SMALL GROUP DISCIPLESHIP #6: What should small group software do for you?

Hi all,
Just a reminder that this blog is about what I am learning right now.  So we are continuing this series on small groups, based on things which I have learned and am still learning.  Many churches have a dream of "being a church of small groups",  but they often fail to make this happen.  What goes wrong?

We've looked at a lot of different elements necessary for a successful small group ministry in your church.  To be successful, you need to understand the power of Christian community so much that you are committed to it as a church.  You need to apply the four core parts of small group life.  You need to follow the Old Testament principles for long-term group care.  You need to make some functional infrastructure changes in the way you do small groups in your church.  And last week's blog was really important; you must have coaches, and appropriate spans of care, and - most importantly - constant care and attention, like a gardener.

This last point is really important.  When you are running a decentralized ministry like small groups, you must have somebody (or some bodies) who are responsible to simply oversee the whole process.  If everybody is so busy leading their own small groups that they cannot look after the small group system, then the entire structure is likely to fall apart.  Now in most cases it won't collapse instantly;  it will simply begin to fray at the edges, and then people will start to drop out of groups, and then leaders will drop out and not be replaced, until the entire system has fallen apart, and you no longer function as a "church of small groups"; you are simply a church with a few disparate small groups scattered helter skelter throughout the body.  That is not what you want to have happen.

The way to prevent this from happening is through constant care and attention.  As I've said, somebody must be responsible for the care and oversight of all the small groups and leaders.  And once you have that person, you need to equip them with the tools to help them succeed.  Now the tools for success will begin with good training curriculum, regular group meetings, and some sort of small group tracking software.

It is the small group tracking software which I want to focus upon.  Here's why:  when I was serving as Pastor of Disciple Making at Wheaton EFC in Wheaton, IL, I was responsible for building up the small group ministry.  It was a church of 1,000 people with a very strong Adult Bible Fellowship system in place.  They had a handful of small groups but wanted to have more.  So we started working at it, and eventually had 25 groups before responsibilities took me elsewhere.  So these were 25 small groups in addition to the dozen or so ABF's, all of which I was responsible for.  It didn't take too long to begin to lose track of which people were in which groups.  Or which groups were still meeting consistently.  Or who was the current leader of one of the ABF's this week.  Oh, we could muddle along, but that didn't feel like excellence to me.  I thought it would be important as a caring shepherd to know what was going on.

Here's a verse that relates to this:  Be sure you know the condition of your flocks, give careful attention to your herds.  (Proverbs 27:23).

A good small group software tool at that point would have been very helpful.  Now, no group software can replace good leadership oversight; but it can make the job easier.

So what should small group software do for you?


It should ease the burden of oversight in the following ways:
Small group software should:

1 - Give you a quick overview of EVERY PERSON WHO IS LEADING a group in your church

It all rises and falls on leadership.  Your leaders are the shepherds of your sheep.

2 - Give you the names of EVERYONE in a small group in your church

This is important, but it is also kind of a preparation and set-up for the next point.

3 - Give you the names of everyone NOT IN A SMALL GROUP in your church

If you are not constantly being reminded of who is not yet in a small group, your people will fall through the cracks.  This is where the health and growth of your church is determined.  You need to help the people who are not in a group to find a group.

4 - Easily communicate with all of your small group leaders at once

Communication is important, but it can be time-consuming.  A good small group software should let you contact your leaders directly from the software.  

5 - Easily communicate with an entire small group

If you distribute your group software to the group leaders, then they can just contact their group as they are updating the group contact information, or filling out the monthly report for the small group coach.

6 - Track a history of each person's small group involvement

We quickly forget what someone is capable of, or what they have learned, or achieved, unless we have an easy way to remember.  Good small group software will show you a history of which groups your various members have been a part of.  This also assists your efforts to link people relationally or to provide pastoral care.  If you know what other groups they have been in, you will know who they know and can continue fostering those relational connections in times of need.

7 - Easily move people from group to group en masse

Rather than having to go to each person's record individually, and marking them as in a new group, small group software should be able to do this in one action.  If the entire class completed a course and then all moved on to another one, you should be able to easily "promote" everybody into the next class with one click.

8 - Track whether or not prerequisites have been completed before assigning someone to the next class in a course

If your church uses a small group system which requires completion of certain prerequisites (101 before 201, for example), then your software should prevent people from registering from one class if they have not completed the previous class.

I've been thinking a lot lately about small group software, and what it should be able to do.  There have been some churches helping me to work this out, and we have now nearly completed the work on Shepherd Care Group Discipleship Software.   We'll let you know when we get it done.

What about you?  If you lead or manage small groups, I would love to hear from you about what you need or want in small group software.   Send me a reply if you can.

Thanks and God's best to you and your ministry,

Dr. Bill
HighPowerResources.com
SermonBase.com

SMALL GROUP DISCIPLESHIP #5: Critical elements for small group success

Hi All,
Many churches have a dream of "being a church of small groups",  but they often fail to make this happen.  What goes wrong?

Keeping a small group ministry running well is a full-time job.  What makes a small group ministry distinct from other church ministries is that it is decentralized.  You could run a youth group, or a children's ministry, or a men's ministry, and basically have everyone together in the same room for teaching or worship.  But a small group ministry, by its very nature, is going to be spread out all around your city or county as people meet together in their living rooms.  The role of a small group director does not involve the same skill set as that of some other program director.  S/he needs to be much more of a nurturer, or gardener, rather than a rancher.  It involves carefully inspecting each small plant or bush, and seeing how it is progressing or growing.  The work which needs to be done is best accomplished with a small gardener's implement; not a backhoe.

So a good small group director needs to be constantly in contact with his or her various leaders.  Now, depending on the size of the church and ministry this may mean that the Director has contact with each small group, or what is more likely, the Director has contact with Coaches, who then oversee and help each specific small group.  But the point is, that since small group ministry is a decentralized ministry, you need to make accommodations for an appropriate span of care.

What do we mean when we refer to a small group coach?  A small group coach has a responsibility to oversee from three to six specific small group leaders.  The Coach needs to be there to help with problems, come up with creative ideas for outreach or service, help with 'strays', and to provide accountability.  A small group coach does not lead a small group.  His or her job is to shepherd the small group leaders within his/her span of care.  If the span of care is too large, then the Leaders aren't cared for properly.  If it is too small, the Coach may try to squeeze in another ministry focus, and then the small group focus will suffer.

If you want to know how to train the small group coaches, a good place to start would be my four-part series on coaching from earlier in the year.

So the key idea is this: if you want to have a successful small group ministry in your church, then your small group leaders will require constant attention.  This means that either you hire a staff person to oversee your small groups, or you assign a high capacity volunteer, who is not involved in any other ministries in the church, to oversee your small groups.  

And of course, the senior pastor must be involved in some significant way.  This would mean at least two things:  First,  the senior pastor is in a small group.  Second, the senior pastor must, in some small but important way, be a part of the small group leadership meetings.  It could be just a greeting, a devotional, or a teaching, but the shepherd needs to keep a close eye, and have a good relationship with the under-shepherds who are helping to care for the flock.

Next to the role of quality Biblical preaching, the health of the small groups within your church, is a deciding factor on the health of your church.  And the health of your small groups is impacted by the spiritual health of your small group leaders.  So, how are you caring for them, recruiting them, training them, and coaching them to succeed?

So, some of the critical elements for success in your small group system are:

• Decentralized Ministry Skills
• Appropriate Span of Care
• Coaches
• Constant Attention
• Senior Pastor Involvement

In summary, this is a lot of work!  But it is important work to the heath - and growth - of your congregation.  So see that it is done well.

And please, please, don't deceive yourself into thinking that things are going 'just fine' and people will talk to you if there are any problems.  Things may not be going fine, but you wouldn't know, if you don't have a good care system in place.  And people will eventually talk to you about problems, but usually not until it is too late.  That is what good small group coaches should be helping you with.  They should catch a hint of trouble early so that you can deal with it before it gets out of hand.

When your church gets to a certain size, then some good tracking software would help the task as well.  The small group director needs some tools to help oversee the flocks well.

So, I've just touched on a few of the key elements for small group success.
What else have you found is critical for success?  Send me a note.

In the mean time, God's best to your small group ministry,

Dr. Bill

SMALL GROUP DISCIPLESHIP #4: Can we really be a church of small groups?

Hi All,

Many churches have a dream of "being a church of small groups" but often fail to make this happen.  What goes wrong?
The dream is admirable.  There are some definite benefits to being "a church of small groups."
But what do we even mean when we say that?

I came across this factoid about small groups at the Church Growth Factoids section of HighPower:

“Based on lots of research over the years, there are some standard guidelines.  Ideally, you have a minimum of 60% of your adult worship attendees involved in either classes or groups.  If you can get more than 70%, you’re excelling.  Between 50 and 60% is fair, and less than 50% is poor.”

(McIntosh, Gary.  OutreachMagazine.com.  Sept/Oct. 2007.)

So the goal is to have more than half of your adults in small groups, and preferably more than 60%.  In fact, I doubt that you can even make the claim that "we are a church of small groups" unless more than half of your adults are involved in small groups.

And they question I want to ask, is 'Why limit it to adults?'  We have both our youth and our children involved in age-appropriate small groups at our church of 700.  This sets people up, and prepares them for a lifetime expectation of being in true Christian community with others.

So how many of your adults or people are in small groups in your church?

What are the Benefits of being a "Church of Small Groups"?

• 1.  True Christian Community

My first blog post in this series talks about the elements of Christian community (Acts 2:42-47) which are available through small group participation.  Imagine having a whole church of people who truly experience what it means to live in Christian community with other brothers and sisters in Christ.

• 2.  Pastoral care for everybody

Every pastor who loves his people wants them to be cared for properly.  But he also realizes that he and even the whole staff are not sufficient to meet all the needs people have in their lives.  This is the power of small groups.  Small groups do not have to be assigned pastoral care, or told to care for their people; they do it naturally.  It just happens.  And so a "church of small groups", is a church of good pastoral care.

• 3.  Personally applied discipleship

Small groups apply Christian discipleship in a very personal way.  As the group works through a Bible study, or discusses the pastor's sermon, they find ways to make it relate to their lives.  It is the best application of the Word, in the context of a small group who can talk about how to make it real in their lives.

Why the dream goes awry:
But if the benefits of small groups are so great, then why does it not always happen?  What stops the dream from becoming reality, or from not being completely fulfilled?  I see three primary reasons, and if one doesn't stop a church, the others do.  They are interdependent, and intertwined as to how they prevent a church from achieving this dream.

• 1.  Saying it, but not doing it

Lots more churches say that they are a church of small groups, than really are.  "Having" small groups in your church is not the same as "being" a church of small groups.  There needs to be real intentional effort.  This is indicated by either having a staff person or a volunteer whose sole job is to oversee and guide small group creation and maintenance.

• 2.  Doing it, but making it optional

If a church begins doing small groups, but just lists it as an optional item on the menu instead of the main course, they will not achieve the goal of "being a church of small groups".  But when we say "optional", we obviously can't force people to join a small group if they don't want to.  But you can design your church infrastructure such that it is very difficult to avoid them.  Larry Osborne has a great book out, entitled "Sticky Church", in which he talks about how they focus so much on small groups, that people don't have a lot of other options if they want to meet some people or get some personal discipleship.

• 3.  Requiring it, but not streamlining programming

Third mistake which prevents the dream of "being a church OF small groups" from becoming reality, is to offer small groups and even strongly encourage it, but then also offer too many other choices on the menu.  It is difficult to choose the main course, when there are so many salads, appetizers, and desserts also available.  Take a look at all the programming in your church, and make a list.  How many other choices do you have in your church besides joining a small group?  Too many, and that's a problem.  Most churches in American are over-programmed.

How to fix it:
OK, so you want to "be a church OF small groups", and you see some of the problems in your own church, so how do you fix it?  Here are just three ideas I have, which is based on comments of experts in this field.

• 1.  Pastor must lead

This is the number one, must have, can't avoid it, requirement to become a church that truly values small groups.  Until and unless the Senior Pastor is involved in a small group it will never happen in your church.  If he gets involved, two things will happen:  First, everyone who cares will take note, and begin reshaping their own values in that direction.  Second, s/he will make reference to his/her small group in sermons and begin sharing stories of this or that, and people will hear how helpful the group is in the pastor's life, and this will make an impact.

• 2.  Infrastructure must support it

Second step is that your church infrastructure must support small groups, not work against it.  What do I mean by that?  First, as mentioned, you need to either require it, or strongly support it.  In my Chicago church plant, we made small groups the place where you became a member of the church.  If someone wanted to join the church, they had to take the membership class (which most all churches require), but then THE SMALL GROUP LEADER HAD TO LISTEN TO THE TESTIMONY AND SIGN THE MEMBERSHIP FORM.  So they had to join a small group to become a member.  How does your infrastructure support small groups?

• 3.  Dump the good for the best

As mentioned already, Larry Osborne in the book Sticky Church makes some great comments about this.  You need to get rid of a lot of other ministries to really focus on small groups.  What if you've been around for a long time as a church, and you already have a plethora of various miscellaneous ministries clogging up the discipleship system?  You will have to practice benign neglect and let some of them die, so that small groups can gain a more central focus.

Can we really become "a church OF small groups"?  Yes, I think you can, but it will take work and will not happen by accident.  You will have to be intentional, and smart, and persevering to make it happen.  (And when we finish "Shepherd Care Discipleship Group Software", you will be able to use that to help make it happen at your church.)

I would be curious to find out:  What have you seen work, or not work, when trying to apply this model?  Drop me a comment and let me know.   Thanks!

Wishing you God's best for your ministry!

Dr. Bill

SMALL GROUP DISCIPLESHIP #3: The Old Testament Pastoral Care Plan (Exodus 18)

Hi All,
This story in Exodus 18 known as "The Jethro Plan" has always fascinated me in terms of its potential for successful small group ministry.  God has revealed the plan for providing care for all the people, without burning out the pastor, and yet it seems that many churches have a difficult time putting this plan into reality.

It is a key method, not only for protecting leaders from burnout, but for applying to your church's small group ministry and care plan.

Now, here is how NOT to do it.  Many people, in reading this plan, simply decide that "what we will do is to simply divided the congregation into six or eight or ten groups (depending upon how many leaders we have in our key oversight board), and everybody will be responsible for a set number of people to call and check up on."  Has that EVER worked for anyone?  I've never seen it work.  Why?  Because it is not ORGANIC.  It is not natural; it is not in harmony with the natural human need to connect with others through a true and living relationship.  It often turns into a perfunctory phone call from one relative stranger to another relative stranger to talk about how things are going.  How successful do you think that will be?

What people often forget when they read Exodus 18 and then try to apply it to their church by this kind of artificial division is that all throughout the pentateuch, as the children of Israel were wandering around and trying to live their lives, is that they did everything in the context of family relationships.  The people were grouped by tribes, and the tribes represented actual bloodlines of relational connection to each other.

Now we obviously can't do that in the local church, but we can follow other relational connections.  For example, there is no natural relational connection between everybody whose name starts with A through D, for one elder, and E through L for another elder.  But you can begin to get some hope of relational connection if you organize the oversight of your people through your small group relationships.  At least there, we know that the people feel a connection for each other.

So organize your small group system this way.  That is, not only does each small group shepherd care for their own group, but you have some other overseers, or coaches, who care for the small group shepherds.  Who cares for your small group leaders?  What kind of span of care do you have?  That is, how many small group leaders is each one of your coaches/overseers responsible for?  Span of care is a huge issue if you want to successfully oversee your small group ministry.  When Carl George wrote his books on small groups years ago, he recommended a span of care of 5 groups per oversight shepherd.  However, Bob Logan, in the context of his coaching ministry recommends a span of care no greater than three, and often two.

Here's why:  if you want to have a successful small group ministry, which helps your leaders to overcome their problems, provide care for their people, teach, visit, outreach, etc.  then you must implement a leadership coaching plan.  That is, you must have trained coaches whose sole job is to come alongside two or three small group leaders and coach them to success.  And these coaches have to make this their primary ministry in the church.  If they try to squeeze it in with everything else they are doing it will not work.  The reason is that it takes a lot of effort to do it well.

So, the span of care needs to be small enough to work, and these overseer/coaches must be trained on how to be a good coaches so that they help the small group leaders to be stronger and better group leaders.  What you don't want to have is a case of reverse delegation going on, such that the overseer/coaches think that their job is to solve the small group leaders problems.  It's not.

So, put this all together and what do you have to provide a good pastoral care plan for your church, using the Jethro Plan of Exodus 18?

• 1st - you must have organic relationships between leaders and people.  

That is, no arbitrary lines can be drawn (at least with an American church); there must be actual relationships.

• 2nd - you must implement overseer/coaches for your small group leaders

• 3rd - you must have a small span of care of about two or three leaders per coach

• 4th - the overseer/coaches must be trained in proper coaching techniques

In my experience, I believe that these are the four principles of implementing an effective Jethro Plan in your church's small group system.

If you want to see a Bible study on small group principles from the Scripture, I have a free "Small Groups in the Bible" study in the Coaching section of HighPowerResources.  Just go to the Coaching section, and find the category on the right entitled, "Small Groups".  You will see several free resources there to help you with your small groups, including an SG Covenant, and a guide for communion in your small groups, as well as said Bible Study.

What do you think?  Is there anything that we can learn from the Jethro Plan for our churches?

By the way, our Shepherd Care Discipleship Group Software is going to be released soon, to help with this oversight process.

God's best to you and your ministry,

Dr. Bill

Pastor's and Technology

Hi All,

I've got a special word and thoughts for the pastors reading this post. This blog is all about what I am learning related to church growth & church health, and related topics. One issue that is tangentially related to this is the issue of technology in churches and in ministry. Now by 'technology' I am not referring to all the gadgets that are being used, or could be used, for ministry enhancement, such as the accessibility provided by cell phones, or the usefulness of video projectors for class teaching purposes. No, the area I am talking about is the issue of software for ministry.

Many pastors could have their ministry enhanced and strengthened by using software tailored to their needs.

We are moving from the era of the massive software suites to the niche software targeted to specific needs. Software suites like Microsoft Office are gigantic pieces of code designed to meet the needs of everybody. And if you must meet the needs of nearly everybody, that means that it will not perfectly meet the needs of anybody. For example, look at the area of word processors. Microsoft has created Word and filled with it with tons of features so that should anybody out there possibly look for that one particular feature it will be there. But the era of the massive software suite bloated with tons of little-used features is fading away. We are now moving to more customized or niche type of software options. Instead of just a generic word processor, for example, now there are specific word processors plus, such as some designed for screen writers, which combine elements of word processing and data processing into one piece of software. Or there is the highly specialized word processing required for writing doctoral dissertations. These are examples of customized niche software for sub-groups who are looking for something more specific than just a 'word processor'. And now we have that same type of niche specialization for pastors in a piece of software called "SermonBase Message Planning software". It is a word processor plus a database combined together so that a pastor can both create a sermon using the typical word processing features for text creation and highlighting, but it also contains a database so that a pastor can archive and search for sermons based on multiple criteria including Scripture, Topic, Title, Date, or several other options. SermonBase is just one example of the way that pastor's can do a better job at ministry by accessing and using software specifically designed for what they do. Why continue to use a generic word processor which is designed for nobody in particular, when you could have something specifically designed to help you do a better job at the one activity you spend more time on than any other in a typical week: sermon preparation. Something as important as the Word of God deserves a better tool for preparing to deliver it. That is the benefit of a specifically-targeted software like "SermonBase".

Or consider the important pastoral function of tracking people who are in your church in the various small groups. Most pastors need to know who is in which group and how things are going in that group. And can you believe that some churches still try to track those groups by using an Excel spreadsheet? Why?? When there are customized tools out there specifically designed to help churches do that very important function well. There are a lot of tools out there, and you are free to research one that fits for you. But I couldn't find any that I was totally happy with, so I made my own. I call it "Shepherd Care Discipleship Group Software" (yeah I like long names). It helps to track people in the various groups, and where they are in your discipleship system or your small groups. Using the shepherd metaphor it tracks the "sheep" in various "flocks" headed by various "shepherds" (or teachers) in your church. It is made for churches so that they can do a good job at fulfilling Jesus' command to care for the sheep.

There are other things I could say about this, but I am really convinced that the church needs software specifically targeted to help the church be the church. That's why I've been working on HighPower Resources software for some time now.

For the Kingdom of Heaven,


Dr. Bill