How to Be Sure Your Small Group Ministry will Fail

TakeYourVitaminZ linked over to an interesting article by Craig Groeschel entitled, “How to Be Sure Your Small Group Ministry will Fail“.

I cringed and laughed and resolved to talk about them with Fred as we continue to (strive to) lead our small group well. Consider just a few:

Make sure the senior pastor isn’t in a group. If small groups aren’t modeled by the pastor, they won’t have much of a chance for success.

Make sure the senior pastor doesn’t talk about small groups. If small groups don’t ever find their way into a sermon, it will help reduce the likelihood of success.

Make sure small groups are not staffed or resourced properly. To guarantee your groups fail, don’t staff them, buy them curriculum, announce them, or get your best volunteers involved.

Make sure small group leaders aren’t trained. When you do get some small group leaders, don’t train them. Let them figure it out on their own.

Make sure the church doesn’t address childcare needs. Pretend like all small groups don’t have any child care needs. Don’t open the church one or two nights a week to provide child care. Don’t pay for childcare like I’ve heard North Point does. Ignore childcare needs completely.

Make sure the church doesn’t have a small group vision or philosophy. Let people do whatever they want without any direction or oversight.

Make sure not to require staff members to be involved. If your staff (or key leaders) isn’t in groups, that will help keep others from being in groups.

Make sure you never make small groups a membership or partnership requirement. Be a low-expectation church. While you’re at it, don’t ask people to serve, pray, witness, or give sacrificially either.