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Church Leadership

Summer is for Family (and that includes your small group)

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For a lot of us, summer means more time with family. Kids are home from school and family vacations are the norm. We also tend to have a bit more margin than during the other seasons. As small group leaders, that extra time spent with family should also include our group members. Your small group should be looked at as a family, not a function. With a function, we can take breaks and come back to it when we feel like it. With family, there is no such thing as extended breaks.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take a break from hosting weekly group meetings. Hosting a Bible study every week (or even bi-weekly) can be grueling, so you deserve to take a breather for a couple of months. However, there are many ways to stay connected to our “family” during the summer months without gathering as consistently for a study.

1. Have fun!
Go to a ballgame. Celebrate the Fourth of July fireworks together. Get together for a picnic. Race cars at an amusement park. We can sometimes suck all of the fun out of group life, and summer is a great time to put it back in.

2. Go on a short-term missions trip together.
Nothing bonds a group better than being on mission together. The trip does not have to be international—there are massive needs in communities all around us. Partner with an organization that is already making a difference and take your group on a weekend mission trip.

3. Serve a local missions organization.
There are food pantries, youth centers, and other missional organizations in almost every community. Pick out a Saturday in June or July to serve as a group. If it’s a great experience with an organization making a real difference, commit to an ongoing relationship.

4. Do an online study.
Choose a video-enhanced study on smallgroup.com. But instead of meeting together every week for the discussion, set up a Facebook group page to go through it online. Your group members can watch the video on their own, and then post comments on the page. A great study to try this summer would be “Making Space” by Jeff Vanderstelt.

By getting creative and thinking outside of the box, your group family can still stay engaged in community this summer.

Chris Surratt is a ministry consultant and coach with more than twenty years of experience serving the local church. Chris served on the Executive Teams at Cross Point Church in Nashville, TN., and Seacoast Church in Charleston, S.C., prior to becoming the Discipleship and Small Groups Specialist for LifeWay. He is the author of Small Groups for the Rest of Us and Leading Small Groups.
Church Leadership

Five Roles of a Small Group Leader

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A small group leader has many roles to fill. The key to a healthy and multiplying group is to give as many of those roles away as soon as possible. You can identify which roles to give away first by knowing which ones are naturally weak for you. We all have areas of leadership where we are stronger and weaker. Someone in your group is going to excel in a role where you might struggle.

Here are what I believe are the top five roles (not in order) for every group leader. As you read the list, think about which ones you should start giving away now.

1. Fun Planner

A key to your group staying healthy is being intentional about planning fun activities during every semester or quarter. That can be a game night instead of a doing the study, going to a ballgame together, or organizing a picnic during the spring or summer.

2. Food Planner

The beginning of every group meeting should be a time of just hanging out, and food can be an important part of that first 20 minutes. It gives people in your group something to do while having important bonding conversations before the study portion of the meeting.

3. Host

Every group needs someone to officially host the meeting. That may include providing the space for the meeting, but it always includes being a smiling face at the door to set the tone for night. A good host will help lead to an effective meeting.

4. Shepherd

Your group members are needing more than a social time and a Bible study. The goal should be to have your small group feel like family. Families care for one another and are there for each other when circumstances are great and not so great. We should celebrate and weep with our group members equally.

5. Prayer Time

Prayer is an important element during the group time, but it’s also essential between meetings. A praying leader is a leader worth following. You should pray consistently and specifically for your group members each week.

Is there a role or two on that list that you can give away soon?

Chris Surratt is a ministry consultant and coach with more than twenty years of experience serving the local church. Chris served on the Executive Teams at Cross Point Church in Nashville, TN., and Seacoast Church in Charleston, S.C., prior to becoming the Discipleship and Small Groups Specialist for LifeWay 
Church Leadership, Group Leadership

Free Small Groups Webinar

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Can small groups really work in smaller size churches? That is the topic that we are going to tackle in this free webinar on March 19, 2019, 11am – 12pm CST. Here are a few of the questions that myself and our expert panelists will take on:

  • What are the greatest challenges to groups in a smaller church?
  • What is the best type of groups system for a church that is just starting to offer small groups?
  • How do you best utilize your budget (or lack of one) for small groups?
  • What does leader recruitment, training, and care look like?
  • and many more

Spots are limited, so register for this free webinar soon here.

Chris Surratt is a ministry consultant and coach with more than twenty years of experience serving the local church. Chris served on the Executive Teams at Cross Point Church in Nashville, TN., and Seacoast Church in Charleston, S.C., prior to becoming the Discipleship and Small Groups Specialist for LifeWay Christian Resources. He is the author of  Small Groups for the Rest of Us: How to Design Your Small Groups System to Reach the Fringes. You can follow his blog at www.chrissurratt.com.
Church Leadership, Group Leadership

Free Online Small Groups Cohort

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UPDATE: This group is now full, but if you would like to be considered for a future cohort, email Chris Surratt at chris.surratt@lifeway.com.

We can all benefit from spending time with other ministry leaders asking the same questions we are. That is why I am launching a free online cohort for church small groups point people. There will be six mandatory online meetings where you will have the opportunity to be a learner (ask questions) and a leader (teach others). We are keeping this group small, so if this cohort would interest you, register soon at the form below.

Church Leadership

More Questions Every Small Group Leader Has

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It can be intimidating to take on the leadership of a group, but you can be assured that (almost) every small group leader has the same doubts, concerns, and questions you do. The moment we as leaders think we have it all figured out is when we should stop being leaders. I have discovered that the best leaders always have questions, and they’re not afraid to ask them.

You can read my top five questions here, but here are three more questions every small group leader has.

1. What do we do about childcare?

This is the number one question from parents, and the number one barrier to many people committing to a small group. If you are planning to invite married couples with young kids, have a solution for this issue before the group begins. Here are a few ideas I recommend to group leaders: 

  • Each family makes their own arrangements for childcare.
  • The group hires a babysitter, and the families split the cost.
  • Work with the student ministry to hire a female babysitter who is raising money for a summer missions trip.
  • Work out a co-op relationship with another group that meets on another night.
  • Make one night a month a game night where the kids are invited to take part.
  • Involve the older kids into the discussion and life of the group. My kids have been active members of our groups through the years.
  • Rotate childcare among the members of the group, putting two non-related adults in charge of babysitting for a given night, and rotating each week.

2. What if no one shows up for the group meeting?

It can be very disheartening to prepare for your group and then have no one show up. It’s sometimes worse if only one person comes! Here are a few factors to think about if no one signs up or shows up for the group:

  • Is the group being hosted in too remote of an area from the church? It will be more difficult to ask church members to attend a group that is over 15-20 minutes from their house.
  • Is the group’s focus too narrow? Targeting a specific cause for a group to form around can be beneficial, but it will take longer to gain traction.
  • Are you meeting on an unpopular night? Look for a day and time that works well for the demographic you are inviting to the group.
  • Are the meetings consistent enough? Groups that only meet once a month will never gain the relational equity it takes to build loyalty.
  • Is the group shrinking? It is always good to add new people during the life of the small group.

3. How do I stay healthy as a leader while helping others do the same?

It’s important that we as leaders take care of our spiritual, mental, and physical selves while helping others do the same thing. We can spend so much time pouring into our group members, and forget that leading yourself is the number one priority. An unhealthy leader will eventually burnout. 

If you find yourself on the edge of burning out spiritually, here is an outline for staying healthy from Pastor Peter Scazzero. He calls it the Rule of Life. “Rule” is from the Greek word “trellis.” You use a trellis in a garden to ensure the plants grow straight and healthy.

Pay attention to these four major categories in your daily routine:

  1. Prayer: this also involves time in the Scripture and using silence and solitude in your quiet times
  2. Rest: Taking a regular sabbath, simplifying your life as much as possible, and making time for play and recreation.
  3. Work/Activity: Including service and mission into your life, and regular care for your physical body
  4. Relationships: Taking care of your emotional health through life-giving relationships with your family and community
Chris Surratt is a ministry consultant and coach with more than twenty years of experience serving the local church. Chris served on the Executive Teams at Cross Point Church in Nashville, TN., and Seacoast Church in Charleston, S.C., prior to becoming the Discipleship and Small Groups Specialist for LifeWay Christian Resources. He is the author of  Small Groups for the Rest of Us: How to Design Your Small Groups System to Reach the Fringes. You can follow his blog at www.chrissurratt.com.
Church Leadership, Tuesday Thoughts

Tuesday Thoughts: Choosing a Location for Your Small Group

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One of the decisions that you’ll have to make early on if you’re starting a small group is where are you going to host it? There’s a lot of options that you can use and all of them have pros and cons. So I want to talk just a minute about some good options if you’re looking at starting a small group, especially offsite from where your church is. The first natural one is your home. Now, home is a great place to have a small group. It feels comfortable. It’s easy to build community in, but there are some things that you want to think about when you think about your home and whether it might be good for your small group. The first thing is how big is it? Because if you’re going to have a large, small group, and I’m talking more than like 12, you know if you’re going to have 16, 18 people in your small group, you want to make sure that you have room in your living room or somewhere in the house where everyone can comfortably sit in a circle, see each other, hear each other, and feel like they’re in community at your house. If they’re having to spread out or sit behind people, that’s going to be less viable than if they could sit in a circle and see everybody in the group. So you want to make sure that your home is big enough and you’ll also want to think about childcare. If you’re going to have a group with small kids like parents with younger kids, you want to make sure that there’s somewhere in the house that you can comfortably have childcare, that the kids can have a safe time and it’s a good place for them to be during the group. So home is a great place for your small group, but there are also some other options.

A few of them are a neighborhood clubhouse. If you live in a neighborhood that has a clubhouse, a lot of times they sit empty during the week, especially at apartments, so you might look into maybe being able to rent it for a small fee. A lot of times it’s just a fee to cover the cleaning costs, but uh, that might be a good option for you. But the downside is if you have childcare, you need childcare, that’s not always a good good place because it’s easily just one room. So, but you might look at a neighborhood, a clubhouse.

Also maybe a room at the church building. Maybe your church allows groups to use Sunday school rooms or rooms at the church during the week. And that’s a great option, especially if they’ll let you use another room for childcare again. Um, but also it kind of limits some of the community that can happen during the small group, especially if you’re going to provide food. Because not all church rooms are good for that. And it’s also not always a great place just to hang out. So that’s kind of a downside to using a room at the church.

You might also be able to use a break room at the office. A lot of offices will allow a Bible study to go on during a break time, but you want to make sure that you clear that with the people at your office. It also allows you to invite people to your group that may not naturally want to come to your home or church or to a room at the church. So that’s another good option. And then a final one is a third space somewhere like a coffee house or something like that. That’s a good place to have, especially if you have a smaller group like 5 to 10 because you can go into a coffee house and sit around a table or a group of chairs and easily be able to have a discussion. Now that’s a tougher place if you’re going to have a larger group, if you’re going to have more than 10, you might look at some other options.

So those are just a few places that you can have your group. All of them have pros, they have cons, but take a look at those as you start your small group.

Chris Surratt is a ministry consultant and coach with more than twenty years of experience serving the local church. Chris served on the Executive Teams at Cross Point Church in Nashville, TN., and Seacoast Church in Charleston, S.C., prior to becoming the Discipleship and Small Groups Specialist for LifeWay Christian Resources. He is the author of  Small Groups for the Rest of Us: How to Design Your Small Groups System to Reach the Fringes. You can follow his blog at www.chrissurratt.com.
Church Leadership

Five Tips to Helping your New Group Last the Whole Year

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Stepping out to start a new small group can be a scary experience. All of us have the same questions starting out: Will anyone show up? Have I invited the right people? Have I picked the right study? How will I disciple everyone in my group? And the biggest question of all: Will my new group survive? Statistics say that around 70% of new businesses will eventually fail within five years. I would hazard a guess that it’s around the same for new small groups in the first year. We all have the best of intentions at the start, but life happens and good intentions get derailed.

However, there is hope! There are a few things that you can do now that will help your small group survive and thrive through the whole year. Here are five tips to starting and finishing strong.

  1. Consistency

Inconsistency can derail a small group from the start. There will be weeks where it is extremely tempting to just cancel. A few group members start dropping out early in the week, and now it seems easier to cancel and punt to the next week. After a few weeks of last minute canceling, most people will give up on showing up. Resist that urge to cancel, and stay consistent with your meetings. Some of the most impactful group meetings I have been a part of was with just a few people. Start the group off with a covenant or agreement stating that members will need to be consistent with their attendance throughout the semester, or join the group at another time when their schedules allow.

  1. Substance

Most people are already involved in a small group. There are smaller groups of people we interact with every day. We have groups at work, groups at school, groups at the football game, groups at the park, and on-and-on. For your small group to be compelling enough for someone to give another time slot to, it has to go beyond the surface and offer opportunities for people to grow deeper in their faith and love for Jesus. If your “study” time consists of 10-15  minutes of shallow conversation about the sermon from Sunday, or how their week was, that’s not enough.

To love God, we have to know God, and that will come from those deeper conversations inspired by a well written study of God’s Word. Check out lifeway.com/balanceddiscipleship for a robust Bible study plan.

  1. Care

Another difference in what you are offering and what people can get anywhere is genuine care. Your group members are needing more than a social time and a Bible study. The goal is to have your small group feel like family. Families care for one another and are there for each other when circumstances are great and not so great. We should celebrate and weep with our group members equally.

  1. Variety

Even the best experiences will get old when repeated too many times. If your small group meetings are always the same, the group will quickly become stale and group members will start to fade out. Change it up occasionally with the type of study you are doing. If you are consistently doing studies through books of the BIble, try a more topical study for a few weeks. If your group always uses a video driven study, change it up with discussion driven study for a semester. Also, build in nights where the group just does something fun.  Plan a night every six weeks that is a game night, or something fun outside of the normal meeting location.

  1. Empowerment

If you are a leader who has to do everything in the group – host, provide food, facilitate the discussion, handle the prayer request, schedule the activities, etc – then you are not empowering your members to discover their spiritual gifts and take ownership in the group. Consumers will feel the freedom to move on when the group no longer fills their needs. Owners have a stake and will feel the responsibility to help the group fill other’s needs. Start the group off with the expectation that everyone will eventually contribute to the life of the group. This will help create owners and not consumers.

Chris Surratt is a ministry consultant and coach with more than twenty years of experience serving the local church. Chris served on the Executive Teams at Cross Point Church in Nashville, TN., and Seacoast Church in Charleston, S.C., prior to becoming the Discipleship and Small Groups Specialist for LifeWay Christian Resources. He is the author of  Small Groups for the Rest of Us: How to Design Your Small Groups System to Reach the Fringes. You can follow his blog at www.chrissurratt.com.
Tuesday Thoughts

Tuesday Thoughts: Gospel-Centered Service

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One of the churches in which I serve sat in an interesting place geographically. Now on our side of the street it was beginning to change. There were homes being flipped, it was gentrifying, it was quickly becoming a place that you wanted to live. But directly across the street was a completely different story. There were a lot of gangs and drugs and violence and it was not a place that you wanted to be. Now a couple of our small groups decided to make a difference in that community. They begin to go over one time a month and just love on one block at a time. They took basic needs, batteries and light bulbs and toilet paper and just knocked on doors and just loved that community. And slowly over time that community began to change because of those small groups. Eventually that led to what we call a dream center, a 24/7 dream center that had legal services, had a food pantry, had ministries for single moms and became a bright light in that dark place.

So how do you help your small group get there? How do we eventually change our community and change our world? Let me give you four steps to help your group become a serving group.

Step one is you’ve got to serve your group first. If you expect your small group to become a serving group, you have to first model servant leadership for your group members. You know Paul gave these instructions to the church in Philippi. He said, do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, consider others as more important than yourselves. Everyone should not look out only for his own interest, but also for the interest of others. Adopt the same attitude is that of Jesus Christ. Jesus left us the ultimate example of servanthood as he served his disciples and ultimately all of us on the cross, so serve your group first. Do it by a washing their car, watching their kids so they can go out for dinner, but look for tangible ways that you can serve your group, first.

Second step is empower group members to serve the group. You’re discipling your group members by helping them discover their spiritual gifts in order to utilize with them within the group. So look for opportunities for others to host the group or maybe provide the food or facilitate the discussion or maybe handle the prayer time or look for missional opportunities outside of the group, but find out where your group members are gifted, where their spiritual gifts are and then help them serve the group.

Step number three is served together in the church. You know, there’s always opportunities for us to serve at our church. Maybe it’s some landscaping or a wall needs to be painted in a classroom or maybe serve in a classroom to give those teachers a break on a Sunday, but look for somewhere that you can serve together in the church.

And then number four is serve together in the community. Just like our small groups saw need directly across the street from where we were, there are needs in your community. So look outside of the walls where you meet every single week. Maybe there is an elementary school that needs supplies in the fall, or maybe there’s a single mom that just simply needs her lawn mowed. Look around, there’s needs in your community and gather your group and let’s serve those needs.

So four steps. Serve your group first, empower your group members to serve, serve together in the church and serve together in the community. If you follow those, someday, your group will change the world.

Chris Surratt is a ministry consultant and coach with more than twenty years of experience serving the local church. Chris served on the Executive Teams at Cross Point Church in Nashville, TN., and Seacoast Church in Charleston, S.C., prior to becoming the Discipleship and Small Groups Specialist for LifeWay Christian Resources. He is the author of  Small Groups for the Rest of Us: How to Design Your Small Groups System to Reach the Fringes. You can follow his blog at www.chrissurratt.com.
Church Leadership

Best Small Group Ice Breakers for 2019

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Whether your small group will be brand new in 2019 or you have been meeting for awhile, a good icebreaker question or activity is a great way to get the conversation going at that first meeting in January. Icebreakers help everyone in the group feel more comfortable about entering the discussion before the Bible study starts. You can see our 2018 list here.

Here are a few more of my favorites.

M&M’s Game

Pass a bag of M&M’s around and tell everyone to take a few. Then, before they eat them ask them to share something for every M&M. For example, something about their family for every red one, something about their plans for the future for every green one, etc.

Life Catalysts

Pass out 3-5 sticky notes to each person in the group. Instruct group members to write one life catalyst that helped make them who they are today on each sticky note. It can be the name of an influential person or a life event. Then have each person share their sticky notes with the rest of the group as they stick them on a wall or on a large poster board.

My Life in Pictures

Bring a newspaper or magazine. Have each person tear out a picture, article or anything they think tells something about themselves. If there’s enough time they can make a collage that tells more about themselves.

Most Used Emoji

Ask group members to share their most used emoji and why they like it. As a bonus, have them show the the group the emoji on their phone.

Get To Know You Questions

  • What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
  • When you die, what do you want to be remembered for?
  • Describe your past week in weather terms. (Was it stormy, cloudy, foggy, mostly sunny…)
  • What is your favorite item you’ve bought this year?
  • What is your absolute dream job?
  • What would the title of your autobiography be?
  • Say you’re independently wealthy and don’t have to work, what would you do with your time?
  • If you had to delete all but 3 apps from your smartphone, which ones would you keep?
  • Who is your favorite Disney hero or heroine? Would you trade places with them?
  • Are you a morning or night person?
  • If you could add anyone to Mount Rushmore who would it be; why?
  • What fictional family would you be a member of?
Chris Surratt is a ministry consultant and coach with more than twenty years of experience serving the local church. Chris served on the Executive Teams at Cross Point Church in Nashville, TN., and Seacoast Church in Charleston, S.C., prior to becoming the Discipleship and Small Groups Specialist for LifeWay Christian Resources. He is the author of  Small Groups for the Rest of Us: How to Design Your Small Groups System to Reach the Fringes. You can follow his blog at www.chrissurratt.com.
Tuesday Thoughts

Tuesday Thoughts – Gospel-Centered Hospitality

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So we’re talking about shaping the culture of your small group, making sure that the culture of the framework of your group is Gospel centered. So I want to look at one aspect of Gospels centrality in your group with hospitality. So when you think of the word hospitality, what comes to mind? For me, I think about Martha Stewart, the front of a glossy magazine. Everything’s perfect. Everything’s laid out perfectly. The food’s going to taste great, but then I think it’s just not me. I just don’t have the gift of hospitality. I don’t think that’s the complete picture of what hospitality is. If you read, especially the New Testament, there’s a lot of references to being hospitable. I mean, if you look at first Peter 4:9says, be hospitable to one another without complaining. Romans 12:13 says, share with the saints and their needs. Pursue hospitality.

So it’s obviously important. It was so important that Paul listed it as a qualification for being an elder or a deacon. So how do we do that? How do we pursue hospitality? Well, if you look at the original word, the Greek word for hospitality, it actually means two words, love and stranger. I think that’s a powerful description of what the Gospel is. You know when we were strangers and aliens, God took us in when we didn’t have a home or a family, God brought us into his. When we were without hope in the world, God adopted us as his children and with the ultimate gift of hospitality, ultimate act of hospitality God gave us his son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for us, and Jesus epitomized hospitality. Everywhere he went, he didn’t even have a home or casserole dishes or any of that, but he welcomed people into his life.

So how do we do that? Some practical ways to show hospitality in your group. First, just be open to inviting strangers into your group. Having that love of strangers, people that you meet, that need the community that you’re offering, invite them to be a part of it. Also, remember that everything speaks when it comes to the environment of your small group, so make sure there’s a smiling face at the door. There’s a welcoming attitude when it comes to your small group. Also be first the first to serve and the last to eat. Something just as basic as waiting for everyone else to eat before you do and then being the first one to serve other group members when there’s a need in the group, and then finally pray consistently for the group. Sometimes we forget that, but that’s where hospitality begins is with prayer, so let’s make sure that the hospitality part of our group is Gospel centered.

Chris Surratt is a ministry consultant and coach with more than twenty years of experience serving the local church. Chris served on the Executive Teams at Cross Point Church in Nashville, TN., and Seacoast Church in Charleston, S.C., prior to becoming the Discipleship and Small Groups Specialist for LifeWay Christian Resources. He is the author of  Small Groups for the Rest of Us: How to Design Your Small Groups System to Reach the Fringes. You can follow his blog at www.chrissurratt.com.

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