New Focus for Blog

In the early church, they celebrated each Sunday as a mini-Easter. It was important to them to recognize the gift and grace of the resurrection every week. That's why the tradition of Lent is to allow ourselves a reprieve from our sacrifice on Sundays -- even in the midst of hardship, we celebrate the gift of hope. Since I couldn't be at church (which is a HUGE sacrifice for me), I had to find a new way to celebrate hope on this day of a mini-Easter.

So, I'm starting a new focus for my blog. Today, I share my excitement about the new focus for our church -- small groups. Each day, I will discuss an aspect of this focus and invite your thoughts and suggestions. Please post your comments so I can get your feedback.

Back in May, a clergy colleague of mine, Rev. Ron Perceful, introduced me to a book called, Activate: An Entirely New Approach to Small Groups. I've heard from a few of our leaders that we need to more fully incorporate small groups into our ministries -- we've discussed this for a LONG time. And, with our move and the many new faces I knew we have to give them a way to connect to our congregation -- help them find a way to belong. But, all the reading I did about small groups made it feel overwhelming...like it was just one more thing added on to the top of an already busy schedule.

Activate was my breath of fresh air. It showed me how we can truly offer small groups and achieve these five objectives:

1. Discipleship -- help people grow in their faith

2. Friendship -- help people find new friendships in the church

3. Membership -- help our newcomers on the path to membership

4. Pastoral Care -- provide a system for pastoral care and follow-up

5. Communication -- provide a way for us to communicate to many at one time

It will require us to shift our thinking quite dramatically. Today, I want to talk about a fundamental shift. It is listed as Big Idea #6 in the book: Think Church of small groups, not with small groups. The reality is -- small groups are exponentially more effective when they stand alone, rather than having to compete with other church programs. "A church of small groups focuses on and runs all ministry through the small groups system."

This reality addresses the main obstacle I've felt about implementing small groups -- even our most dedicated members have only a finite amount of time to devote to church activities. Our newcomers or guests will have even less. If small groups are just one more thing we expect people to come to, they will not succeed.

I believe that the two most effective ways to grow our faith is through corporate worship and small group discipleship. So, I'm proposing that as a church we impose a tough standard on ourselves. Everything we do has to fit at least one of these two criteria: it expands/improves our corporate worship and/or it advances/grows our small groups.

I've shared some initial information about this paradigm shift with the Administrative Council -- the group that will ultimately decide whether we can embrace this or not. They were very excited about the possibilities. In tomorrow's blog, I will sketch out how I think this could work. Today (and for the rest of the week), I'd love to have your feedback about shifting our paradigm. Right now, I see us adding activities to equal our growth. I feel strongly that we need to focus ourselves and our energy/resources on activities that will help us sustain our growth and help us specifically connect and include our guests.

Tell me what you think!