New small groups are like babies. They need
certain things in order to survive. There are also simple things you can
look for to determine their level of health.
Human babies are evaluated on five simple criteria on a scale from 0 to 2 to
determine health. Appearance
(skin color), Pulse (heart rate), Grimace (reflex irritability, Activity (muscle tone), and Respiration (breathing). Often
called an APGAR test for short. Every
baby is given the test within minutes of birth. Why? The beginning moments in a
baby’s life are fragile and every precaution is taken to ensure that they get
what they need.
Your baby groups have survival needs to. Here are five simple criteria you can use to
determine the health of your baby groups:
BEFORE
WE GO ANY FURTHER: My
recommendation is that you develop a quick way of evaluating your new groups
based on each of the five criteria. Don’t make it complicated. A
simple checklist will do. Then you’ll
have an easy way of paying attention to vital signs.
NOW,
BACK TO THE ARTICLE:
The
first criterion has to do with the qualities of the leader. Many times the acronym F.A.T. is used to
evaluate this essential piece. Are they
faithful? As I often say, launching a
new small group is not a sprint. It’s a
marathon. Feels like a sprint in the
first hundred yards. That’s only the
start of the race. What happens 6 to 12
weeks into the life of a new group is important, but it’s only the start. Is the new leader faithful to do the minimum
things that must be done?
Next, are they available? It’s one thing to commit to opening your home
for six weeks. It’s another thing to
actually follow through and call a hurting group member the next day. Part of what makes a healthy small group is
that it is more than a 90 minute experience. It’s becoming part of a body. That requires availability.
Last, are they teachable? It will not be unusual for an expert in small
group leadership to offer to lead a group. Teachability is not a nice extra thing to have. The absence of teachability should scream
code blue.
Admittedly, how leaders are selected in your church
will determine how much is already known. For example, when you’ve identified a new leader based on an existing
relationship, such as an apprentice, you’ll already know them well. On the other hand, when you’ve taken
volunteers, as in the HOST method, or the group has chosen their own leader, as
in the Connection method, you may only have the beginnings of a relationship
with them. Evaluating each of your
leaders on this criterion, even in their first few weeks, will help you ensure
the health of your newest groups.
A
second very important criterion is a meaningful
connection with a coach or a mentor. Meaningful
is the key. An “accounting” approach is
not the idea. Simply assigning a “coach”
to a “leader” will not do the trick. Meaning is not immediate, but with the right approach can be developed
in most cases.
A meaningful connection between coach and leader has
proven to be both a very difficult thing to ensure and an essential ingredient
of survival for most new groups. “Difficult to ensure” because it often
requires a kind of arbitrary assignment (you have three coaches and 15 new groups
so you sort of “deal out” five group leaders to each coach). That only occasionally leads to meaningful
connection. “Essential ingredient”
because without a coach or a mentor you’re asking the new leader to survive
based only on what the group provides in a kind of mutual care format (a kind
of “we all care for each” arrangement).
Can a new group survive without a meaningful
connection with a coach or mentor? Some
do, but it requires a much higher degree of self-reliance on the part of the
leader, making it much less likely that you’ll find the leaders you need. You can recruit leaders much more broadly if
you’re able to deliver this kind of coaching. Looking for help recruiting and developing a coaching team that
works? Take advantage of our upcoming
short-course Building An Effective Coaching Structure.
A third
criterion has to do with the size of the group. While there isn’t any absolute formula (I’ve
seen some great groups with 3 or 4 men and some really vital groups with as
many as 16 to 20), it’s tough for many groups to survive without 8 to 10 active members. For a group to feel like a group, they need
to be able to meet even if the Smiths are out of town. If you’ve got two or three couples it only
takes one unforeseen circumstance to keep the group from meeting. If you’ve got eight to ten people, a couple folks
can miss and the meeting goes right on as planned.
A
fourth criterion for baby group survival is that their next curriculum has been chosen and that it is similar in kind. This may seem to be a trivial thing, but
don’t leave it to chance. Start talking
about what’s next no later than week four of the initial curriculum. Let your coaching solution get the word to
your new leaders. The same week have
your Senior Pastor mention the next curriculum from the pulpit if possible.
Why not let the group decide? New groups can wait a few more weeks before
they add the pressure of working through which study gets chosen and which
doesn’t.
It’s also very important to make sure that the next
study is “similar in kind” to the launching study. Groups that attempt to go straight from a
“just-add-water” DVD-driven curriculum to a study that requires more leader
preparation will quickly find themselves in over their heads. Better to be more directive in the infant
stage to ensure survival.
The
fifth criterion is an understanding of the upcoming calendar. A fast approaching natural barrier to
community (like summer vacation or the Thanksgiving/Christmas, New Year’s
holidays) can be a very difficult challenge for new groups. Help your newest groups make it through these
natural barriers by being proactive. A
Christmas party or a summertime strategy that incorporates a fun get-together
every few weeks can make a real difference in the health and viability of new
groups.
What to
do now? Pull
out your list of new small groups and make a few notes on each one based on
these five criteria. How do they
look? What might you need to do in order
to help them make it through their infant stage? Not sure? Take advantage of our FREE Small Group Ministry Assessment. Email Us or call to get started 888-438-9515, ext. 801. Be sure and mention our FREE Small Group Ministry Assessment.
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