I’m a big fan of small group ministry. I really believe that is where connections take place, ministry takes place, and growth takes place. In my opinion, a healthy small group ministry makes for a healthy church.
We call our small groups L.I.F.E. Groups at Elmwood. Each letter in L.I.F.E. stands for something. Love – Involvement – Fellowship – Evangelism. That is our measuring stick. When someone asks us how our small groups are doing we try to look back at our four words as a way to measure. Some groups excel in one area while other groups excel in a different area, but all-in-all we want all of our groups to be accomplishing those four goals.
I’m excited about the small group ministry here at Elmwood. We have around 300 people who attend our worship services on Sunday mornings. Out of those 300 worshipers we have about 14 or 15 small groups that meet in homes throughout Lafayette and West Lafayette on Sunday nights. I think that is a pretty good number. We are hoping by next Fall we will have new groups formed.
I get to meet with the leaders of those groups at least once a month. We meet for a time of prayer and encouragement, and I also try to share some nugget of small group wisdom with them. We also discuss the study guides we are using in our groups. I believe these meetings with the leaders are important.
Right now our groups are going through a study guide I prepared for the whole semester. We are calling it Spiritual Reading Guides. Basically we are going through Paul’s letter to the Philippians and I have created a guide that will take our groups through the letter a few sections at a time. Each week our group members will spend a whole week on only a small section of Philippians. Last week, for instance, our group members were assigned Philippians 1:1-11. This what our study guide for that week looked like:
Monday: Simply Read
Set aside 30 minutes to just sit, read and reread this passage over and over again. Don’t rush through this passage. Read it slowly. Don’t analyze it. Just read it.
Tuesday: Focus on a Theme
Set aside 30 minutes to read this passage again, slowly. This time pick out a word, or a theme, that seems central to this particular passage. Write this word, or theme, down and think about what might mean to Paul. Think about what that word, or theme, means to you.
Thursday: Praying God’s Word
Set aside 30 minutes to read this passage again, slowly. This time think about Elmwood Church of Christ, or your Life Group, and pray verses 9-10.
Friday: Reflect and Reveal
Set aside 30 minutes to read this passage again, slowly. Reread it a few times. Focus on those themes, or that word, that stood out to you. Ask God to reveal something new to new about this passage.
Then on Sunday when the groups met they spent time discussing what the Spirit revealed to them through their spiritual reading during the week. I received a lot of good feedback from the group members, and the leaders love it because it doesn’t take as much preparation on their part. The goal is to the get the members to show up prepared to discuss the scripture they digested throughout the week.
We will see how the rest of the semester goes.
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I like the way your small groups are organized. I would love to do the same here eventually. We just hired a new preacher with similar enthusiasm and Spirit-led life as yourself, so I hope to harness that energy for God’s work here. Does your life group meet in lieu of a formal Sunday night worship? 20 in a small group seems like a lot (with 100% attendance). What is the typical turnout? Just feeling out what different places are doing…
Looks Great, Keep posting and I will follow along. Enjoyed talking to you yesterday. Miss you guys, hopefully we will be able to visit soon.
Jason,
Our small groups are our Sunday night gatherings. No one meets at the building for a traditional worship service anymore. The sizes of our groups are different. Some have 5 or 6, others have 15-20. We constantly try to convince larger groups to become two groups. Not all of our Sunday morning worshipers attend a small group, but that is our goal.