Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Small group leaders, pastors, and more discussing strategies for growth and community in church groups. The Small Group Network is an international ministry that equips churches to engage in deeper discipleship and community.
James Browning: Hello, and
welcome to F G squared.
Steve Gladen the global pastor of small
groups from Saddleback church polls
from his over 25 years of experience.
To encourage and equip listeners like
you to lead small group ministry.
So let's listen and learn together.
Derek: Welcome to SG squared,
Steve Gladen on small groups.
Derek here along with the man
of the hour, the man who's very
initial stand for small groups.
Give it up for Steve Gladen.
Steve Gladen: Hey guys, good
to have you on this episode.
We're pretty excited about this one and
kind of gearing it towards some people
who, uh, you know, probably don't have a
small group ministry, but because of the
title, I know that's why you're listening.
So we've got a great
show in store for you.
Derek: And it's May now we're
getting closer and closer to summer.
Have you guys gotten past the,
uh, kind of the hazy season?
I know they call it June gloom, right?
Even up into June.
Yeah.
Steve Gladen: Yeah, we get
may gray and then June gloom.
So how they figure out this stuff, I
have no idea, but it's wonderful to have,
uh, Beautiful weather and just, uh, you
know, all kinds of things happening.
Even though we're moving to summer,
moving towards summer, there's a
lot of things that are in place
as we're getting ready for fall.
And, uh, so many things we're,
we're, we're gearing up for our, our
groups to do during the summertime
and this to engage with each other.
So lots of things still in
motion, you know, in the midst of
graduations and mother's day and
father's day coming up pretty soon,
uh, you know, there's so much.
In, in motion right now, it's
just pure, pure craziness.
Derek: and
this is the time of year where a lot of
churches are thinking about small groups.
or launching a small group ministry
because, um, the fall is coming, right?
Summer is almost here, but
fall comes quickly after.
So that's why we want to do this episode,
how to start a small group ministry so
that churches can now be thinking about.
Getting ready to do the
big launch in the fall.
Steve Gladen: even saying that,
Derek, I know that even post, uh,
post COVID, you know, here we are.
So many years since COVID began outside
of it, there's still a number of churches
that, uh, still haven't quite latched
onto the power of how Jesus set up
the New Testament with his game plan
of temple courts and house to house.
And so we do want to spend time on that.
Uh, and, and as we're jumping into
it is for everyone that's listening
to know, we're, we're putting in some
very robust show notes and I want
to encourage you to, uh, be able to
print them out and to follow along or
however you want to follow with that.
Because it's, we're, we're going to blow
through a lot of the points, but it,
the details are there in the show notes.
And I don't want you to miss that.
And of course, we're always happy
to answer questions, but this
is a pivotal, pivotal podcast.
It may go a little bit longer,
but the thing that's going to be
important is that we're going to be.
We're going to be walking you through 10
things that are super important for you
to think through as you're going to start
a small group ministry and both Derek and
I would tell you through the decades and
decades and decades of ministry, I've got
a lot more decades on, on, than on Derek.
You can just tell by looking at
us if you're watching on video.
But the, the point is, is that
these 10 things are super, super
important for you to understand and,
and work through as you're doing it.
So we're going to kind of rifle
through them as best we can, but.
The show notes are there so that you
can pick up the pieces afterwards.
And then as always, we're there
to answer any questions, uh,
that you would have for us.
Derek: All right, let's dive into this.
How to start a small group ministry.
Number one, you want me to just go
ahead and give them the big fill
Steve Gladen: Yeah, just go ahead and
do, you can read, you can read the
point and I'll just kind of do the
color commentary and work through that.
Derek: number one, know
where you are headed.
Steve Gladen: Yeah.
And, uh, right now where you're headed
is you're, you're headed into change
and Jesus was a master at change.
You know, he talked about changing the
church and John in Matthew 21 verse
12, he talked about changing people.
In Matthew eight, when, you know, he gets
three groupings of people that, you know,
were very, uh, diverse people that were
not accepted in the new Testament, but
he talked about how they're important
and you got to change to love them.
And he talked more importantly about
changing your heart in Matthew five, 28.
And as you're going into this change
management mode, you have, you have to
understand there's this powerful phrase
that says to master change, your paradigms
got to switch from what you will.
Lose to what you will gain.
And this is very important as we're
talking about a small group ministry,
because one of the things Saddleback
church realized is that when Jesus
talked about temple courts and house to
house is that oftentimes in churches,
we know that playbook, but we mess
it up and we create all kinds of mini
temple courts all around our church.
And one of them that we had
was called midweek service.
We had a Sunday morning and we
had a midweek Wednesday night.
And although the Wednesday was important,
it wasn't doing what we wanted it to
do because you just can't disciple,
you know, you know, a grouping of
people that come at, at midweek.
And so one of the things we
did is we stopped midweek.
We lost midweek, but then
we gained small groups.
And if you just want to look at the
raw numbers and attendance, we had
about 1200 in midweek, but we have
about 25 to 30, 000 in small groups.
And so again, if you get caught in
change management the wrong way, you
get paralyzed, but what you'll lose.
And you'll never take change to happen.
And coming out of COVID it's,
it's in one of those times
where you have this opportunity.
So let me get back to
where Derek was taking us.
And that is you got to
know where you're headed.
One of the number one things in
starting a small group ministry is
you have to know the unit of one.
You've got to know what a disciple is.
So if I've got Derek right next
to me here and he is my premium
disciple, what is it that he exudes?
And what is it that he does?
Because if you don't know where
you're headed in discipleship.
What happens is then your small group
leaders don't have a definition for
success because the job of the small group
is to produce Disciples and if you don't
know the unit of one you can't replicate
any more Units out of that and in the same
way your church needs to know that now for
us at Saddleback We'll take the five verbs
from the Great Commission and the Great
Commandment and that's our unit of one You
We want to see those five verbs embedded
into each individual in each small group.
That is success for
the small group leader.
And that we want to see fellowship
happen, which is having authentic
community where you're able to confess
temptation before you have to confess sin.
We want them to work on discipleship.
And that is to know cognitively,
What the Bible says, but also engage
God's word in an active way and
knowing their spiritual next step.
We want to engage them in serving
and being able to know that, you
know, you have a spiritual gift
and how do you take that spiritual
gifting and volunteer in the church?
We want to engage them in evangelism to
be able to say, what's your one life.
Who's the person that doesn't know
Jesus that lives close to you so
that you can be that light to them.
And then understanding worship, how do
you surrender and sacrifice for all of
these things got to be introduced inside
of your small group ministry, but you've
got to be able to identify that first.
So that they know what success is,
because without that success, then
you're not going to be able to help
them understand where they're trying to
build and where they're trying to go.
So the number one thing is, is you've
got to know where you're headed.
Derek: Well said, know where
you're headed on to number two.
If you're taking notes and reminder,
like Steve said, uh, click the link
in the show notes to see the detailed
breakdown of all these, we've got all
the scriptures attached and some other.
Key bullet points under each point.
But number two is find the lay
of the land in your church.
Steve, break that down for us.
Steve Gladen: So once you've decided that
you want to do a small group ministry and
you know what you spent the time with your
church leadership trying to figure out.
What is it that you're trying
to produce as a disciple?
Then once you know where you're headed,
you can start doing, you know, what
we call getting the lay of the land.
And this is where in any change
management, you want to be able to not
only be understanding where you are
at personally, but relationally start
to connect with people in all kinds of
kinds of areas, whether you have adult
Sunday school classes, whether you
have a existing small groups or maybe
no small groups whatsoever, group.
Or if you have, uh, you know, leader
church leadership, uh, that you need
to talk to, but what you want to find
through, go with them is find out,
Hey, this is where we're thinking
about going with discipleship.
Now it's time to find out
what they're thinking about.
So when you're looking at the lay of
the land, it got some great scriptures
there for you, uh, from first Peter
that you can, can read right there.
But you know, you don't want to die
on the, on the level of language.
It doesn't matter if you call them
small groups, adult Sunday school,
um, you know, whatever you want
to call the groupings of people.
What's important is you know
what you're trying to produce.
So we don't care if it happens in an
hour on Sunday morning, as long as
they're trying to produce disciples,
you don't care if it happens in, you
know, an hour and a half, you know, on a
Friday night, you just want to make sure
that, you know, they understand that.
It doesn't matter what we call it,
but it doesn't matter what we produce.
Another thing right there is you want
to get a key opinion leaders to find
out, you know, where they're going
and what they're thinking about this.
So you can know where the bumps are going
to be when you start to roll this out.
Um, like I said, you want to have
all kinds of, uh, calls with people.
You want to engage with them in a
special way so that you can see how
you can build relational capital.
to understand where your leadership
is at in this area of discipleship.
Because before you launch it, You want
to make sure that you have the buy in
of the, of those leaders all across
your children's, your students and your
adults, because you want to find out
what are some unintended consequences
that you may or may not be thinking
about that they could help you out with.
So get to know the terrain that's in
front of you or the lay of the land.
Derek: I like when your bullet
points there under, under that
point, it says, honor the past.
They got you there.
You have a job because of them,
Steve Gladen: Cause you're always
building on the shoulders of other
people and so don't tear them
down, but be grateful for
Derek: Great
Steve Gladen: Good point.
Derek: Okay.
Number three, who will run point?
This one's in the form of a question.
Who will run point?
Tell us about that.
Steve Gladen: Yeah.
And the bottom line is when you start a
small group ministry, there's got to be
someone that, that is passionate about it.
And when you're looking for
a leader for your small group
ministry, think through two words.
capability and availability.
So first off, are they capable?
Do they have passion?
You know, the small group network,
uh, we, we have all the resources to
train your small group point person.
You don't have to worry about what to
train them, but what we can't train
is we can't train passion and we
can't train their, their ability to
say, I'm excited about this ministry.
So capability is one piece, but
the other thing is availability.
I remember there's a number of people
I was recruiting early on at Saddleback
that, uh, they had the capability, but
they just didn't have the margin in their
life because they had young families.
or they had new jobs they were doing.
And so when you're looking for the smaller
point person, I would say the number one
thing you want to look at is passion.
You know, there's a, in first
Peter five, it talks about the,
the three qualities of a shepherd.
Some are overseers.
Um, some are shepherds
and some are elders.
And the, those aren't
three different people.
Those are the same people all wrapped
up into the, they have different
giftings, but it doesn't matter
what their primary gifting is.
Okay.
whether it's shepherding or whether
it's overseeing or whether it's elders.
But what does matter is
do they have the passion?
And once you can get somebody
with the passion there, then we
have all the abilities to help
train them in any way we can.
But you do have to have someone who's
the point because you, as the senior
person, you don't have the space.
this.
And the other thing I would encourage
you, they don't have to be paid.
There's a lot of people.
I have people on our staff who are
helping to manage our small groups
that they're, they're volunteers, but
they're passionate about it and they're
volunteering their time because they just
love what God is doing in their life.
Derek: I also like that point on
availability versus capability,
and that what you shared there
could go for leaders that you're
recruiting anywhere in the churches,
and they might be capable,
but are they available?
Can they do anything with,
you know, with the margin?
So great point.
Okay, number four, who's on the team?
Another question.
Who's on the team?
Steve Gladen: Yeah.
And this is for your
small group point person.
And I would encourage you that if
you've identified somebody, Uh, we
would love to, you know, put our
arms around them and help them out
because what they need to do is they
need to develop two types of teams.
One is doing a strategic team, and this
would be like one, two, maybe three
people that will help them architect.
The small group ministry.
And you can actually walk through my
book, planning small groups with purpose,
because we'll walk them through 20
questions that they'll need to answer
and to build a strategic plan on.
That's one grouping of people,
but there's also a grouping
of people that are shepherds.
And these are people who
will care for your groups.
Now, depending on how the size of
your church is will depend if this
team is even necessary or not.
But if you're, if you're running,
uh, 10 or fewer small groups.
probably the person who's
running point, they can be
this team in and of themselves.
So they would need the strategic
team to help them guide where the
small group ministry is going, but
they can do most of the shepherding.
But if it grows beyond 10 small
groups, then they're going to need to
enlist this other part of the team,
which some churches call coaches.
Some we call them community leaders.
There's many different, use, but the point
is, is that you want to be able to have
teams of people that are working with this
point person to help them develop the,
the small group ministry that you want.
Derek: There you got it.
Who's on the team, which
sets up number five.
Thank you.
What will be your strategy?
Talk to us about strategies.
Steve Gladen: So what we're, what we
mean in this point is, is that, you
know, Once you know where your head
and you've gotten buy in from all the
church leadership, and then you know,
who's running point and they're, they're
working on teams to help go with that.
Then you got to start developing a
strategy for saying, you know, how
do we want to launch small groups?
And what I would encourage you is in
the notes right here, we talk about,
you know, the senior pastor buy in that,
you know, is the pastor who is the head.
Do you buy what you sell?
One of the things that helped me the
most was Rick was in a small group.
Andy is in a small group and you
know, if they're, if the senior
leader's not buying what they're
selling, it's going to be a hard sell.
And I know lots of pastors say, well, I'm
in a small group with other senior pastors
who are, you know, around the community.
And that's kind of a cop out to
be honest with you because it's
a social club is what it is.
It's not working on discipleship,
but you know, the beautiful
thing is Rick had four couples.
They were all his friends and,
uh, they did life together.
And in the same way, that's a key
part of the strategy is that, do
you have the seniors pastors buy in?
But the other thing is that, you
know, if you have that senior
pastor buy in, then your strategy
can be a church wide campaign.
And again, I'm just going to encourage
you to do some research to find
out about a churchwide campaign.
I wrote a book called, uh,
small groups with purpose.
And in chapter 17, I talk about a church
wide campaign and how your church can
unleash exponential power, uh, by doing
this strategy to launch your small groups.
Uh, If you're a senior pastor and
you don't have buy in, you might want
to do a connection strategy and same
book, small groups with purpose in
chapter 16, I talk about that strategy.
You may have adult Sunday schools.
And in chapter 15, I
talk about that strategy.
The point is there's multiple strategies
depending on the buy in of your church.
But the point is, is that you've
got to latch on to a strategy for
launching groups inside your church.
I mean, you can spend these points,
these, these, these four points previous
trying to get everything lined up to
know where you're headed and you've
worked through the leadership and
you've identified a point person and
they've developed a team and you get
us and you go into the strategy phase.
If you don't get into the strategy phase,
the rubber is never hitting the road.
There's no action taking place.
So I'd encourage you learn a strategy
based on where your senior pastor is and
then implement it to its fullest power.
And again, we have plenty of resources
on each one of these strategies.
So you can figure out.
Okay, how am I going to make this happen
in this, in the way it needs to happen?
Derek: And so once you've got
your strategy dialed in, uh,
like Steve just laid out, then
that sets up point number six.
When will you start?
Steve Gladen: And this is where
you're drawing a line in the sand.
And, uh, this is what it, in part of
this goes hand in hand with the previous
point, because you can't implement a
strategy without having a starting point.
And the only way to do each strategy
effectively is to be able to know
when you want to launch groups
because then you have to back out,
back up on all the pieces to make
this group strategy really important.
But the main point that I have with
this is I spend a lot of time talking
with churches that will talk so much
about, you know, wanting to start small
groups and wanting to start small groups
and wanting to start small groups.
And we'll do some of the
things that are involved.
But then we'll never take this
final step of saying, Hey, I want
to start with a starting point.
I want to take it and I'm going to
say, I'm going to draw a line in
the sand and I'm going to make sure
that our church is going to do it.
It may work.
It may not work.
but I'm not going to let that scare
me because what I'm going to do is
make sure that I have things in place.
Derek: Well stated just got
to, Get that calendar out and
pick that date and go for it.
Steve Gladen: Yep.
Derek: Number seven,
what's your head guardrail
Steve Gladen: Yeah.
And we're going to talk about
two different guardrails here.
And again, I encourage you to get into
the show notes so you can kind of look at
some of the diagrams that we put in here.
But the two, and I'm going to,
Derek, I'm going to take both 0.
7 and eight here, right here, because
there's a head guardrail and there's
a heart guardrail and what it's
important in, in starting a small group
ministry, Is that you've developed
the end in mind and you have this
pathway you want to take groups on.
And what's important is that you have
guardrails on this journey to get
to the end in mind of discipleship.
For us, it's balancing the five purposes
inside the person inside the group.
That's where we want to get to.
But we have two guardrails
that help, you know, reinforce
that people stay on the line.
If you've ever bowled, uh, and for those
of you that aren't familiar with bowling,
you may want to, you know, search on that.
But, uh, you know, when we took our
kids bowling when they were little,
they put up these bumper guards.
And that ensured that the bowling
ball would eventually get down
to the pins because the ball, the
guard rails would not let the ball,
the bowling ball go in the gutter.
And in the same way,
this, these two points 0.
7 and 0.
8 is that you need a head guard
rail and you need a heart guard
rail in the head guard rail.
What we're talking about is three primary
things, a leader training, which you'll
see the graphic there in the show notes.
We're talking about a curriculum pathway.
And we're talking about tools and in the
leader training, the reason why the end
of mind is so important is because you
can't design training leader training.
If you don't know what you're training
to, you can't design a curriculum pathway.
If you don't know what your curriculum
is pushing people to, you can't design
tools like we have with our health
assessment and group assessment, unless
you have the tools that reinforce that.
So part of the head guard rail is
saying, how are you cognitively engaging
your people in these different things?
And how are you helping develop them now?
On the same hand, the heart guard
rail is tackling two other things.
It's people and data because
you're going to need people.
To help you harvest data and data
can be hard data or soft data.
I want to encourage you to
understand the difference.
Hard data is the information you want.
When does the group meet?
Have they gone through
leader training one?
Have they gone through
leader training to shoot?
Have they done our host training,
which is before leader training one.
You know, do we know the
curriculum they're studying?
Do we, do we know is a group
opened or is it closed?
Hard data is the data that you
want in this particular point.
Soft data is what they
want to share with you.
The soft data is what
makes up your leaders.
And I want to encourage you that
people who work in your small
group ministry have to become
friends with small group leaders.
Before you can train them in
leadership and before you can help
coach them to where they need to go.
Because without a friendship
base, what happens is, is it
becomes very sterile training.
And we want our training
to be very organic.
And it's, if you think through in a family
system, the more relational you are with
your children, The more you can help
get them to where you want them to be.
And so in the heart guardrail, you want
people to build friendships with your
small group leaders through understanding
what's their soft data and soft
data can just be simple things like.
What's their spouse's name?
What's their kid's names?
When are the birthdays?
When are the anniversaries?
Because you want to engage
them on those touch points.
What are their hobbies that they enjoy?
What are the passions that they do?
What do they do for a living?
What do they do with free time?
You know, what are hobbies that they have?
Soft data gives you the ability to speak
into and get the hard data that you want.
The other thing about data that
I would say is don't get data
that you're not going to use.
And so, uh, if you know, you just
want to make sure that when you're
talking through groups and when you're
looking at these two points in 0.
7 and 0.
8 is that you want to make sure that you
understand, you know, all the aspects
of what you're wanting to grab data for.
And, um, and again, that's just
a little exercise you can do.
Don't grab data.
If you're not going to
use it is the bottom line.
The other thing that you're going
to see in this graphic that is in
point number eight about the heart
guard rail is that it takes a village
to raise a good small group leader.
And you're going to see all kinds
of things in the graphic there
that impact a small group leader.
Here's the question you need to ask.
Are they all saying the same thing?
And what's the same thing?
Go back to point number one.
Where are you headed?
Because where you are headed
that you talked about in
point one is the very thing.
This village of people and resources, both
people and processes are engaging your
small group leaders on super important
that you understand what that's all about.
So two points really quick, head
guard rail, heart guard rail, super
important to have if you're going
to start a small group ministry.
Derek: and those two guard rails, the
head and the heart set up point number
nine, which is don't stand alone.
Steve Gladen: Yeah.
And this is something I would say that's
going to be super important, uh, for
you who, if you're listening to this,
you're the senior leader of your church.
If And you're going to be recruiting a
volunteer, or maybe you're a volunteer
and saying, Hey, my senior leader just
said, this is what I've got to do.
And you're trying to figure out what,
you know, what is it you're trying to do?
You know, we don't want
you to stand alone.
And 1 of the reasons why we have
the small group network is, is
that just like in parenting.
Sometimes being around other peers.
I remember some of the
things that we love the most.
Lisa and I did when we were raising
our kids is being with other families
that had kids our age because
we knew we're not going crazy.
We're not the only ones dealing with this.
And one of the things that this
point is all talking about.
is get involved with
the small group network.
We have what we call circles of other
small group point people all around
the world that are connecting people
to peer to peer learnings so that
you can get to know people who are
going through things just like you
and the same size of churches that
you have in the same geographical
regions so that you can be together.
The other thing we have is that we
have a number of resources that are
for free at the small group network.
We have things you can buy and courses
you can take, but we have, you know,
over eight to 900 articles, uh, on
the small group network that can
help you feel like I'm not alone.
I'm getting resources
that can help me out.
We also have a Facebook group, uh,
that can help you that we have over 15,
000 small group point people involved
in so that you can ask questions.
But more importantly on the
Facebook group, Just search it.
Any questions been asked
over the last decade.
Uh, and you can see the threads that
are there, so don't stand alone.
There's some great things that
you'll learn about the small
group network in this point, but,
um, it's, it's, it's a shame.
If you try to do this on your own, it's
like, if you try to do life on your own
and, uh, God never designed us to do
anything in, in solo and on our own.
Derek: I couldn't agree more.
If you are a small group point person,
definitely go to smallgroupnetwork.
com and I think it's a forward slash
huddles and get in a huddle and
there's nothing like having coffee.
with some other people that lead groups
in their church and just encouraging
one another sharing stories and
stealing each other's best ideas.
So that sets up number 10.
Last but not least, prepare
your heart.
Steve Gladen: Yeah.
And I, in, uh, I know Derek knows this.
It's a, it's actually a small group.
com four size circles.
Uh, huddles will get you there too.
But, uh, you know, the, the new term
that we rolled out about a couple of
months ago is still so hard for, even
for me, cause I'm so for, uh, over
since oh seven, since we started the
network, we were calling them huddles.
And
Derek: It's your fault.
Steve Gladen: just doesn't
roll off the tongue
Derek: ingrained it into my
memory huddles, huddles, huddles.
Steve Gladen: I know, I know.
I, mine too.
Mine too.
Uh, number 10 though.
is, uh, talks about prepare your heart.
And this is what I would say to,
uh, anybody who is running point
on this ministry is that where your
heart is, is where you will be.
And it's a, it's a point of being
able to saying, uh, the thing I would
tell you the most is, are you called?
with passion to this ministry.
If you are, God will equip you.
God never calls the equipped.
He always equips the call.
And so if you're called just like the
disciples, I get such reverence in the
disciples being picked because they
weren't the pretty people of Jerusalem.
They weren't the most
educated people of Jerusalem.
They weren't the who's who of Jerusalem.
Uh, they weren't the movers
and shakers of Jerusalem.
They weren't even the most biblically
literate people of the day who would
have been the first using Sadducees.
Jesus picked the people who are
willing to go on the journey.
Now with that, because you're
listening to this, you probably
have already are fully bought in.
But what I will say, if you want
to last the long haul, you've
got to take care of your soul.
And part of what I encourage you to do
is start to, you know, think through,
you know, is my quiet time rock solid.
Am I reading God's word?
Am I, you know, am I tithing
to my church so that, you know,
God knows that, you know, he's
more important than my finances.
You know, am I, am I in
a small group myself?
Am I buying what I sell?
Am I in a small group?
Because one of the things that taking
care of your heart is your soul care.
And I just want to encourage you.
I've been in ministry long enough since
1982 before Derek was probably born.
That's painful.
Uh, but I've been in ministry long
enough to know that, um, there are
people who make it the long haul
and there are people who don't.
And probably those that don't, it's
because they've let their soul care,
uh, drift off and nobody gets into
a bad situation with a backhoe.
It's always a spoon and the devil's got
all the time in the world and he'll let
there be a slow erosion happening, uh,
in your moral life if you're not careful.
So take care of your heart.
And again, uh, we at the small group
network are here for you to help you.
These last two points, we don't want
you to go it alone and we don't want
you to bankrupt your own soul care.
And especially, You don't
want to sacrifice your family
on the altar of ministry.
So there's all kinds of balances
you got to keep in place.
If you're going to last the
long haul, because this is a
marathon, small group ministry.
I've been doing it at Saddleback.
Now it's a recording of this podcast.
I'm in my 27th year of being at Saddleback
work on the small group ministry.
It's always, it's never done.
Uh, it's, it's, you know, you might do
some things that, you know, you have, uh,
you're done with some things like a church
wide campaign or a training or things
like that, but it's just never finished.
And so, um, you want to make sure
you're going to last the long haul.
So these last two points.
Yeah.
super important for you.
You know, don't be alone and take
care of your heart, but probably
they're the two most important points.
I know the first eight were all tactical
on how you can build a small group
ministry, but the last two, we'll
make sure you do it for the long haul.
So I hope you'll take time to dig
into the show notes, uh, kind of look
through the verses, look through some
of the, uh, the words we put on the
page so you can understand those points.
And if there's something you don't
understand, we're here to help you.
And if there's a way that you want
to contribute, uh, into helping each
other, uh, jump into a circle there,
uh, with the small group network.
But the point is, uh, these 10 things
I will tell you without a doubt, having
done small group ministry over 35
years, these 10 things are a must to do.
If you don't do these, it will
not be built as solid as you want.
So dig into them.
If you have questions, you can ping
me, uh, my cell, my email, uh, all
my, uh, at whoever, on whatever
social media, it's all out there.
So, uh, you did no excuse why
you can't engage with us or me.
So use that.
Use these 10 things.
Derek: And there it is, the 10 keys
on how to start a smaller ministry.
We really hope this episode encouraged
you and equipped you to do just this,
to launch a group, or if you already
have a group ministry at your church,
uh, we hope this helps you to take yours
to the next level and,
uh, fall is coming quick.
Summer is almost here.
So get planning now and, uh, again,
keep the big, uh, keep the main thing,
the main thing, and that's changing
lives in discipling.
Steve Gladen: All
Derek: Steve, any final words?
Steve Gladen: No, I think, uh,
again, just know we're out here.
Review those 10 things.
And, uh, Derek, I love what you said.
Uh, if you've got an existing
small group ministry, which of
these 10 are you're strong in,
which ones do you need to work on?
That's a, it's a good template.
So touche my
Derek: There you go.
Well, we hope you enjoyed this episode
and until next time, we'll see you later.
Goodbye.
Steve Gladen: See you later guys.