See where they’re going?  A group grows and then births a new group, led by an apprentice leader.  A classic example of cell group or meta church practice.  Core-to-crowd.

I asked the reader, “How’s it going?” and “Will it scale?”, followed by, “What’s your average adult worship attendance?  How many adults in groups?  And how

Why did I ask those questions?   Two main reasons:

• First, what works in the beginning or at one size won’t necessarily work as an organization matures or as it grows.  This recognition is at the heart of my article on The Unexpected Twist in Saddleback’s Exponential Growth Formula.
• Second, it’s important to understand the whole scenario before you conclude that the current solution is working (or working as well as it needs to work) given the win that’s been clarified.  The Catch a Moving Train Scenario and The Second Question Every Small Group Pastor Must Answer both play important roles in the diagnosis.

As you probably know by now, I want to be an evangelist for the truth that your Easter adult attendance or your Christmas Eve adult attendance is a much better gauge for the number of people you should be in the business of connecting.  The average weekend adult attendance only reflects the average.  It doesn’t reflect the total number of adults who call your church their church.

The reason the shepherd with 100 sheep in Luke 15 knew to look for the one that went missing was that he knew the total number.  Not the average.  Feel me?

Need a little more?  Spend some time with part 1 and part 2 of my series, If I Were Starting Today.   It’s so important, I wish it was required reading for small group pastors and directors.

Want do you think?  Want to argue? Have a question? You can click here to jump into the conversation.

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DVD-Driven, the Leader Kit is designed to be played in the group meeting.  Featuring Les Parrott and Bill Donahue, the DVD provides a message for leaders, an introduction for group members, and four segments that will guide the group in their experience.  Presented in a conversational style, it feels almost like it would if Les and Bill had stopped in to lead the session.

Similar to the way the DiSC or Myers-Briggs introduces a language and a way of understanding temperament and preferences, the Small Group Insights assessment and profile could provide just the beginning or next step that many groups need in order to fully understand each other.  You can find out how to purchase the assessment right here.

The more I’ve thought about the benefit to group health, the more I like the idea of the assessment.  And the Group Insights Leader Kit makes it easy to facilitate a great experience for your members.

Prefer buying from Lifeway?  Here’s a link to the Group Insights Leader Kit.

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We landed at Parkview Christian Church in February of 2010.  Joined a great team on a really great mission.  Led by Senior Pastor Tim Harlow, Parkview has been one of the fastest growing churches for something like 7 of the last 9 years.  So exciting to be part of what God is doing in southwest Chicago.

The last two years have been quite a ride for us.  The number of small groups and people in them has almost tripled.  Men’s and women’s teams are really solid and cranking out great opportunities, designing next steps for every Parkview man and woman and first steps for their friends.  Our GroupLife Midwest 2012 conference was very cool.  Really, really been a fun time.

But…a feeler extended by another great church in Las Vegas caught our attention.  5 hours from my parents and 4 to 5 hours from a sister and her family and a brother and his family.  Lots of geographic reasons to give the opportunity a hard look.  Throw in a leadership role and a chance to impact a region like Vegas…what’s not to love about that!

Still, we’ve loved every day here at Parkview.  Made some awesome friends.  Connected with many ministry leaders throughout Chicagoland.  The relationships are the toughest things to leave behind.

My first day in the office at Canyon Ridge Christian Church as Pastor of Discipleship Communities is February 29th.  Hope you’ll give me a shout if you’re out that way!  And…you might as well honk if you see two silver cars streaking toward warmer weather with Illinois plates.  Just might be the Howells!

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First of all, the metaphor of frequency to describe our unique pattern of connecting with God is just beautiful; a picture of our individual design that is easy to paint and use to explain connecting with God.

Next, the chapter on finding your frequency does a very good job of integrating an understanding of several aspects of our unique design:

• Spiritual Pathways: A concept explored in a more extensive way by Richard Foster, Gary Thomas, Bill Hybels, Ruth Haley Barton and a number of other authors, spiritual pathways are “the avenues and/or environments where you easily and effortlessly connect with God (p. 26).”
• Learning Styles: Long understood to be an important clue to the particular way we learn best, the distinction between auditory, classroom, social, verbal and visual provides additional understanding about our unique design.
• Personality: Along with other aspects, an understanding of personality types can also play a part in fine-tuning frequency.

Frequency blockers are also a helpful idea in the book.  Even with a better awareness of our frequency, developing a more accurate understanding of the role of sin patterns in blocking our hearing is essential ingredient.  The authors note that “because we are unique, we each have unique habits of sin (correlating to our personality) that tend to get in the way of our growth and cause us to live outside our frequency (p. 39).”

My favorite part of the book?  Part Two features a series of interviews, each with one of the nine different personality styles (the Monvee Spiritual Growth Assessment identifies a biblical figure you are most like).  When I took the assessment last year, I was most intrigued by this aspect and honestly, I was probably most amazed by the biblical character my profile revealed.  The interview opened my eyes to an even better understanding of this aspect of the profile.

Finally, purchase of Frequency includes a unique access code allowing a free assessment.  Like Marcus Buckingham’s Now, Discover Your Strengths or Love Talk by Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott, the assessment is really the key to the experience.  Completing the assessment and then reading part two provides a set of new insights about our own individual frequency.  Working through the book and assessment could provide a small group with new eyes to see and ears to hear each other.

Frequency: Discovering Your Unique Connection to God is a helpful addition to an already very helpful toolkit.  I got a number of new insights from it and I bet you will too.

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The DVD segments are engaging and compelling; each a portion of a message from a series delivered live at Woodlands Church.  Noted for his creative presentations and application oriented teaching, Shook will keep your members’ attention.  Better, the teaching is delivered in a style that leads to practical application.

The Participant Guide includes several important components.  Like many DVD-driven studies, the Viewer Guide provides a little bit of room to take a few notes during the DVD segment.  It also includes a couple key questions that will help your members ease into the session’s discussion.  A Biblical Background section along with key included Scripture passages make it easy for group members to participate.  A well developed set of Small Group Questions steadily pull members toward application.  Each of the sessions conclude with a simple Journal assignment to be utilized at another time and a You’re Up section that provides a between meeting assignment (a different spiritual discipline every week).  While this is a simple curriculum to use, it’s important to note that there is no leader’s guide.

If you’re looking for a study that can be used by beginner groups as well as seasoned veterans looking for a fresh take on an ancient practice, take a look at Fresh: Reviving Stale Faith.  I came away with a number of fresh insights…and I think you will, too.

Prefer buying from Lifeway?  You can purchase this study right here.

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Great pricing?  Originally offered at $129.99, they’re available right now at $49.00.  Even better?  Enter the special code and get a seat in the online LIFT course offered in April (by itself a $225.00 value!).  A great deal at $49.00.  An awesome deal when you realize it includes the online course that features its own all-star cast (seriously, you have got to see who’s on this list).  Take advantage of this deal right here.

Along with a reproducible guide for participants and a separate guide for your facilitating ministry leader, STIR features the following speakers and topics:

• Leading From a Healthy Soul. Mindy Caliguire, Director of Transformation Ministry at the Willow Creek Association and Founder of Soul Care.
• Safe People/Dangerous Groups. Henry Cloud, PhD., Clinical Psychologist and Best-Selling Author
  
• Flawed Is the New Perfect. Heather Zempel, Discipleship Pastor at National Community Church
  
• Responding to Flaws: Case Studies. Russ Robinson, Speaker and Author.
  
• The Word Became FRESH. Bill Donahue, PhD., Speaker and Author.
  
• A Conversation About Inspiring Others to Lead. Mindy Caliguire and Mac Lake, Chief Launch Officer, The Launch Network
  

Can you see how this might fit in your leader training concept?  This is a great resource.  I highly recommend it.  You might buy it because of the price.  You’ll use it because it’s just good stuff.

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Tell Me More About That…

And of course…I can’t help asking questions along the way.  ”Tell me more about that?” is one of my favorite questions.  ”What do you mean by that?” is another favorite?  ”Why do you think it’s that way?” is still another.  If you’ve been along for much of this journey, you know that a great question beats a prefab answer all the time (see Four Questions That Will Inspire Breakthrough Thinking and The Right Answer to the Wrong Question for more.  Also see Distinctives of the Three Types of Connecting Events for more on “What do you mean by that?”)

Have You Thought About…

Of course, I almost always hear what’s working and what’s not working and then wonder if they’ve tried this strategy or that structure.  And…most of the time, I just can’t help myself.  So what I’m wondering becomes a question:  ”Have you thought about…?”

As you can imagine, there are a couple basic responses to the question, “Have you thought about…?”

• No (usually followed by their own question, “Tell me how it works?”)
• Yes (often followed by, “We’ve tried that before…and it doesn’t work here.”)

We’ve Tried That Before

I love it when I hear, “Tell me how it works?”  I love it when I hear, “Tell me more about that?”  Like a red cape to a bull I am challenged by, “We’ve tried that before…and it doesn’t work here.”

A variation on “we’ve never done it this way before,” “we’ve tried that before…and it doesn’t work here” means one of three things:

1. there’s something in how they’ve done it that is begging to be exhumed
2. the pursuit of problem-free is still on
3. something about it absolutely doesn’t work in a particular setting

Can I tell you something?  It’s almost never #3.  It’s almost always #1 or #2.

Want do you think?  Want to argue? Have a question? You can click here to jump into the conversation.

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It would be funny if it weren’t the truth for many of us.

Still, it might pay to do some basic thinking about small group coaching philosophy before you make your next move (or your first move in the case of a new small group ministry).

Here are 7 core ideas about small group coaching:

1. Jethro’s wise advice to Moses in Exodus 18:13-27 is often cited as the basis for the idea of span of care (essentially, Jethro pointed out that Moses couldn’t possibly care for everyone.  Instead, he needed to have leaders of 1,000, leaders of 100, leaders of 50 and leaders of 10).  Carl George provided a good shorthand nugget for Jethro’s advice to Moses with this pithy line: “Everyone needs to be cared for by someone and no one can care for more than (about) ten.”  It follows from this simple statement that leaders aren’t the only ones who need care.  Someone will need to provide care for your coaches as well.
2. Coaching is primarily about care.  While there may be a need for how-tos in the very beginning of a new leader’s experience, a small group leader rarely needs help with technique after their first 3 or 4 months in the role.  Asking four basic questions from the beginning of the relationship will help establish a caring connection that will endure beyond the leader’s need for technique.
3. The coaching relationship is often positioned incorrectly as primarily about communication and data integrity (How many members do you have?  How many times did you meet this month?  Etc.).
4. Positioned correctly, the coaching relationship can be about discipleship and mentoring (i.e., whatever you want to happen in lives of group members must happen first in the lives of group leaders).
5. The most receptive coaching recipients are new small group leaders.  It makes sense.  They’re unsure of themselves.  They have questions.  They don’t know all the answers.  New small group leaders are almost always glad to hear that you’re providing an experienced guide for them.
6. The least receptive coaching recipients are experienced small group leaders.  After all, once they’ve survived the first few months, they’ve usually encountered all of the most common pitfalls (my article How to Implement Coaching for Existing Group Leaders addresses some of the issues surrounding assigning coaches to existing leaders).
7. It’s much harder to get someone out of a role than into a role.  That said, wise point leaders create a test-drive experience that invites a prospective coach to help out on a short-term basis (i.e., Would you help us take care of a new leader or two when we launch new groups with the fall campaign?).  My article, Recruiting Additional Coaches for Church-Wide Campaigns provides the nuts and bolts that make this concept work.

Ready to take some next steps?  You might want to read my four part series, How to Build an Effective Coaching Structure.

Want do you think?  Want to argue? Have a question? You can click here to jump into the conversation.

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I get that it might be difficult, but don’t let what is working today keep you from realizing that even if it is working now it’s only working to a degree.  And the day will come when you need to take a look at other ideas.  Even ideas that would have been previously unthinkable.

I love this line from Scott Anthony’s Little Black Book of Innovation:

“In today’s world, innovation is not a choice.  If you do not innovate, you are sowing the seeds of your own destruction.  Success requires waking up every day and realizing that today’s sources of competitive advantage will not be tomorrow’s, that the products or services that constitute the core of today’s business might not constitute the core of tomorrow’s business; that success might require walking away from the things that you view as your core competency (p. 28, The Little Black Book of Innovation).”

Don’t be tempted to think, “It might be true for business but not ministry.”  You only have to look back twenty years to see that what worked in the 80s and 90s does not work in the same way today.  It doesn’t.  And if you think it does, it’s because you’re calling connecting the usual suspects success and you’ve clarified too small of a win.

Let’s don’t do that!  Let’s think about the widening 60% who will never be reached by the attractional model.  Let’s think about what still needs to be done.  Let’s think about all the world.  Let’s think about the last sheep that needs finding.

Want do you think?  Want to argue? Have a question? You can click here to jump into the conversation.

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“How do you group your groups?  By life-stage?  Affinity?  Geography?  We currently have approximately 128 groups and need to ‘divide’ them into categories for coaching.  About 40 of our groups are new in the last 2 months.  We’re moving at light speed playing catch-up.  Most of our leaders were trained with the understanding that a coach is essential, but the window is closing.  We’re having only limited success with more generic grouping.  What categories or life-stages do others use?

There are several great questions wrapped up in that one paragraph!  Can you see them?  Let’s unpack what’s here.

First of all, we should nail down a two assumptions:

• Span of care is an essential idea in grouplife.  ”Everyone needs to be cared for by someone but nobody should be caring for more than about 10.”  So far, so good.  I like what you’re thinking when you recognize that you need to group your groups in smaller units.
• I’ve said many times that one of the most difficult and least effective things to do in grouplife is try to assign coaches to existing small group  leaders.  Once a group has survived longer than 3 or 4 months, they know they don’t need a coach for technique.  What they don’t know is that the real long-term role of a coach has very little to do with communicating technique!

Second, with that out of the way, let’s look at how to tackle the issue.

• The most pressing issue is providing coaching and care for the 40 new group leaders.  You might consider using a short-term approach, just ensuring that they’re getting attention right out of the gate.  My article, Recruiting Additional Coaches for Church-Wide Campaigns might give you an idea or two about finding enough to provide coverage.  Allen White’s, Recruiting Coaches without Resumes is also very helpful.
• Next, how you group leaders with coaches depends on several factors.  Since there will be fewer and fewer on-campus meetings and effective ministry will become more decentralized (pace of life), it might make sense to group leaders with coaches geographically in many cases.  At the same time, certain affinities (women’s, men’s, etc.) might make sense to group together.  Equally, some life-stages will occasionally make sense to group together (i.e., empty nesters or young couples).  The key is to recognize that there is no problem-free solution and think ahead about how you’d like them to connect in the future.
• Finally, I’d feel much less urgency about assigning coaches to existing groups.  Rarely do existing leaders take to the idea of a coach.  Much like transplanted organs are sometimes rejected by the body, retroactively assigning a coach to an existing leader almost always leads to rejection.  Instead, I’d work to implement a series of decentralized get-togethers hosted by coaches disguised as experienced leaders.  They can be geographic or by affinity.  Designing the get-togethers to help connect leaders and give them an opportunity to provide mutual care goes a long way toward meeting their needs.  And, when designed properly, the experienced leader is seen as a resource as opposed to a meddler.  You might find some additional help in my articles, How to Implement Coaching for Existing Group Leaders and What to Do When Your Leaders Don’t Want Coaches?

Want do you think?  Have a question?  Want to argue? You can click here to jump into the conversation.

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