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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.
00;00;04;05 - 00;00;20;12
Jason
Hello and welcome to Steve Gladen on small groups. Steve Going Gladen Small Groups Pastor at Saddleback Church pulls from his 20 plus years of small group ministry experience to encourage and equip listeners to lead more effective small group ministry. So sit back learn and enjoy Steve going on small groups.
00;00;20;23 - 00;00;44;29
Derek Olson
Welcome to S.G. Squared. Thank you so much for tuning in. Derek here along with your other host. Saddleback Church is a global smug group. Pastor Steve Belated. Hey, everybody, good to be with you this time. Steve, we just had the NFL draft, your mighty Ohio State Buckeyes Boy, I was getting nervous before they finally got in the top ten of the first round with the 10th pick.
00;00;45;22 - 00;01;10;02
Steve Gladen
How are you doing that? You're so cruel. You're so cruel. You know? All I can say is, is that the team up north didn't get the number one. They got number two. So that's good. So but yeah, it was a fun draft is always a fun day. It always culminates with, you know, what people work towards. So it was a fun it was a fun three days to watch, follow, do all kinds of things that geeks like us like.
00;01;10;03 - 00;01;28;08
Derek Olson
Yeah. I just got to ask you one more question. This is super fast, so it will be painless for listeners. You know, Michigan, your archrival had the number two pick that big defensive end. How much pain hit your heart when you saw that he was number two way ahead of your guy? Well, you know what? Let's put this in perspective.
00;01;28;08 - 00;01;53;06
Steve Gladen
One is, you know, that's their second top five defensive player picked since 1998. And in the last six years we've had five picks. So let's just put it all in perspective. It's kind of like ministry. It's like ministry. If you just take one thing, you can seem like the bottom's going to fall out. But when you, you put it in perspective, it's not so bad.
00;01;53;06 - 00;02;16;20
Derek Olson
I love it. Look how fast you rattled off those stats. It's like they were etched into your brain oh, it's great. They were, they were. Trust me, I've got enough people from the, from the other team that love to try to rub something in. So you get have the ammo come in, right? Yeah. That's right. Well, in this episode, we are talking about ten principles of exponential thinking.
00;02;16;20 - 00;02;36;04
Derek Olson
And Steve, can you kind of tee up this topic for our listeners before we get into this? Yeah, I mean, people maybe a you know, we'll talk a little bit about exponential thinking. But one, one of the things that is really important is that, you know, we we at the hearing of this recording, we know we're kind of moving towards summer.
00;02;36;04 - 00;03;10;00
Steve Gladen
And summer is a great time to be thinking through how are we going to how are we going to hit the fall? How are we going to hit the fall running? And part of what I want to make sure that you understand is that there are some critical things that happened in getting your mind set. And this particular talk that actually we're going to cut into Rick Warren doing a staff meeting, talking about exponential thinking that I think it's really going to help you as a small group point person start to understand how my thinking is shaped is going to be super important to how I do goal setting and how I get things done
00;03;10;06 - 00;03;34;17
Derek Olson
in our small group ministry. Well said. So for listeners, kind of tell us why is exponential thinking important and kind of what is it exactly? Well, you know, kind of on the back end, you're going to you're going to get some snapshots of of how this applies to you as a small group point person. So hang on through the rest of the show.
00;03;35;07 - 00;04;01;08
Derek Olson
After Rick's done, we're going to kind of give you some points of, you know, how do you apply it to your small group ministry. But, you know, one of the things that's super important for for us as as we're in in ministry is understanding that goal setting can happen in a couple of different forms. And when you're looking at goal setting, so if you don't have the exponential thinking it's going to be very one dimensional or two dimensional.
00;04;01;17 - 00;04;31;25
Derek Olson
And with exponential thinking does is it takes you into a three dimensional world of goal setting to help you kind of reach some plateaus that you never thought you could do before. And, you know, of course, everyone's out there going, hey, so what what exactly is it? So let me, without any further ado of Derek and I babbling on about college football or the NFL draft, let me lead you into the Ten Principles for Exponential Thinking.
00;04;32;00 - 00;04;40;24
Derek Olson
We're going to be joining Rick. He's midway into a staff meeting with us at Saddleback Church. And have an enjoy. And listen to this.
00;04;44;25 - 00;05;08;20
Rick Warren
One of the principles that Saddleback is built on is what I call exponential thinking. And that's your notes. Pull out your notes. Exponential thinking is one of the values of our church. And it's been quite a long time since I taught on this. So I thought since it'd be a good refresher course and some of you have never even heard about this concept of exponential thinking.
00;05;09;08 - 00;05;37;02
Rick Warren
Exponential thinking is a way of believing God for things that you've never believed God for. It's a way of dreaming great dreams. Exponential thinking is thinking bigger than you've ever done before. Exponential thinking is believing is Gideon. Maybe God could use me to liberate an entire nation. Exponential thinking is thinking so big that Abraham saying I only have one son, but one day I'll be the father of a great nation with millions of people.
00;05;37;02 - 00;06;01;19
Rick Warren
That's exponential thinking, exponential think thinking. Is. Andrew, analysts are saying we're going to go to Moscow, to Americans and we're going to plant a church in the heart of that city and we're going to reach people for Christ and we're going to be scared to death to do it. But that's called courage is courage. Is not the absence of fear.
00;06;01;19 - 00;06;30;22
Rick Warren
Courage is doing the thing you fear. If you're not afraid, you're not courageous. If you're not afraid, you're not doing it in faith. And the Bible says without faith, it's impossible to please God. And the Bible says, whatever is not a faith is sin. So how much did you please God today if you didn't do it and faith you didn't please God, how much did you send today if you didn't do it in faith, you sent the Bible says according to your faith, it will be done.
00;06;30;22 - 00;06;53;25
Rick Warren
And you you get to choose how much I bless your life. How much has God blessed in your life? I can tell you right now exactly what you expect them to do, because God always moves according to our expectations. Why does God use me not because I'm any better than anybody else. I'm not. Not because I'm more godly or more perfect.
00;06;53;28 - 00;07;13;23
Rick Warren
No, I'm very flawed. You know that God uses me because I expect him to. Not because of who I am, but because of who Jesus is now. Because of what I do. Because what Jesus has done is called Grace. Grace is the fact that God knows every mistake I'm going to make in ministry and He still chose me.
00;07;15;10 - 00;07;38;19
Rick Warren
Grace is the fact that God knows every damn thing you're going to do in ministry, and he still chose you. So God says, I work in your life according to God. Pays no attention to our whining. God pays no attention to our complaining. When you don't like what goes on in your life, God pays attention to your faith.
00;07;39;07 - 00;08;09;14
Rick Warren
And if you don't expect Him to change it, guess what? You won't be disappointed the person who says I can and the person who says I can't are both right according to your faith, it will be done under you. So when we talk about exponential faith or exponential thinking, we're talking about the difference between addition and multiplication. Exponential is multiplying multiply.
00;08;09;16 - 00;08;32;21
Rick Warren
Let me give an example. This I grew up in Northern California in our backyard. We had a little tiny lake. It was a pond. It's about an acre of water. And some lily pads got planted in there. Some bird came along and pooped and dropped the seed and the lily pad started to grow. Now lily pads, you know what I'm talking about?
00;08;32;21 - 00;09;08;09
Rick Warren
Water. You know, they come up, they grow from the bottom, but the top is on the water and frogs sit on them and ribbit, ribbit. You know, OK, lily pads are really beautiful, but they're death to a pond. Most people don't know that. A lily pad supposedly pads can multiply 100% in 24 hours, they can double. So if you get one lily pad in your pond and it's this kind of exponential growth lily pad, tomorrow you'll have two, and the next day you're going to have four.
00;09;09;01 - 00;09;40;16
Rick Warren
And the next day you're going to have eight, and the next day you're going to have 16. And the next day 32, then 64 and 128, then three, four, six, and on and on and on. Now the point is this when the lily pad start to grow on the fan, people look at you, isn't that beautiful? But they don't realize how insidious the exponential growth of a lily pad is because Lily's sucking the oxygen out of the water and it kills all the fish.
00;09;41;16 - 00;10;07;04
Rick Warren
You get too many lily pads, it kills all the fish just like too much algae does, which, by the way, we need to get the algae out of the lake. It rancher cappo lily pad. Lily pad. Exactly, exactly like this. And so what happens is people, they watch this growth going this isn't that pretty? All those lily pads And one day they wake up and the pond is half covered with lily pads.
00;10;09;27 - 00;10;36;16
Rick Warren
And they go, we better do something about this. And they go to sleep and they don't do anything about it. And the next day they wake up and the pond is covered because it only took one more day. That's exponential growth. Now, this is what we want to see happen with the gospel. Most churches, the reason they don't grow is they they live by additions rather than multiplication.
00;10;36;27 - 00;11;05;26
Rick Warren
They add members, they don't multiply members, they add members, they don't they all add add a service they add a class, they add a building. Additions will never win the world because the population of the world is exponentially increasing. Does that make sense? Words? It's not we're not like adding to new people today and to new people tomorrow and to new the next day.
00;11;06;07 - 00;11;34;28
Rick Warren
Those four are adding four more, adding eight more, adding 16 more. And so the growth of the of the world is exponential. The only thing that can win the world is exponential growth. In the church exponential growth in the church. So we have to be as viral as the population is. This is why we are starting churches around the world, because we want exponential growth.
00;11;35;06 - 00;12;02;23
Rick Warren
We don't want simply we the we could be a little happy little church and say next year we'll add 100 new members here at Saddleback and next year to that 2014 we'll add 100 more members next year after that we'll add 100 more members and next year at that 100 more. Well that's fine except the world's going to hell while we're adding so the only way to fulfill the great commission is exponentially through multiplication.
00;12;04;06 - 00;12;26;23
Rick Warren
Now I'm going to take about five, 10 minutes to go through this outline. It doesn't take very long do it. But I want you to see how exponential the principle of multiplication is all through Scripture. When man does it it's birth by addition. When God does it, He does it by multiplication. Multiplication is the method. This has implications for your ministry.
00;12;27;02 - 00;12;35;05
Rick Warren
It has implications for your team. It has implications for your marriage, for your life and every other area. So let's just go through this together.
00;12;45;15 - 00;13;17;27
Rick Warren
Number one, this is I'm thinking X, but exponential growth is possible that's the first thing you need to understand, that exponential growth are growing not by addition, but by multiplication is possible. I'm just giving you a couple of examples here. Genesis 47, 27. Then Israel settled in the land of Egypt in the region of Goshen, and they gained possession of it and they were fruitful and they multiplied, exceedingly circled the phrase, multiply it exceedingly.
00;13;18;14 - 00;13;45;17
Rick Warren
The reason why Pharaoh got scared he was frightened by the slaves that he'd taken is because they grew faster than the Egyptians. There was exponential growth when the when the 12 Tribes moved down to Egypt before they were taken as slaves, they were just maybe a few hundred of them but after a period of time they kept multiplying and multiplying and multiply and multiply.
00;13;45;21 - 00;14;12;04
Rick Warren
And pretty soon there's like a million of them. And this scares Pharaoh because it goes with him. I got a million people. We got to put him in slavery. Why? Because God's people were exponentially growing. Exodus one, verse seven, it said, But their descendants had many children and grandchildren. In fact, they multiplied so quickly, they soon filled the land like the lily pad.
00;14;12;19 - 00;14;45;12
Rick Warren
So exponential growth is possible. There's an example of a nation growing exponentially. The future of the world can be said in three words urban, young and Asian. The future of the world is urban. Young and Asian. Why? Because in those areas, that's where exponential growth is happening. Europe is now at zero population growth. America would be at zero population growth if it weren't for immigrants.
00;14;47;15 - 00;15;13;02
Rick Warren
Japan is actually at a negative population growth there. In other words, they've got fewer people this year than they had last year. But the rest of Asia is exploding exponentially. So exponential growth is possible. Everything you look at has the potential for exponential growth. There was a guy who took make and coffee and made it grow exponentially. It's called today Starbucks.
00;15;14;11 - 00;15;39;02
Rick Warren
He went from one store to multiplying stores every day and they were starting like five a day. It's just multiplying this exploding. Krispy Kremes had one store and then exponential growth. It went all over the place. Number two, exponential growth is the New Testament model. Exponential growth is the New Testament model. This is the way God wants his church to grow.
00;15;39;16 - 00;16;12;08
Rick Warren
Acts Chapter six or seven, the word of God increased and the numbers of disciples multiplied. In Jerusalem greatly circle multiplied greatly. That's exponential growth. That's the way God wants his church to grow. Number three, exponential growth brings honor to God. This is why I want to talk to you about it. Isaiah. 26, verse 15, Lord, you multiplied the number of your people, you multiplied them and brought honor to yourself.
00;16;13;02 - 00;16;44;19
Rick Warren
And that's that verse. God says, I gave myself honor by multiplying the number of my people first in the nation of Israel. And today in the church, you see, we limit God when we think of addition instead of multiplication adding members, adding classes, adding services. We have to think virally, will this multiply? Number four Exponential growth captures the attention of the unbelieving world exponential growth captures the attention of the unbelieving world.
00;16;45;07 - 00;17;10;20
Rick Warren
X is one 12th, but the more the Egyptians oppress them, the more quickly the Israelites multiplied. The Egyptians soon became alarmed. The same thing happened in the X and in x x 528. You fill Jerusalem with your teaching x 17 six. You've turned the world upside down. What happened here? The church exponentially exploded so fast that the Jewish leaders got concerned.
00;17;11;04 - 00;17;43;04
Rick Warren
In the nation of Egypt, the Jews exploded so exponentially it caused them alarm. It gets the attention of the unbelieving world. OK, number six Exponential growth is caused by God. Exponential growth is caused by God. Deuteronomy 110 says the Lord, your God has multiplied you. He was the one who did it. And behold, you are this day as the stars of heaven for multitude.
00;17;44;05 - 00;18;21;18
Rick Warren
So God did the multiplying number six exponential growth is the result of God's blessing on your life. This is an important one. Exponential growth is the result of God's blessing on your life. Isaiah 51 verse to ponder Abraham and your father and Sarah who bore you think of it one solitary man, one I call them. But once I blessed him, he multiplied.
00;18;21;18 - 00;18;50;02
Rick Warren
Circle the phrase. Once I blessed him, he multiplied them. We are praying for exponential growth at Saddleback Church as we launch all around the world. How do we get that? One side blessed him. He multiplied. Another example. This was Isaac. Look at the next verse. Genesis 26, 12th. That year, Isaac's crops were tremendous. He harvested a hundred times more grain.
00;18;50;09 - 00;19;11;15
Rick Warren
Then he planted Y for the Lord. Bless them, exponential growth is a result of God's blessing. On your life. So if you want your ministry to expand exponentially, you've got to get God's blessing on your life. Number seven Exponential growth makes God smile.
00;19;13;17 - 00;19;37;15
Rick Warren
Exponential growth makes God smile. He rewards it. Luke 19 verses 16 and 17. So is this the first servant reported tremendous gain? This is the parable of the talents. He came ten times as much as the original mount. Well done, the king exclaimed. You're a trustworthy servant. You've been faithful with little. I entrusted you so you will be governor of ten cities as your reward.
00;19;37;24 - 00;19;54;19
Rick Warren
There's two parables of stewardship in Scripture. One is the parable, the ten minus, and the other is the parable of the ten talents. And God gives one guy one talent, one guy, five talent, one guy ten. You know that guy with talent? He goes out and he doubles it. That's exponential growth. The guy with five talents, he goes out and he doubles it.
00;19;54;19 - 00;20;19;26
Rick Warren
That's exponential growth. The guy with one talent buries at the ground says, I was concerned you would be mad at me. So I just played it safe. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I took no risks. And God says, You were the master says you were the unworthy wicked worthless, unfaithful servant. He said you could have at least put the money in the bank and made interest on it.
00;20;21;14 - 00;20;49;12
Rick Warren
Here's what. What's the pair? What's the lesson of that parable? You make God mad when you play it safe. You might write that one down. You make God mad when you play it safe. If you're not taking any risks, there's no potential for exponential growth if you got the one talent and you're the grandson, nothing ventured, nothing gained, then God says, You wicked, lazy, unfaithful servant.
00;20;49;12 - 00;20;51;26
Rick Warren
Now why does he call him unfaithful?
00;20;54;19 - 00;21;20;26
Rick Warren
Because God's definition of faithfulness is different than our own we think to be faithful means to be doctrinally faithful. I believe the right things. I know the right things. But God says faithfulness involves taking risks. If you're not taking any risks in your ministry, you don't need any faith. And if you don't need any faith, you are being faithful.
00;21;22;08 - 00;21;42;25
Rick Warren
So let me ask you this. Are you going to be unfaithful in your ministry this next year? Well, I don't know. How will I be unfaithful? By not taking any risks, by doing the same thing next week that you did this week without taking any risks. If you're not taking any risks, you're not risking failure. You don't need any faith.
00;21;42;25 - 00;22;15;13
Rick Warren
If you don't need any faith, you're being unfaithful. That's why he calls the guy who buried the talent in the ground and unfaithful servant. Faith takes risks, but when you take risk, God says it makes me smile. God rewards exponent growth number eight, the only barrier to exponential growth in your finances and your health and your ministry. The only barrier to exponential growth is our own unbelief.
00;22;17;04 - 00;22;48;15
Rick Warren
Couple examples of this in Mark Chapter six. This is when Jesus takes the loaves and fishes and multiplies and feeds the 5000. It says in verse 52. They didn't understand the significance of the miracle of the multiplied loaves, for their hearts were hard and they did not believe. Now notice Jesus does this miracle of exponential growth. He takes five loaves and two fish and somehow multiplies it to feed 5000.
00;22;48;15 - 00;23;08;15
Rick Warren
What's he teaching? The principle of exponential faith. That little becomes much when you put it in the master's hand and so this can happen in you. Your life, in God can take a little and do a lot with it. If you will trust him, if you will believe him, if you will accept the fact that God can do things you can't do.
00;23;09;10 - 00;23;32;12
Rick Warren
And then He gets in a boat and they start to go to the other side of the lake and the guys start arguing about the bread. And it says this they didn't understand the significance of the miracle. Jesus never does a miracle just to show off Jesus always did miracles to teach. They didn't understand the significance of the miracle of the multiplied loaves.
00;23;32;17 - 00;23;55;25
Rick Warren
Multiply those exponential for their hearts were hard and they did not believe the only buried exponential growth is their own unbelief. And the verse five and six is this because of their unbelief he could not do many mighty miracles. No, he could not do any mighty miracles among them, except to place his hand on a few sick people and heal them.
00;23;56;17 - 00;24;16;15
Rick Warren
And he was amazed at unbelief. Now, notice this is an interesting thing to me. God considers healing people not a mighty miracle. We do so is that interesting? He couldn't do any mighty miracles. He just he of you people. If we saw somebody healed right now, we'd call that a mighty miracle. But in God's view, that's not a mighty miracle.
00;24;17;04 - 00;24;44;06
Rick Warren
It doesn't take much faith. I can heal a few people here, he says, because of their unbelief, he couldn't do any mighty miracles. Except by saying that a few sick people healed up. And he was amazed that their unbelief if there aren't any money miracles in your life, there's only one reason for it your unbelief. He could not do any mighty miracles because of their unbelief.
00;24;44;23 - 00;25;17;14
Rick Warren
What are you limiting God by because of your unbelief? Well, God couldn't use me and the church overseas really person who says I can, the poor says I can, or both. Right. The only barrier to exponential growth is their own unbelief. Number nine The secret of exponential growth is believing God for big things. This is how we have exponential growth in any area of our lives.
00;25;18;12 - 00;25;52;12
Rick Warren
The Bible says, according to your faith, it will be done into you. James. 516. I love this in the NAACP, when a believing person prays great things happen finally, number ten. Exponential growth begins with exponential thinking. Exponential growth begins with exponential thinking. Whether you're trying to build a business or a ministry, it all starts in your mind. You must conceive it and you must believe it before you achieve it.
00;25;54;08 - 00;26;25;02
Rick Warren
Exponential growth always begins with exponential thinking, and that goes back to according to your faith, it will be done into you. Let me give you an example. This ten years ago, we did the most famous of all of our annual campaigns, just a little bit more than that's like 11 years ago. 2002. We did 40 Days of Purpose and we were sitting around in pastors management team one day and trying to set a goal for how many new small groups we would start.
00;26;26;19 - 00;26;52;21
Rick Warren
And we came up with a goal that we felt was reasonable. We said, we're going to start 300 new small groups in 40 days. A purpose, 300 new soldiers. I thought, well, that's good, you know, it started a lot like that before. So that's a good, good number with our 300 groups, that's our goal. And I went home and God began to talk to me and said, I am not pleased with that.
00;26;52;21 - 00;26;53;02
Rick Warren
Goal.
00;26;55;11 - 00;27;15;23
Rick Warren
I said, Why not? He said, Because you can do that in your sleep. That's not going to give me any glory. You have never attempt a believe God until you've attempted something that can't be done in the power of the flesh. It's only when you move, but there's no way I could do that. Then you move into the realm of faith.
00;27;16;20 - 00;27;37;00
Rick Warren
If it's a goal that you know, well, we're going to have this team goal for this and you know you can do it. There's no faith to it. So God is at least so God said, You guys can do that in your sleep, start 300 small groups. So I was kind of sarcastic with God. I said, So like, how many?
00;27;38;10 - 00;28;13;09
Rick Warren
And I'm praying to the Lord, how many groups should we start if this is not pleasing to you, Lord? And I distinctly remember the Lord putting in the thought in my mind at a zero and it's excuse me, at a zero. What? At a zero? Lord, you're saying we should try to start 3000 a small groups in one week instead of 300 that is impossible.
00;28;14;14 - 00;28;38;04
Rick Warren
And then I started remembering all of this is all things are possible with God. What is impossible, man is not possible. God has three stages in His work, impossible, possible, done and you know the story. If you were to go to my office and pull the dictionary out from behind my desk and look up the word impossible, it isn't there because I cut it out I took an exact on.
00;28;38;04 - 00;28;59;26
Rick Warren
I cut it out because if it's not in God's vocabulary, it's not in mine. And so when you use that word impossible, just realize God's laughing at you at that moment so God knows all things are possible. So he says at a zero, I said, What's that? God said, That's exponential thinking. And that's where I learned what I just shared with you.
00;29;01;06 - 00;29;22;09
Rick Warren
And I started studying the idea of multiplication throughout Scripture and I began to find it all through Scripture, and I began to find it all in the kingdom of animals and in the plant kingdom and in the solar system and everything that God does, he puts an exponential factor into it. The reason you are the size you are is because your cells exponentially multiplied.
00;29;23;27 - 00;29;51;16
Rick Warren
They didn't just add one a day. And so this principle, the whole universe is built on it. So God says at zero. So I went back to the peptides said, Guys, we got it wrong, we shouldn't start 300 groups because that can be done in our own power. We're going to try to go after 3000 groups. America's Rick's been smoking something, you know, and you know, like this, OK, yeah.
00;29;51;27 - 00;30;12;21
Rick Warren
And I said, no, this is going to really stretch us. We're going to go after it. So I remember the following Sunday and I stood up in front of everybody on Sunday morning and I said, We need to start 3000 small groups, so I need 3000 of you to sign up to be host. That's first time we've ever used this term.
00;30;13;12 - 00;30;33;26
Rick Warren
Host You have to like people, open up your home, serve something to drink, turn on the DVD player. If you do that, you can be a host of small groups. Anybody can be a host of a small group. A teenager can host a group, a senior citizen hosts a group, a nonbeliever can host a group because all you got to do is have a nice attitude toward people.
00;30;33;26 - 00;31;00;04
Rick Warren
Open up your home, share some drink, turn on the DVD player I said, I need you to pull out a card right now and sign up to start a group, not be in a group, but to start a group to host a group. And when we collected all the cards, there were 3200 cards and I said, Here's what I want you to do.
00;31;00;11 - 00;31;25;25
Rick Warren
I want you to show up tomorrow night and only take one hour of training to be a host of a small group for 40 days of purpose. So come tomorrow night, the next night, 3200 people showed up and we began that campaign. Now do you think we would have had 3002 people sign up if I had got up on Sunday morning, said, We have a goal of 300 groups?
00;31;27;20 - 00;31;40;14
Rick Warren
No, it wouldn't have happened. It wouldn't have happened. Why? Because according to your faith, it will be done under you. How are you limiting God by your unbelief?
00;31;42;25 - 00;32;10;03
Rick Warren
I'll leave you with a couple of thoughts. I want you to go back and look at everything you're doing. Look at if you're in student ministry, look at the programs you're doing in student ministry and ask, is it addition or is it multiplication? If you're caring for pastoral care, ask is it addition or is it multiplication? If you are working with children ministry, is it addition or is it multiplication?
00;32;10;08 - 00;32;32;00
Rick Warren
Are we going to like add another class next month and add another class the next month? Or is it a way that it classes can create classes, could create classes? How do you do that virally? Think about that. Are we multiplying or are we just adding? I'll give you an example. For many years we didn't have small groups.
00;32;32;00 - 00;33;04;01
Rick Warren
Instead, we had instead of studying Bible in small and small groups, we studied Bible and Bible studies at church. Pastor Tom was the preaching pastor for mid-week service. We had a Wednesday night service and over the years that midweek service grew a hundred people and then we added 100 more and then we added 100 more and then we added 100 more and we added under and pretty soon around 600 than 700, 800,000 people we were building that by additions all the time.
00;33;04;01 - 00;33;28;03
Rick Warren
The church was multiplying and while we were adding in one, we were multiplying a thousand, 3000 5000, 6000, 10,000, 15,000. And Tom and I began to realize even if we went to double services and mid-week service is still on hold, 6000 people and you couldn't get everybody in the Bible study and we wanted everybody in Bible study in this church.
00;33;29;22 - 00;33;53;29
Rick Warren
So we made a strategic decision to move from something that was addition to multiplication. We said We're no longer going to have a mid-week service where you come here and we add a few people at a time. We're going to add small groups because those can multiply constantly. We now have 7000 plus small groups, and so we began.
00;33;54;06 - 00;34;21;27
Rick Warren
So when we killed mid-week service, it got a lot of flak and for a couple of months the people who went to mid-week service hated Pastor Tom and me and they were so mad. Why are you taking away our Bible study? We don't believe in Bible study anymore, and so we're going to go to another church. We're going to Calvary Chapel because they have a Wednesday night Bible study God bless you and God bless you.
00;34;22;10 - 00;34;51;03
Rick Warren
OK, OK. Today, Saddleback is the only church in America that has more people in Bible study than on the weekend. If last Sunday we had 24,000 people in church, we had maybe 30, 32,000 people in Bible study in small groups, do you think we would ever have had 32,000 people studying the Bible if we kept trying to do it by adding a few at a time in the building?
00;34;52;07 - 00;35;12;26
Rick Warren
No, it's not going to happen, so I'm going to happen. So it's got to go viral it's got to decentralize. And the same thing's true with services. We added one service to, we added a third, we added four, we added five out of six. So we know well how many service can you add on one campus. I said, we've got to do exponential thinking.
00;35;13;18 - 00;35;45;02
Rick Warren
We've got to decentralize and have campuses in Orange County and Riverside County, Hong Kong and Beijing and Moscow and Tokyo, and that's expensive. Does that make sense do you understand now why we're doing what we're doing? We're doing it because the other way doesn't require any faith. And if it doesn't require any faith, we are displeasing God. We are being unfaithful, we are being faithless, and we're not have the smile and blessing of God.
00;35;45;10 - 00;36;15;25
Rick Warren
God loves it when you take risks. So we went from, you know, from from 111 location to multiple locations. That's exponential growth. We went from 11 big study to multiple thousands of studies. That's exponential growth. I want you to take this principle and take it back to your area and think, what am I doing that I'm just doing the same way that next year it's not going to be that much growth because we're just adding a little bit to it.
00;36;17;05 - 00;36;45;00
Rick Warren
And how when you think of it in exponential ways, what happens is you end up creating systems that multiply. If you know, for instance, I'll just say it like this if I had said when we started Saddleback Church, my goal is a church of 500 people. Well, that's my goal. Well, then you it's real simple. You go buy an acre of land, build a building that seats 250 now two services.
00;36;46;20 - 00;37;07;05
Rick Warren
But if I believe, as the Scripture says, we are called to go to every nation and make disciples that God has never made a person He doesn't love. God has never made a person. He didn't send Jesus to die for God. He's never made a person He doesn't want in heaven. And we got to get to those people.
00;37;08;09 - 00;37;29;21
Rick Warren
We're not going to get to them in an addition way. Well, I'm going to get them to them in a multiplication way. Now, any church can do this, so I'm choose to do it. So I'm don't Tim Harlow sitting right here. Good buddy. Of mine. He's an exponential growth church, OK? He's got a church is exploding exponentially. And there are people in church.
00;37;29;21 - 00;37;53;28
Rick Warren
They went with us to see how Rwanda's doing it so they can do it in the countries they're working in. And this kind of exponential thinking is the choice of any church. But whether anybody else does or not, we're going to do it. Does that make sense? All right. Let's pray. Power heads and as you bang your head, I want to pray an exponential blessing on you.
00;37;54;10 - 00;38;02;18
Rick Warren
It's the last verse on the outline is Deuteronomy 111. This is my exponential blessing on your life.
00;38;05;15 - 00;38;39;12
Rick Warren
And may the Lord the God of your ancestors multiply you a thousand times more and bless you as he promised. May God take your life to bless not one other person, but ten other people. 100 other people. May God use your life to bless a thousand other people. 10,000 other people. I'm just going to challenge you to no matter what goals you set in your life at a zero to it, at a zero.
00;38;39;17 - 00;39;13;03
Rick Warren
And when you're at a zero, you're thinking and you're acting and you're believing exponentially farther. I thank you for your word that it's so practical, it's relevant. It applies to our lives in ways that we can never even imagined. Forgive us for small thinking. Forgive us for being people of addition rather than multiplication. When we look at your universe, we see how you multiply by the stars and you multiplied the animals and you multiplied the fish in the sea, and you multiply the grains of sand on the earth, and you multiply people all over the planet.
00;39;13;08 - 00;39;56;06
Rick Warren
And the very first command that you gave was be fruitful and multiply so, lord, what we're talking about today is not some minor issue. It's the first command of the Bible to help us to live our lives in such a way that our worship is multiplied, that our witness is multiplied, to help us to live in such a way that our work is multiplied, help us to live in such a way that our ministry is multiplied, that it might bring honor and praise to you.
00;39;56;06 - 00;40;00;04
Rick Warren
God, we pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
00;40;01;28 - 00;40;25;19
Derek Olson
OK, wow. Steve, those were ten powerful points. So how do these ten principles of exponential thinking transfer to the small group ministry world? Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of things, and with every one of your churches, it's going to be a little bit different of how it's going to shape and kind of mold who you are on each one of these points.
00;40;25;19 - 00;40;56;24
Derek Olson
But overall, think through the macro. You know, you're choosing between growth over control. So you're trying to go, OK, how do I match with the New Testament? Did all through the books and the the letters in the epistles of how, you know, growth always played dominance over trying to control everything. Then there's also a point where it can also when it's linked with the church wide campaign is being able to say how can it help build a culture of groups for for me and my ministry?
00;40;57;07 - 00;41;20;29
Derek Olson
But it also will help you understand that when Jesus chose his disciples, you started out by saying, hey, follow me. And then it was die for me three years later. And when you lowering the barriers of people, you know, moving into leadership, what you have, if you have a pathway for that, then it's going to be extremely fruitful for you as you have exponential thinking.
00;41;20;29 - 00;41;42;11
Derek Olson
But let me kind of because a lot of times you can hear Rick's talk and you can kind of know the story of Saddleback in our small group, and you can think, oh my gosh, they have it all together. But let me take you all the way back to 2002 and kind of just give you the backdrop. You know, Rick shared this to our staff meeting you know, years and years later after the event.
00;41;42;11 - 00;41;59;17
Derek Olson
But what happened in that moment, Rick kind of gave this similar talk, but he walked into our management meeting and he you could tell he had something on his mind and he just kind of said he kind of looked around. He looked over to me and said, Hey, Steve, how many groups do we typically start in a year?
00;42;00;02 - 00;42;20;28
Derek Olson
And I said, well, you know, generally in the year, we'll start about with our connection strategy. We'll we'll start about two to 300 groups in a year. And like a senior pastor he goes a great but so 300 and I get why not really three times to two to three and he took the 300 and he goes, what I want to do is I want to talk to you guys about exponential thinking.
00;42;20;28 - 00;42;40;07
Derek Olson
He kind of went through these ten points and at the conclusion of this talk which by the way you get the shorter version of the talk but at the conclusion of this he just said, you know, we normally start about 300 groups. I want to add a zero to it and I want you guys to figure out how can we start 3000 groups.
00;42;41;05 - 00;43;08;07
Derek Olson
And and the great thing is Rick said, hey, this isn't Steve's problem. This is all of your health problem. I mean, this is something I want you all to work on because it's a church wide initiative. And so what happened in through all that is that, you know, it sent us into, you know, kind of working through a number of different aspects, OK, by listing out what are the barriers, what are all the barriers that stop people from saying, hey, I could lead a small group.
00;43;08;23 - 00;43;30;01
Derek Olson
And and as you start to, you know, go through this whole exercise thing, you start to understand, this is how we came up with the the whole strategy, which kind of led to the to friends strategy. We don't know the whole strategy. It's, you know, have a heart for people being willing to open up a place you know, serve a snack and, you know, turn on the video.
00;43;30;08 - 00;43;53;29
Derek Olson
At that time, it was the VCR version, then it was the DVD version. Now it's the streaming version. But what happens in all that is that we start to understand that, you know, we are taking away the barriers that were causing the issues inside our church family to see the church growth that we that we wanted to see not only in our small groups, but in conversions and discipleship.
00;43;53;29 - 00;44;25;03
Derek Olson
And people get into serving in ministry and so many other pieces with it. But what happens is, is that you start to understand that during this time, we we figured out the whole strategy and we said, you know, hey, Rick, if you're saying because we realized we had people more people with the gift of hospitality than with the gift of teaching and so what this whole exponential thing process worked through went to is helping us understand, OK, what are the things that we need?
00;44;25;03 - 00;44;48;24
Derek Olson
And that's the master teacher into every group, and that's where our video Christian strategy came from. And then we needed to understand, you know, we had to have a pathway for group leaders to go on that took them from come, come and see to come and die. And then the whole aspect of trying to figure out, OK, you know, what are all the tools and the resources that that we need to create for them in this whole process.
00;44;49;09 - 00;45;17;05
Derek Olson
And when you when you see a play out, if if you under if you go back to 2002 we had and don't get lost by the numbers but we had about 825 groups and at Saddleback Church adult groups. And then what happened was is Rick you know this is the release of Purpose-Driven Life. And this was our very first campaign a lot of excitement built around.
00;45;17;05 - 00;45;37;04
Derek Olson
And Rick said you know I've been at this church 25 years. If, if this church has touched your life, I want you to consider hosting a group. And he went through, you know, the whole thing. If you have a heart for people, if you can open up a place and that can be any place it can be, you know, your clubhouse and your apartment complex could be your house.
00;45;37;04 - 00;46;01;07
Derek Olson
You could be, you know, your office space could be a coffee shop. It predominantly was people's homes. But if you can open up a place, I want to I want to encourage you to start, you know, just to jump on to this this experience of of a church wide campaign. And, you know, Bob was out of this these ten principles of exponential thinking.
00;46;01;25 - 00;46;29;15
Derek Olson
Well, what happened was, is that you know, Rick was praying for 3000 and in it's true 3023 people signed up to host a group. Now, what happened on the backside was is where the big learnings came from. And that was is that, you know, we were freaked out about you know, the stats on the back side because we looked at the 3023 that signed up.
00;46;29;27 - 00;47;02;07
Derek Olson
About 900 of them were what we call risky groups and those risky groups were people that, you know, either they weren't a follower of Christ or they, they didn't they weren't in our database. And so what happened was, is we were trying to collapse all these people that were what we considered to be safe people and in that whole process, we ended up getting after collapse and we got about 2154 groups going through the campaign.
00;47;02;14 - 00;47;27;06
Derek Olson
And we were happy and rocking with that. We gave out the, the, the VCR curriculum at the time. We, we had the booklets. We had everything, you know, locked and loaded and all that. And and this exponential process was well on to its way. Now we're going to talk Derek and I are going to do a show in a couple of months on church wide how to do a church wide campaign.
00;47;27;06 - 00;47;50;21
Derek Olson
So you may have some questions about that. And we're we're going to cover that in Nazi and we're going to go through the 12 ingredients that make up a church wide campaign. It's also in my book, Small Groups with Purpose in chapter 17. But for the for the purpose of this show and talking about exponential thinking, what happened was is that the process worked.
00;47;50;26 - 00;48;20;11
Derek Olson
What happened was those we almost shut down what God was going to be doing in a really sweet way because it's true. We collapsed 900 groups and after the church wide campaign we had about 1400 and 56 groups that were continuing on. So we went from 825 groups. We went all the way up to 2154 because we chickened out and we collapsed a bunch of them and we came out of the campaign with about 15, I mean 1400 and 56 groups, rock and roll.
00;48;20;13 - 00;48;51;01
Derek Olson
So you can see it as either we lost 700 groups plus or minus, or we gained 700 groups, plus or minus. We like to focus on the optimism, but what happened in that process is at a baptism service one time and I'll speed date this for you, but we talked about we had somebody there that was getting baptized and part of our culture is, is when your small group is showing up and you're part of a group family, we want to pull a leader into the baptismal.
00;48;51;17 - 00;49;12;19
Derek Olson
And what happened in this particular time was is that, you know, when we said, OK, who's your leader? The guy in the baptismal was saying, I'm the leader. And what happened was is that, you know, I'm just sort of like one, you know, part of the process was he had only been at Saddleback for weeks. He accepted Christ two weeks ago.
00;49;12;19 - 00;49;33;11
Derek Olson
And I was trying to connect all the dots in the baptismal as I'm talking to the guy. And what happened through that is that what we learned was, is that he accepted Christ in his small group because he did what we asked him to do. We asked him to gather you know, a few of his friends in this host to group in through the curriculum.
00;49;33;23 - 00;50;15;17
Derek Olson
He accepted Christ. Now, this kind of, you know, rocked our world. In thinking, because when we were thinking as tea, we were just thinking Christians doing it. But what we discovered that is if you've got two friends, you've got the gift of leadership. And it's just one of the pieces that kind of opened up through this whole whole aspect of exponential thinking that you know, we had such a conventional way of how to do things and what did what we learned from it is that when you're willing to believe God in exponential ways, the Lord will do some amazing, some amazing things.
00;50;16;01 - 00;50;35;13
Derek Olson
And so one of the principles I want you to capture from this, and Derek, you can kind of wrap up the show from this, but one of the things that I want you to capture is that to master change in exponential thinking is a change agent. It'll change the way you think. It'll change the way you approach something.
00;50;35;20 - 00;51;01;24
Derek Olson
It'll change the way you do things because the whole thing behind exponential thinking is saying, hey, if you add a zero to something, it's going to force you to think through things in a different light. It's going to force you to kind of go through, OK, are we structuring too much for control, not enough for growth? Are we focusing too much for, you know, just trying to do programs and not building in a culture of groups?
00;51;02;03 - 00;51;33;17
Derek Olson
Are we are we are we lowering the barrier and just leaving people there, or are we lowering the barrier into cycling them through the whole process, which is what will we do? But to master change, your paradigm must switch from what you will lose to what you will gain. And part of what happens is that, you know, so often in church world, when change happens, we're more concerned about what we're losing than what we're gaining.
00;51;34;10 - 00;52;01;24
Derek Olson
And when you go through this whole piece on exponential thinking, I want to challenge you look through these ten principles and really seek out because in small group ministry, it has changed how we do things. Now, you're a small group point person listening to this, and we're excited to have you on the show. But what's going to be super important for you is to understand and that you can sometimes be the bottleneck.
00;52;02;04 - 00;52;23;18
Derek Olson
And I want you to be an exponential thinker. Steve, I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall and seen the reaction of your face when Rick told you to add a zero that first second yeah, it was it was kind of comical because, you know, where my mind went to, as I said, is that in everything, like, can I do that to my salary?
00;52;23;18 - 00;52;44;10
Derek Olson
Can I add a zero? And he was quick to step back at me and say, no, we're not talking about your tickets. We're talking about external. We're talking about it internally. So many, so many great one liners in the audio we shared there. I liked the story and the example we gave of the insidious exponential growth of the elite.
00;52;44;11 - 00;53;07;17
Derek Olson
That's yes, it is that crazy? It it's it's like, you know, something that can be seen for, you know, good can sometimes be detrimental, but it can also be sometimes life, life giving. But it is that the brother knows more about agriculture and things that I would never would have thought of. I love the one other quote. He said, Courage is not the absence of fear.
00;53;07;22 - 00;53;33;05
Derek Olson
It's doing the thing you fear. That was really good. Well, yeah. And and I got to confess, you talked about, you know, what it was like in that mantra. It's so easy to look back decades later and go, oh, yeah, so piece cake, you know, as you know, we ebbed and flowed with it. But it is amazing how fear which is why we collapsed.
00;53;33;05 - 00;53;56;01
Derek Olson
900 people, not we had when I look back on it, I had 900 people saying, I'll lead a six week group. And we showed them in try to collapse and with Christians and thank God a couple slipped through the crack to help us figure out that God was really up to something Well, there are your ten principles of exponential thinking.
00;53;56;21 - 00;54;12;14
Derek Olson
We hope that this episode encouraged you. We hope it equips you to lead a small group ministry better and healthier. And we just want to say thanks to everybody for spending part of your day with us. And until next time, good bye see you later, everybody. Thank you for listening.
00;54;12;14 - 00;54;25;01
Jason
To Steve Gladen on Small Groups. If you like what you've heard, make sure you subscribe to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. If you want to learn more, make sure you check out https://SmallGroupNetwork.com for more resources.