A Vision For Growth

As a small group leader, it can be very easy to fall into the habit of looking only at your own group and to lose sight of how your group fits into the larger picture of the life of the church. I hope you noticed in my recent email how many groups we have started in the last two weeks. These new groups bring a new energy to our church and have made for an exciting two weeks. This "new life" makes it exciting as we realize that God is at work.

We should not resign ourselves to losing that momentum and excitement though. Often, we fall into the trap of thinking that this will only last for a moment, then everything will return to "normal." I want to call our small group leaders to accept a "new normal."

I believe we can perpetuate this sense of excitement and movement within our church, if we transform our thinking to envision our small groups birthing new groups on a regular basis. Each group should have the goal of seeing new leaders being raised up within the group, then those leaders starting a new Bible study group.

It is certainly harder to do in South Florida. Our core group of long-term South Florida residents is much smaller than in other areas, but that just means it should be easier for our groups to multiply because we are familiar with "releasing people" to go to other places. Instead of fixating on the sorrow of letting people leave, you should focus on the satisfaction in seeing God raise up new leaders within your group, knowing that God used you to help them mature.

Some of the most fun I experienced in small group ministry was as a small group leader at Wedgwood in Fort Worth, TX. In the four years I attended, our Young Married department birthed another department with three classes and another 3 classes within our department.

So what do you need to do to start this process?

1. Make sure your attitude is one of wanting to raise up and release new leaders, not hoard group members. Unfortunately, leaders sometimes feel threatened if people leave the group. Our God is big enough to send new people, so don't fret when a person or couples leave to start a new group.
2. Pray for God to raise up new leaders from your group. Matthew 9:28 tells us to ask God to raise up laborers, so this is where we start. As the discipleship pastor, I ask people to lead. I ask because I observe a level of maturity in their life, but you are in a better position than I am to do this. You get to see how God works through each person in your group each week. Pray for God to show you who He may want to call out to lead.
3. Give away some teaching responsibilities to group members. Give away a section of the study or have the person guide the group through a question from the study. This gives them a chance to put their teaching skills to work, while you can observe how they do in a teaching environment.
4. Ask people to substitute for you when you are out to give them a chance to lead. When you come back, quietly ask others how the person did. You may discover your new leader through this opportunity.
5. Suggest they step up and be a co-leader. Start sharing the burden of leadership. This will lighten your load and equip the new leader for the next step.
6. Finally, if you have navigated a person to this point, its time to consider starting a new group. There are several ways the new group can start, the point I want you to consider for now is that you can see a person you have been grooming to lead now being ready to lead.

A great blog about multiplying groups is found here.

I hope you will catch a vision for developing new leaders from your own group to start new groups. One of the greatest measures of success for a small group leader is how many new leaders you develop from your own teaching ministry. I personally cannot think of a greater joy than knowing God has used me to equip others to teach God's word.