SMALL GROUPS: What's your Hospitality Index?

When it comes to small groups there is a constant tension in most groups between outreach and intimacy. Imagine, if you will a continuum, and at one end of the line is complete intimacy & togetherness, or fellowship. People know and love each other. They are sharing their burdens with one another, loving one another, confessing their sins to one another, etc. Basically, they are fulfilling all of the 'one anothers' that Scripture commands us to fulfill. It is the perfect small group, right?

There is, however, another important dimension to small group life, and it is found at the very end of that famous set of verses about small groups in Acts 2:42-47, "and the Lord daily added to their numbers". That's right, I'm talking about 'outreach'. No small group in the Scriptures lives and dies unto itself; the focus must always be upon those who are not yet walking with the Lord. They look in, and as the Bible says they "see how they love one another", and they want a piece of that. They want in. This is the built-in tension of the Hospitality Index.

At this point, every small group is faced with a choice. It does something like this, "Hey guys, I have this friend from work, and I was telling him about our group, and he's going through a rough time right now, and I was wondering if he could maybe join us once." Or, maybe the Director of Small Groups puts out an ad in the church newsletter and says that if anyone wants to join a group, to give him/her a call, and s/he will set them up with a group. Then s/he calls various groups to try to place a new person. How will the group respond? Their willingness to accept others into their group is a measurement of their "Hospitality Index".

The Hospitality Index is in constant tension. As I said, imagine a continuum. When a group begins, they are all about inviting people to their new group. So they would be way over on the Outreach side of the line. But then as the weeks go on, they get to know each other, and they begin to open up and start sharing about their lives. As they do this, the group's Hospitality Index slowly begins to move more and more closely to the Intimacy side of the continuum. Then one week, one of the members breaks down and starts crying about issues at home. At that moment, the Hospitality Index takes a big leap towards Intimacy. And so it goes. Generally, the longer the group is in existence, the more the Hospitality Index is over on the Intimacy side. Or said another way, the less hospitable they are. Oh, they gladly welcome each other, but not strangers. Because that would ruin the incredible fellowship they are currently experiencing.

Generally, if a group goes 18 months without adding anyone new, they never will. They will then either slowly implode as a group, and eventually die. Or they will calcify and become a clique that never welcomes another person into their mix.

The question is, what does your church do with new people who are interested in small groups? How do you get them into the small group system? An understanding of the Hospitality Index will help you to make the right decisions.

There are two steps which you can do to address this on-going tension in the Hospitality Index. First, you could create groups in which every "small group covenant" has a built-in clause that "this groups shall remain open and available to newcomers; that anyone is free to invite a friend into this group any week". What that does at the outset of the group as it begins is that it sets a standard or a boundary on the Hospitality Index. It says that the door will always be open for newcomers. How does this affect the Hospitality Index? Well, if the group has been slowly moving towards greater Intimacy and away from Outreach, it causes a jump back towards the Outreach side as soon as someone new walks in the door; "hey everyone, this is my friend from work that I told you about...". They welcome him, but they also clam up for the night. And they stay safe and don't share too many intimate details with the group (like they used to), until they get to know this new guy, or until he leaves. That's the HI index. So, creating Open Groups, based on the small group Covenant is one option.

There is another option as well: you could start all of your Newcomers in one group. That is, as everyone is going through the Membership Class, you could build in small group type sharing as a part of your weekend or six-week class. Then as the class goes on, they start forming up their own small groups. Then you just make sure that you seed into each of those groups, during the membership class, someone capable of leading each one. At the end of the class, you announce new groups with the leaders, and many of the newcomers will hop on board. This method is also compatible with the HI index.

So there are two methods of dealing with the natural tension in any group between Intimacy and Outreach. They are both important and Biblical needs which must be addressed, and a sensitivity to the Hospitality Index will help you do just that.

For the Kingdom,


Dr. Bill