(Edited by Mel)
So, you have a leadership role in your church. And for the fifth time in as many years, you’re gathered in the “fellowship hall” with other leaders and the pastor says:
We’re growing and that’s awesome. But we need to grow smaller as we grow larger. Last week, Jamie–you know, Jeremy’s sister, been here seven or eight years?–told me that another long-time member asked if they were new here!
Stilted laughter, nods of agreement–“Yeah, I’ve done that…”.
More importantly, some of our members, when they get sick or have other troubles, are falling through the cracks. We’re just getting too big now for the leadership to be able to take care of everyone. What we’re going to do is get small groups going. Now, I know we’ve tried this before…
And that’s when you try to decide whether to get excited now, and then give up later, or just give up now.
Because even though church small groups always begin with the best of intentions, with the most reasonable and laudable objectives, they also almost always end up, well, disappointing. Here are my thoughts about why that happens.
Dynamic and Diverse
Yes, “dynamic and diverse” small groups look exciting in the bulletin, but trying to create them almost inevitably produces the same disappointing results. It turns out that attempting to create dynamic, diverse small groups is actually pretty stupid. Why?
Because these attributes are exactly opposed to what attracted people to your church in the first place. Small groups that are truly created to be “diverse and dynamic”–that is, groups that artificially bring dissimilar people together for continually changing experiences and endeavors–are going to scare a congregation that sought out this church as a place of security and comfort. That is not to say that difference, change, and relevance are undesirable, but rather that they are the product, and not the producer, of a healthy small group.
At bottom, people go to church to find stability. This may be the “I don’t want to be challenged” stability, and it may be the “I need a place where I know I will be loved and encouraged” stability, but the heart of the matter is that church is a–for many, the–place we go to be safe. Difference and change, however, are inherently destabilizing. This is good on a personal level, or when organically developed–there is no growth, you know, without change–but when artificial or institutionalized, they inhibit rather than foster healthy communities.
Dynamism, in its most abstract form, is appealing to church and organization leadership primarily, if paradoxically, because it helps to create an atmosphere of emotional security. The term “dynamic”, as used by the seeker-friendly and megachurch movements, is a constrained definition referring to a particular service style: an entertaining, engaging, and well-run production-type worship experience, generally sold as something like “presenting relevant material in a relevant way”. Most churches, whether their services are “dynamic” in this sense or not, seek to promote an atmosphere of comfort, homogeneity, and stability in order to attract the “less devoted” crowd; they just keep those terms out of the marketing materials. “Dynamic,” entertaining services and swanky coffeeshop décor are carefully crafted to make the congregation–and especially visitors–feel safe, not challenged. The audience is in the familiar realm of the consumable, for better or worse, enjoying pleasant experiences with others who enjoy the same experiences.
Diversity is a little more clear-cut. We know what we want when we say diversity. Having a racially and otherwise diverse congregation and staff is appealing for a very similar reason: it presents an image of interpersonal harmony–however well-founded–that is profoundly comforting in our very unharmonious world.
While intentional, top-down efforts toward dynamism and diversity–at least in these forms–contribute to an atmosphere of stability in the broader church setting, in small groups they tend to do the opposite. For instance, we only have one idea of how to make small groups “dynamic”: switch them around every year (Please note, if you just thought that was a good idea, any small groups that you have leadership over will fail within the next six months). People came to your church to get some stability! Thirty 90-minute meetings is nowhere near enough time to forge a meaningful, trusting, and supportive community, especially with the expectation of having to do it all over again in a year. It’s barely enough time to learn everyone’s name.
And when we try to create a “diverse” small group, we tend to assign the small groups based on insurance commercial diversity: there’s the token black man, the token old lady, the token former druggie, the token “other race”, the token career woman, etc. Then we push people to stay in that group. So what happens when these “representatives of diversity” also have, by coincidence, completely different methods of studying the Bible? How does that play out? In my experience, this attempt actually produces homogeneous groups in terms of race and background who are incompatibly diverse in both methods of interaction and of study. “That doesn’t make sense. How did this happen?” Because your church is not all that diverse–in terms of race, economics, social classes, age or background–and by cherry-picking artificially mixed groups you’ve stuck people together who are not comfortable with one another. And, hey, this is the US of A. We aren’t that comfortable with diversity to begin with. Could you blame the people chosen to make the group “diverse” for seeing through this nonsense and checking out?
Required Studies
In your efforts to ensure that the church is growing smaller/bigger (and because he “doesn’t want to waste time of the small group leaders”–which may just mean he just doesn’t trust them), the pastor has established a curriculum and assigned it like homework in a seventh-grade English class. I’m not even going to bother with this. It just doesn’t work.
No, wait, I am going to bother with it. Did you like school?
“No. Well, actually, yeah–I liked that one class with the teacher who was always going off on tangents.”
I’m going to share something life-changing with you. Everybody feels that way! At least, everyone I’ve talked to about it. Tangents, bunny trails, call them what you will, interest us, excite us. Why? Because they’re RELEVANT. Not relevant to the entire school, the entire church, the entire “movement,” but relevant to the community created in that class, during that discussion, at that moment. Communities are forged in these kinds of moments, through these kinds of all-over-the-map conversations. These conversations cannot be led from without…because they, and the communities they create, are truly dynamic. Dynamic in the constantly evolving, chaotic, messy, eruptive sense.
The tendency in church leadership is to envision a false dichotomy between uncontrolled chaos and perfect order in small groups (and elsewhere)–and from there to imagine that unless the church leadership is extremely involved in every aspect that the former will reign. This is stupid. And arrogant. If God can use you, can’t he use the people he directs you to appoint? The leadership needed in a small group setting is not lecture-hall style didacticism, but rather intimate shepherding–and this is precisely the kind of care for which the pastor, recognizing the limits of his or her ability to reach an exploding congregation, has created the small groups in the first place. By forcing a small group leader into a specific channel of material, the church leadership essentially cripples the small group leader’s capacity for leading, guiding, and counseling those under his or her care.
As a note, one of the fears of tangential discussion is that an important point will be missed. Unless you’re changing up groups all the time, there will be another meeting. The point you were trying to make wasn’t that important, anyway. Sorry.
Throwing Out the Baby
“Our small groups aren’t working like we want them to, so we’re going to stop them and try something different.”
“Jane and Bob’s small group isn’t working, so we’re going to stop it, but Ralph’s and Sarah’s groups are doing great, so we’ll see if the leaders need anything from us to help them do even better.”
I’ve only ever heard that first statement. Is this some idea of fairness, or are small groups just an all-or-nothing game? I think it’s pride. The leadership says, “we’ll figure out a plan that works for everybody,” imagining that if they just think hard enough, just talk about it long enough, they’ll find the perfect idea. Completely, of course, disregarding the reality that each small group is a unique community made up of individuals with very distinct needs and personalities.
If a group is successful, if it is meeting the needs of the people in it and helping them grow closer to God, what on earth are you accomplishing by disbanding it?
Anybody?
Hello?
Ironically, while we rarely have a plan for dealing with the single failing group, church leadership wastes time worrying over what to do with the too successful group, the “big” small group. Aside from the futility of pondering this when first getting groups going, the usual solution is itself a problem: Split it into two. Realize that a successful group is successful because of the dynamics of that group. Splitting it up may disrupt that dynamic to the point of rupture. So, be very careful when going that route, and don’t just announce at the outset that that’s the plan. Just as with rearranging groups every year, a policy of splitting-into-two destroys the atmosphere of long-term belonging crucial to a successful, healthy small group community.
Leaders Matter
Leaders make or break a small group. Period. Unfortunately, the inclination of the church leadership is to pick tried-and-true ministry folk for their small group leaders, which sometimes makes sense but often means picking those who are already very involved in the church’s ministries because they have a “if it needs to be done, I’ll do it” attitude. In other words, people about three weeks from burning out. On the other side of this coin, pastors tend to choose small group leaders based on who the pastor thinks can do a good job, rather than who is interested in leading a small group.
Picking good leaders matter, but I think there are really only three things that you need to look for:
- Not arrogant
- Interested in leading the group (If they waffle at all, don’t push it)
- Obedient to God
That’s it. More important than anything else (Are they good speakers? Do they have a lot of charisma? Are they popular enough?) is that the church leadership support the small group leaders. Treating them as little more than a lab experiment won’t work, and neither will hovering over their shoulder with “helpful suggestions” at every staff meeting. Instead, the leadership should ask the small group leaders questions and listen to their answers. What would make their groups better? What resources do they need? What challenges are they facing, and how can the leadership help? Attentive, but not micromanaging. After all, if we’re being sensible, if one group doesn’t work because of its leaders, that one can be altered or disbanded, without affecting the other groups.
Can Small Groups Even Work, Then?
Of course small groups can work. I’ve been in one. Notice that past tense, though. What happened? Well, some of the other small groups weren’t working. I’ve also been in groups that failed miserably from the start. In both cases, the end result was no group because church leadership kept getting in the way. The church leadership persisted in setting expectations that make no sense, particularly when adhering to their poorly understood theories of “dynamic and diverse” groups. In addition, the church leadership was unwilling to trust the leaders of the small groups to work in their own spiritual gifts for fear that the groups might take off in unexpected directions. (God forbid we be surprised!) And finally, the church leadership’s goals for the small group leaders–getting through a curriculum, maintaining a minimum attendance, including too many elements, etc–had nothing to do with the actual goal of a small group ministry, which is to provide community and more intimate group discipleship in a large and growing congregation.
In the small group that worked, the leaders of the group consistently chose to lead, regardless of what small group games the wider church leadership was trying to play. But when that church leadership rejected the group altogether, simply because other groups were less successful…
Well, that’s the attitude that keeps you showing up for that fellowship hall meeting every year.
So…want to make it happen this time? It’s very simple.
If you need a buzzword (it’s nothing to be ashamed of, lots of people have this problem) try “organic”. “Dynamic” implies change, but gives no reason. It usually devolves into change for change’s sake. Organic things, on the other hand, are alive, and change because they are living. Vitality drives dynamism. A small group that is succeeding will change as the growth of the group requires it. That means every group is going to end up different, and some groups will go the wrong way and have to be scuttled.
Let groups form around existing friendships. Individuals are much better at growth and diversity than organizations, anyway. Then let it grow organically, and don’t worry about how it looks. This is also the most effective way to avoid clashes over “ideas” and to keep the conversation-dominators from continually having new groups to dominate.
I’d suggest, instead, making it known that anyone who wants to start a small group can, with a minimum of requirements (basically, believe and follow the tenets to which all church members are expected to adhere), then have the individual leaders encourage anyone who shows an interest and ability to start their own group if they wish. Thus, off of successful groups may be a continual succession of buds, rather than a perpetual expectation of an impending split.
And absolutely the most important: install quality leaders in each group and have the church leadership be attentive. Feed the groups that are growing, and get rid of the rest.