Small Group Ministry Benefits
The following is a list of benefits for churches that choose to make small groups the hub of all ministry:
Gifts -
If a person is not in a small group, attending a worship service alone, the person sees only a few people - the pastor and worship team exercising spiritual gifts. Then with large Sunday School Classes, people often cannot imagine serving by leading a large class as a teacher. If someone has the gift of teaching it is easy to direct them into a ministry when there are many programs in operation.
If someone senses a call to become a preacher, there is not much of an opportunity to enter the pulpit in a large church, but there are many opportunities to teach the word of God in a smaller setting in the small groups. In essense we are building a "farm system" for ministry. Just as little leaguers learn baseball skills on the lower level, we have ministry opportunities at every level through our small groups. Someone might be learning to play an instument, and lead in worship in the small group, and this becomes the training ground for eventual worship team members. In a Small Group there is the opportunity to use each spiritual gift in the context of that small group. Each person is encouraged to make a contribution to the group according to each individual's unique gifts and abilities.
Staffing -
Program Base Designed Ministry - We found that we needed one staff person for every 150 to 200 people to run an effective ministry. By developing a tiered leadership ministry where everybody is cared for by somebody, and nobody is asked to violate an appropriate span of care, pastors are able to shepherd larger numbers of members in a healthy fashion.
Evangelism -
It is easy for people to get comfortable in a large church, thinking that the pastor's job is to witness to the visitors who are brought by the people. People are therefore taught to bring someone to a program, and not trained in personal relational evangelism. Many people come to the Lord through the major events, but just as many going out the back door. It is statistically proven that the most effective means of evangelism is "relational evangelism." People come to Christ and remain in the vine best when they come to Christ on the arm of a trusted friend.
Care -
The challenge for every large church is to care for every person that God entrusts to their care. People can attend for years and never get connected in a meaningful way. People fall through the cracks, and the heart of God is grieved. Small groups are our "quality care system." We tell people that we cannot care for them as they deserve to be cared for unless they are in a small group.
Retention -
How do we hang on to those who join? When people join the church, they want to feel a sense of ownership, where they can make a contribution, and be known in name and need. By connecting people to small groups, they can immediately make a contribution by loving and caring for those in their sphere of influence, and they have a place to bring their pre-Christian friends. Once people are connect, and being shepherded in the small group, we can begin to equip and train them in the basics of the faith, and help them to put their hand to the plough in the ministry.
De-Centralization -
The ministry has often been limited to only what the pastors can do. People feel that they have not really been prayed for unless they have been prayed for by one of the pastoral staff. People have not really been ministered to in the hospital unless it is through a pastoral staff person. If we really believe in the priesthood of the believer, then we need to release believers to do the work of the ministry!
Facility Strangulation and Parking Issues -
It does not take a brain surgeon to figure out that it is expensive and non-productive to limit what can be done by the church to the walls of it's existing facility. The New Testament church maximized the This is through small groups from house to house!
What if there was a way to see our church grow, not just 10% a year, but ten times? We are not talking about a new technique of doing ministry, but seeing the ministry in a new light. It is a Biblical philosophy of ministry that turned the world up-side right in the first century.
A "Gift Based" and "Passion Driven" Ministry -
Illustration: Carl George - Seminary prof. joined a church. Not long and he was put in charge of a small group. A young couple was in the group, and the gal was pregnant. When the baby was born, the specialists and physicians said that the little baby girl was brain damaged, and there was nothing they could do. The family called Carl and asked him to come and pray for their little girl that she would be healed. Carl's wife asked him, "you haven't been telling people that you have the gift of healing have you?" Carl then thought that he was not qualified to pray for something like this since the doctors who knew what they were doing all said that the little girls damaged brain was irreparable. So he called the pastor to have the pastor go and pray. The pastor put it back in his lap an said, "you take care of it. After you have prayed and you have done everything that you know to do, and there is still a need, then you call me. But not until then."
So Carl went and prayed for the little girl. God healed her. Now she is 9 years old, and every time she sees Carl, she comes up and hugs him and he is reminded about how God performed a miracle in answer to his prayer
Illustration: The group with leader who had a heart attack. The apprentice took over. The group spent the night in the hospital praying. They put their money together and bought an answering machine for the family. They also took responsibility to keep the recorded message on the phone up to do with the prognosis, so that the family did not have to continue to answer the same questions..., and every one could be informed who was calling...
Key assumption: You cannot really love and care for more than about 10 people max in the church. The average, ordinary person can handle 10 relationships in church and still maintain contacts with neighbors, and relatives...
Everybody is a part of a small group. The primary care of people in our church is going to come through Home Groups! When we say that the church is "us" we really mean it!
Everybody will be cared for by somebody, and nobody will be asked to care for more than 10!
Illustration of the power of attaching people to a Small Group!
"Reverend Dale Galloway, founding pastor of New Hope Community church, Portland, Oregon, was at home when he received a telephone call summoning him to a home in his community. A grisly and bizarre murder had taken place in a distant state, and the detained suspect was the alienated foster child of one of the families in his church. The child had been troubled for some time, and even as the rest of the family had come to Christ, the youth had left home and moved to that particular state.
"These people are going to need some moral support," Pastor Galloway told his wife as he put on his jacket. "I'd better get over there and see what I can do."
When he arrived, he feared he was too late. Local news teams were already filming the house from the street, and a crowed of reporters clustered around the front door.
As he rushed up the driveway, he saw one of the members of this family's Bible study, called Tender Loving Care (TLC) group, standing on the porch, guarding the door and detaining the journalists. The group parted to let the pastor through.
Inside, Pastor Galloway noticed another TLC -group member talking on the kitchen telephone, lining up meals for the family and screening incoming calls. He continued to the living room, where he found a third TLC caregiver comforting the family. Pastor Galloway gave the grieving family a hug, led in a prayer, and asked what else he could do. "Nothing, Pastor," they said. "Everything is under control. It was awfully nice of you to come by."
He stayed an hour, at most, and then left, praising God for the handful of men and women in the TLC group, who had learned of their friends' distress, come to the house, and begun providing meaningful ministry! Even if Pastor Galloway had been away or unable to visit, the family wouldn't have been neglected; they were being well-cared for by the lay ministers who were "supposed" to look out for their pastoral needs -- their TLC group (Pg 86-87 Prepare Your Church for the Future, By Carl F. George).
Principles?
Relationships developed before the crisis. There were not some assignment from some area wide list....
The husband and wife were so moved by the care, that six months later they signed up to be trained to lead a group to give the same kind of care to others...
"I'm convinced that lay people take ministry to a limited-size group so seriously that they prefer a role in cell leadership to most any other office or honorific title in a church. Lay people want to make a difference in a way that touches a person's inmost world!" (Pg 98, Prepare Your Church for the Future, By Carl F. George)
William Danforth - In high caliber units - Green Beret - it is a high privilege to risk and dare one's life... "I remember once during the first World War a captain was wounded in No Man's Land when returning from a raid. snipers and machine gunners shot across a defiant barrage as though daring anyone to come and get his prostrate body. The company commander called for two volunteers to undertake the dangerous mission of rescuing the wounded man. The whole company stepped forward. The major chose the two men with the most deserving record and longest service. Out on their bellies they crawled and brought in their captain. In crack regiments it is a privilege to dare and to give. There are no big thrill in the trenches. But just poke your head over the parapet and you'll find excitement enough. Your days won't be humdrum when you lift your head above the crowd."
Conclusion:
Once you experience what it is like to know that God has used you to make a difference in a person's life, you will never want to go back to life as it was... I had a person call me recently who was bubbling over, because for the first time in her life she knew that God had used her to help someone else!
