit failures. When someone attends your small groups regularly, they’ll hopefully become more comfortable with talking about their problems.  The Bible says, “If we live in the light, as God is in the light, we can share fellowship with each other. Then the blood of Jesus, God’s Son, cleanses us from every sin. If we say we have no sin, we are fooling ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:7-8 NCV). You can model this in your own life and in your own small group. I regularly talk about how our small group has walked through tough times—from financial hardships, to illnesses, to loss of loved ones—together. These difficult times have drawn us together, and sharing about them has helped us grow.  Let your groups become champions of accountability. Small groups help people grow by encouraging them through accountability. In small groups, we encourage and pray for each other as we set goals for our spiritual growth. Hebrews 10:24 says, “Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds” (NIV).  Every person in your church needs someone in their life who will spur them on toward personal and spiritual growth. They need someone who will ask them tough questions about whether they’re being consistent in their daily quiet time with Jesus. They need people who can ask them about how their marriage is doing. Small groups can provide this kind of accountability support.  Pastor, small groups that demonstrate these five characteristics will become powerful agents of transformation in your church.