WHERE CAN I FIND SPONSORS FOR MULTIPLYING GROUPS? A sponsor is someone who will pray for, invite to, and fellowship with a new group. The pastor, educational staff, Sunday School/small groups director, and other leaders may be sponsors. Sponsors can also be individuals, Bible study groups, and the congregation as a whole. Finding one or more groups to pray, invite, and fellowship can greatly strengthen the new group launch.

Pray. Inviting people to pray for the new group prepares hearts and minds for the new group. Prayer sensitizes eyes and ears to others. We are more likely to be able to see God at work around them and to hear what God wants them to do when we are praying. Ask people to pray for leaders, people who will be reached, and lives that will be changed.

Invite. A month prior to the launch of a new group, ask other groups and the congregation to invite people within the target of the group that will be launched. Provide printed invitations. Mail invitations to all recent worship guests who are in the target range of the group. Set up a registration table. Share a testimony by the new group leader. Invite multiple times and ways.

Fellowship. Prior to and following the group launch, plan times of fun and ministry for the new group. Invite potential members to participate. Work to connect with guests and get contact information for follow up. Other Bible study groups may want to sponsor these fellowship times initially to encourage the new group.

Gathering a team of sponsors is also a way of multiplying leaders. It creates a culture of new group expectation and support.

HOW CAN I BUILD MULTIPLICATION INTO MY GROUP? There are several things you can do to instill multiplication into the DNA of a group. Consider the following ideas:

Talk about it. Talk about passing on faith to children, your community, and our world. Make it natural. Remind the group regularly about the need for more groups and more shepherds in order to reach and care for more sheep. Talk about it during regular and special group gatherings.

Don’t do it alone. Enlist people to help. Give tasks and ministry away. Enlist leaders to carry out group roles and functions. Apprentice, release, and continue to coach.

Expect every group leader to multiply. Regularly ask who your group leaders are praying for and enlisting as their apprentice(s).

Gather your team. Gathering your leadership team can (1) identify insights into potential apprentices, (2) prevent multiple leaders from focusing on the same potential apprentice, and (3) reinforce multiplication steps.

WHAT IS YOUR NEXT STEP? Without focusing on others, group members will tend to keep Jesus to themselves. Without additional leaders, the group leader will tend to focus only on teaching and neglect the reaching and caring aspects of group life. Without apprentices, new groups will not be started when needed or with confident prepared leaders. Finally, an apprentice is a concrete reminder for the group that there is more work to do and more people to reach. Show them the apprentice!

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Darryl Wilson serves as the Sunday School & Discipleship Consultant for the Kentucky Baptist Convention. He served as Minister of Education in five churches in Kentucky and South Carolina. He is the author of The Sunday School Revolutionary!, a blog about life-changing Sunday School and small groups. This series is a part of Be A Catalyst: Start New Groups, available on your Kindle for 99 cents.

WHAT APPRENTICING CURRICULUM SHOULD I USE? The teaching plan for training your apprentice starts with your life and group leadership practices. Invite your apprentice to join you in both. Investing in an apprentice will appropriately begin with a time of getting acquainted. Then it is important to assess what the apprentice’s knowledge, experience, and need may be. Prayer together is essential!

Beyond introduction and evaluation, asking many questions will help greatly. Addressing basics is important. Encourage quiet time practices. Demonstrate yours. Help him or her develop the ability to evaluate priorities. Other issues that will need to be addressed are lesson preparation, teaching, fellowship planning, making contacts and visits, organizing the group ministry, and mobilizing people into service. Affirm progress. And don’t forget to spend time focusing on multiplying the new leader!

Hand off responsibility in increasing amounts. Follow this pattern of progression:

• I do, you watch.
• I do, you help.
• You do, I help.
• You do, I watch.
• You do, someone else watches.

Debriefing after each assignment reinforces the learning and allows for adjustments along the way.

In your weekly interaction, consider reading and discussing helpful Sunday School books and articles, like the following books by David Francis:

• The 3D Sunday School: A Three Dimensional Strategy (focus on inviting, discovering, and connecting)
• I-6 Invite: A Six-Lane Strategy Toward an Inviting Sunday School (focus on inviting)
• The Discover Triad: Three Facets of a Dynamic Sunday School Class (focus on discovering, teaching, and learning)
• Connect3: The Power of One Sunday School Class (focus on connecting)

Note: These resources are available as free downloads from lifeway.com/davidfrancis.

Avoid focusing only on one aspect, such as teaching. Keep your apprenticing balanced. This will keep both of you effective.

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Darryl Wilson serves as the Sunday School & Discipleship Consultant for the Kentucky Baptist Convention. He served as Minister of Education in five churches in Kentucky and South Carolina. He is the author of The Sunday School Revolutionary!, a blog about life-changing Sunday School and small groups. This series is a part of Be A Catalyst: Start New Groups, available on your Kindle for 99 cents.

When I finished a training event in a church for teachers and leaders of adult groups, one of the teachers told me he finally figured out why his group did not believe him when he said they were going to start another group. He said it was because he had not shown them an apprentice.

They will believe you when they see you enlisting and training an apprentice!

WHY IS LEADER MULTIPLICATION ESSENTIAL? Jesus gave us the mission of multiplication when He commanded us to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19-20). This is bigger than we can accomplish alone. Jesus recognized this when he said that the harvest is abundant but the workers are few (Matthew 9:37).

Paul understood the mission when he instructed Timothy, a young pastor, to commit to faithful men the things Paul had taught him so that those men would teach others also (see 2 Timothy 2:2). Three generations of multiplication were involved in Paul’s directions. It is not just a matter of multiplying ourselves. Rather it is about multiplying ourselves into others who will multiply themselves.

The fact is that one shepherd can only lead so many sheep (John 10:12-13). More shepherds are required to reach and care for more sheep. Rick Warren quoted a Gallup survey which indicated that churches might have five times as many leaders serving if potential leaders were asked or trained. The lack of additional shepherds is the number one reason more new groups are not started today.

HOW DO I ENLIST AND TRAIN MULTIPLYING LEADERS? Jesus taught and modeled ministry (Mark 1:14-15) and prayed (Luke 6:12) before He called the twelve apostles (sent ones). After Jesus called them (Mark 3:13), He prepared them by continuing to teach and model ministry with them before sending them out. They were sent out in pairs (Mark 6:7) to do what He had been doing. Then He called them together for a report time (Mark 6:30).

Since people have varying abilities and previous experiences, multiplying leaders will usually require between six and twelve months. Consider these apprenticing steps:

• Pray. Ask for God’s leadership in discovering those He wants you to apprentice.
• Observe. Spend time watching what God is doing in the lives of those in (and around) your group.
• Take them with you. Invite potential leaders to join you for life and group activities. Go to a ball game together. Make a visit. Have a meal. Plan a fellowship. Give them growing assignments.
• Debrief what they did. Ask questions. Listen. Affirm strengths and gifts. Offer suggestions for the future.
• Ask them to serve. Following God’s leadership in prayer and observation, formalize your apprenticing efforts by asking them to join you in ministry. This will heighten their attention to your training efforts from that point for-ward.
• Increase the training pace. In anticipation of releasing the multiplying leader to serve, give an increasing number and mix of opportunities for leadership expression. For instance, move from one teaching Sunday to teaching every other Sunday prior to releasing them to serve.
• Set a launch date. After prayer and observation, determine a date to start the new group. Communicate the date with the apprentice and with the group. Hesitate to send the apprentice out alone. Remember, Jesus sent them out in pairs. If you are leaving the current group in the apprentice’s hands so you can leave to start a new group, let the group know what you are doing and express confidence in the apprentice as he or she takes over the group’s leadership.
• Celebrate the launch. Remember to praise God and affirm those who have helped launch the new group. Celebrate with sponsoring groups, the new group, and in the congregation.
• Lead them to choose an apprentice. Help your apprentice become a multiplying leader by leading him/her to prayerfully enlist and begin investing in an apprentice.
• Continue to coach. Following the launch of the new group, continue to encourage the new group leader. Coach him/her through challenges toward fruitfulness.

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Darryl Wilson serves as the Sunday School & Discipleship Consultant for the Kentucky Baptist Convention. He served as Minister of Education in five churches in Kentucky and South Carolina. He is the author of The Sunday School Revolutionary!, a blog about life-changing Sunday School and small groups. This series is a part of Be A Catalyst: Start New Groups, available on your Kindle for 99 cents.

Part Three

Those of you who have been around awhile will remember Andy Anderson and his Sunday School Growth Spiral.  Today, these practices are often demonized as Programmatic.  The general consensus of the day is, Lord knows, we don’t need another PROGRAM.   The word program has become a dirty word; but it need not be so.  A program is simply an organized way of doing something.  I remember Max Caldwell saying, Organization is putting yourself in the best position to be used by the Holy Spirit.  However, when a program exists only to sustain itself, then it loses its mission.  This is the case with many Sunday School ministries.  Sunday School can be an effective, mission-centered program for making disciples.

Disciple-Making Behaviors

The language of the old Growth Spiral can be transformed from a church growth focus to13 disciple-making behaviors:

1. Invite Potential Disciples to Become Members – Make it a priority constantly to be inviting and adding disciples to your small groups.
2. Disciple-making Small Groups – Make it a priority to create and provide adequate numbers of small groups whose mission is to make disciples.
3. Discipling Ministry Touches – Make it a priority to connect with every disciple weekly; regularly.
4. Disciples Attending Weekly – Make it a priority to encourage disciples to be faithful to their spiritual growth by regular Bible study and fellowship in small group.
5. Disciple-making Space – Make it a priority to provide adequate space for small groups and for new disciple-making groups.
6. Disciple-making Leaders – Make it a priority to enlist disciple-making leaders for small groups.
7. Leaders in Training for Making Disciples – Make it a priority to train disciple-making leaders for small groups.
8. Disciple – making Leadership Meetings – Make it a priority for leaders to meet regularly to plan for disciple-making      ministries
9. Disciple-Maturing Small Groups – Make it a priority to provide closed, small groups in which believer disciples can mature and grow spiritually and prepare for making disciples
10. Potential Disciples List – Make it a priority to keep a current list of potential disciples with whom to build meaningful relationships and to invite to “come learn with us” as learner      disciples.
11. Disciple-making Outreach Leaders – Make it a priority to enlist and train disciple-making outreach leaders who will maintain the Potential Disciples List and will encourage small group members to build meaningful relationships with them and invite them to “come learn with us” as learner disciples.
12. Evangelistic Prayer – Make it a priority in each small group to pray for potential disciples to become learner disciples and eventually believer disciples.
13. Disciple-making Missional Projects – Make it a priority for each small group to be involved in missional projects where disciples can connect to the community full of potential disciples. 

These behaviors, combined with transformational Bible study that involves the learner disciples in discovering life-transforming biblical truths for themselves plus the mentoring and spiritual friendship of believer disciples will create an environment in which the Holy Spirit can do his work of transformation.  Potential disciples will become learner disciples, who become believer disciples and grow into fully devoted, reproducing disciples of Jesus.  This is our mission.  This is Sunday School at its best.

 A Disciple-Making Culture Will Affect the Ministry of the Whole Church…

The behaviors, attitudes, values, and goals of a Disciple-Making Culture in the Sunday School Small Group Ministry will have positive effects on the entire church:

1.  Worship – As the connection of disciples with other disciples increases in the Small Group Ministry, so will the participation in worship, and more people will be connected to God.
2. Offerings – As disciples connect with other disciples and with God, commitment to the spiritual mandate of giving will become more apparent.
3. Baptisms – As learner disciples connect with other disciples in the study the gospel and see it lived out in the lives of other disciples in the small group and as they become connected to God in worship, they are more likely to become believer disciples and be baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit.

This is, I believe, what Jesus intended when He commissioned the church to “Go, Make Disciples”.  Let’s take this seriously as our Co-Mission as we work together in the Sunday School to create a disciple-making culture in which minds are renewed, and lives are transformed by the power of God.

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Phil Stone, State Sunday School Director

Church Administrant and Church Building Planning Ministries

Baptist State Convention of North Carolina

Part Two

There is a great deal of talk about “Making Disciples” today.  Everywhere people are pontificating this philosophy, but just talking want make disciples.  Creating a disciple-making culture takes more than just changing our philosophies, attitudes, values, and beliefs.  We’ve got to walk the talk.  It takes a change in behavior.

Only God Can Transform…

If we are to create a culture of making disciples in which lives are transformed, we must recognize that it is God that does the transformation.  We cannot create a Believer; this is the work of the Holy Spirit.  Our task is to create an environment where the Spirit can do His work.  This takes us back to the definition of culture:  it involves beliefs, but more; it takes a commitment to attitudes, values, goals and even more importantly, it takes a solid change of actions and practices; it depends on the behaviors of our everyday existence.  It is our starting place; it is the air we breathe.  It is priority one.

Behaviors that Create a Disciple-making Culture

We can talk about the philosophy of making disciples but that will never make one.  We can dialogue about the importance of culture but that will never transform a life.  Talking, philosophies, and dialogues do not make disciples, behavior does.  To create a disciple-making culture in our Sunday Schools, we will need to follow the action plan set by Jesus.  He didn’t just talk, he acted.  He invited learner disciples to become participating members of his small group.  He stayed connected to them.  He ministered to them, and he involved them in ministry.  Eventually, these learner disciples became believer disciples who then became fully devoted, reproducing disciples who turned the world upside down.

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Phil Stone, State Sunday School Director

Church Administrant and Church Building Planning Ministries

Baptist State Convention of North Carolina

Part One

What were Jesus’ intentions when he commissioned His followers to “Go…Make Disciples”?  Matthew 28:19-20

I think He intended to change their very culture into one that focused on making disciples.

Culture…

Webster defines Culture as:  the customary beliefs, social forms, and behaviors of a group; the characteristic features of everyday existence; the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an organization.

What does it mean to create a Disciple-making culture?

It means that the customary beliefs of our small groups, the characteristic features of the members’ everyday existence; the shared attitudes, values, and goals of the small group ministry are focused on making disciples.

Even more than that, small group members see it as their life-style behaviors and practices to make disciples.  This may mean to be intentional about building meaningful relationships with people in their world and trying authentically, not manipulatively, to lead them to become Disciples of Jesus.  This does not mean our mission is to create spiritual giants or biblical scholars but people who are simply willing to learn about Jesus; to become students.  It means that when small group members step out into their world they see it as a mission field full of potential disciples whose lives need to be transformed by Jesus.  Their life behaviors and practices are focused on making disciples.

Transformation…

Transformation is usually defined as change; a metamorphosis from an old existence to a new one as described in 2 Corinthians 5:17, …behold all things are become new.  We usually think of the butterfly transformed from the caterpillar.  Transformation is radical change and more.  If we change the crawling caterpillar, he’s still a caterpillar, however when he enters the cocoon, transformation takes place and he assumes a new life-path.  He doesn’t crawl, he flies.  Change fixes things; transformation creates a new path for life.  Paul reminds us in Romans 12:2 that transformation comes through the renewing of your minds.

Sunday School:  Part of a Disciple-making, Transformational Ministry Process…

The renewing of mind refers to learning.  As one learns about the gospel of Jesus from God’s Word and sees it lived out in a small group of believers, his mind can become renewed and transformation takes place.  He moves from being a learner to a believer disciple.  Sunday School is a learning place where potential disciples can renew their minds as they hear and see the gospel in others.  That’s why Sunday School Small Group Ministry is an important part in a disciple-making, transformational ministry process.

In the Simple Church by Geiger and Rainer, churches were encouraged to develop a Discile-Making Process, and this usually consisted of three elements:

1.  Worship – where      disciples connect with God
2. Community – where disciples connect with other disciples      and invite potential disciples
3. Missions – where disciples connect with the community      full of potential disciples

Sunday School is that second step in the Disciple-Making process.  It is that small group to which believer disciples invite and welcome potential, learner disciples to experience the gospel.  It is the cocoon for transformation; a safe place where learner disciples can ask the hard questions and hear the stories of and be mentored by believer disciples.

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Phil Stone, State Sunday School Director
Church Administration and Church Building Planning Ministries                                                                                                   Baptist State Convention of North Carolina

I stood before our Adult Sunday School Class leaders in a recent workers meeting I asked what they considered their greatest needs in Sunday School.  Without question, the greatest need was prayer.  Yes, we need to be adequately prepared to teach, but that must begin with prayer.  How true this is…

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Abraham Lincoln said, “You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.” Helping others help themselves is truly a mark of good leaders.  One theory of leadership, described as SuperLeadership, asserts “leaders become super by helping to unleash the abilities of the followers that surround them.” The challenge for pastors and Sunday School leaders is to understand how to go about bringing out the wealth that each member possesses…

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It was one of those moments that I will never forget. Leading a Sunday School conference, I introduced the possibility that classes should have an evangelistic prayer list of unchurched/lost people to pray for. The near incredulous response from an attendee set me back. In a near rage, he retorted, “It’s not biblical to pray for lost people to get saved!!” The entire group looked back to me to see how I would respond to this apparently true statement (You know that if you say something forcefully enough – most folks think it must be true). I only had to quote one verse…

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Every year I do a study of the fastest growing Sunday Schools in Georgia.  Actually it’s a study of all the Sunday Schools in Georgia, but only the fastest growing churches are recognized.  This year I made the effort to speak with all the pastors and/or ministers of education from all the leading churches.  When I presented the question, “What is the one thing you did to encourage growth in Sunday School”, they all gave the same response.  “Start new classes!”…

To see more, click here.