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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.
Louisa: Hello!
And welcome to S G Squared.
Pastor Steve Gladen pulls from over 25
years of small group ministry experience
to encourage and equip listeners like
you to lead small group ministry.
So let's listen, and learn, together.
Speaker 3: Welcome to SG Squared,
Steve Gladden on Small Groups.
I cannot believe, Steve,
that summer is almost here.
Are you ready for this?
Speaker 4: Dude, it's
banging on the doorstep, man.
But it's, it, it's been fun.
It's been unusually cool for
us, uh, heading into spring.
You know, it's really wild 'cause
it's mixed me up 'cause it's been
unseasonably cool, which I know for
some people who are basting or it's
hot out, it's, you know, they're,
they're not happy with us right now.
But it is one of those weird
things where you, uh...
I, I, sometimes I'm, like,
thinking we're heading into winter
and not heading into summer.
But I know that heat's gonna
come like a bad boy and toast
us here really soon, but.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what do you call
it there in May, the May gray?
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Exactly that, so.
Little less
Speaker 3: trips to the beaches for you.
Speaker 4: Say what?
Speaker 3: Which means a little bit less
trips to the beaches for you probably.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
I tell you, now, now that I've,
uh, been getting more skin
cancer than I am tanning, it's,
uh- ... it's, uh, no beaches.
Speaker 3: Well, I cannot believe
the summer is basically here,
and we're talking about 10 things
people need to know to build a
dynamic small group ministry.
You wanna give us a
little preview about this?
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Uh, basically, this is a great time of
year for if you're a small group point
person at your church, or if you're a
volunteer at your church working on a
small group ministry, this is a great
time as you're heading into summer,
is to do a little diagnostic check on
your small group ministry just to see
how well it's running, see if it's,
uh, doing what you're wanting it to do.
And so what Derek and I wanna do is
kinda run through 10 building blocks
that you need to kinda do a diagnostic
check on, because this is what is gonna
be building your small group ministry.
This is the structure that, uh,
it, that is built around it.
This is the, the, like I say, the,
the building blocks for, uh, you
to architect- architecturally...
Help me with that word.
Architecturally?
Let me get a w- Yeah, that,
that word right there.
Uh, to be able to know that you're
building a sound small group ministry.
So we wanna walk through these 10 things.
Uh, super important as you're listening
to them, you can kinda check off and
say, "Okay, I'm doing okay on that
one," or, "I need to brush up on that."
And then in the show notes is a diagram of
these 10 things that you'll be able to see
correlating to small groups with purpose.
So, uh, I think it's gonna be helpful.
It's a good review.
Sometimes you're think- gonna think that,
you know, "I've heard this before," or,
uh, you know, "I already know this,"
but a lot of times you gotta look back
under the hood- And just make sure that
engine is teed up the way you want it
to, because summertime is a good time
to retool your small group ministry
and see where it might need a little
help, so that when you're going into
fall, it's running super smooth, and
the groups you start are groups that you
keep, and the groups that you already
have are groups that are maturing and
deci- and doing the disciple-making
that they're supposed to do.
Speaker 3: Well said.
It's funny, Steve, if you could see the
TV screen that I have in front of me
here, my screensaver is basically this
three-hour YouTube of the California
coast with crashing waves, so I feel
like I'm at the beach with you right now.
Speaker 4: At first I thought you were
gonna say you're watching a sports
game while we're recording this.
I was just gonna say, "Really, dude?
Really?
This is what you're doing?"
Speaker 3: No, it's
peaceful SoCal, uh, beach.
And so here I am with the man
himself from SoCal, Steve Gladden.
Yeah.
So this is exciting.
I think our working title for this
is 10 Building Blocks to Engineer
a Dynamic Small Group Ministry.
So to everybody listening, make
sure you're taking notes, and Steve,
tee us up with number one here.
Speaker 4: All right.
So the first thing you need to do is
understand what are you producing?
And basically, it, it...
You can answer it with this
simple question: What is success
for your small group leaders?
Now, your small group leaders need
to know, what are we trying to build?
And it's not just getting together
on a particular night of the week for
two hours or on Sunday morning for
two hours or whatever it is, and just
doing a study and, you know, "Hey, we
get together, we do an icebreaker, we
do a study, we pray for needs, we, we
talk about it," and kinda go like that.
What you wanna be able to do is
make sure that your small groups are
strategic for doing what you wanna do.
So at Saddleback, what it was, it
was, it was the five verbs from the
Great Commission, Great Commandment.
Make sure the groups are engaging
on those so that if they look at
a six-month period of time, they
would be able to say, "Hey, we're
engaging in all five of these verbs."
And part of that is it echoed, you know,
Rick's book, The Purpose Driven Life,
and which is just a, uh, echo of The
Purpose Driven Church book that he wrote.
But again, it is helping individuals
know that they're trying to
get the Great Commission, Great
Commandment in their hearts, but
also for the groups to do that.
So the very first thing is, before
you start to build groups, before
you do anything, just poll your
small group leaders and ask them what
is success for their small group?
And then look at all your answers
and say, "Is that what I would
say is what I want them to do?"
So that would be number one.
Speaker 3: I like that.
What is success?
And you're saying ask this to your
small group leaders, get all their
feedback, and then kinda see does it
line up to where we're going, right?
Speaker 4: Yeah.
I mean, it, it's just a good reality
check 'cause a lot of times you can
train on it, you can talk about it,
they can sometimes parrot back what
you said, uh, right after you said it.
But when you catch them just on their
own and just saying, "You know, what is
success for the small group ministry?
What is a success for your small group?"
Then that'll tell you a lot about
whether you're hitting the mark or not.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Good building block because, uh, so
many small group leaders probably
have a different, different,
um, definition of success.
Some might think it's just getting
together to have some fun and
hang out, while, like you said,
others may, um, wanna disciple.
So that is number one,
uh, a good building block.
Okay, number two, what do we got?
Speaker 4: Okay.
The second thing is, is you're ... And
when, for these next five, they're
almost gonna be divided into a head
guardrail and a heart guardrail.
And part of the head guardrail is
it's gonna consist of three things,
but so let's take number two.
The first thing is, is you
gotta have leader training.
Now, in the beginning, what you wanna
be able to think through is what is
the training mechanism that I wanna
have for my small group leaders?
Is it a one and done?
Is it something that's
modulized all the way through?
Is it something that's developmental?
And then if so, you gotta say,
"What am I developing them to?"
And hopefully when you answer the first
question, the training should be zeroed
in on trying to help them produce what
you're trying to do with the end in
mind, which is the answer to number one.
So in training, you wanna think
through three different levels.
Predominantly, most people just think
of how do I train the group leader?
But in this other diagnostic check, if
you're doing that one and you're doing
it well, then what I would ask next
is, am I training the people who attend
the group to what they should be doing?
And if you're doing that well, then be
able to say, "Am I training the coaches
that are helping me shepherd the groups?
Am I training them in
what I want them to do?"
So there's the members of
the group, there's the group
leaders, and there's the coaches.
Three different things you gotta be
thinking about when you're trying
to train small group leaders.
And when you're also thinking about
this, you might wanna ask yourself the
question, am I training them all at
once or am I training them as modules?
And as I said that before, what I
was saying it is, is in the backdrop
of a family system because the
Bible's written in a family system.
You'll notice that the church- functions
as part of what, how a family functions.
And so you can almost ask yourself,
"How would I train my kids?
Do I sit them down when they're five
years old and just train them up,
and then tell them everything they
need to know, and then turn them
loose for the rest of their life?
Or am I doing it in segments
and different things like that?"
So I think in the training aspect,
you gotta go, "How am I training?
What am I training them to?"
And then, "Where, what are the different
levels where I'm doing some training?"
Speaker 3: Training, training, training.
I like that.
How am I training, and what
ways am I training them in?
That's an absolute key building
block to this engineered
dynamic small group ministry.
Okay, number three.
Hit us.
Speaker 4: Yeah, number three is also
still in this one head guardrail that
we talk about that you'll see in the
diagram that, uh, is in the show notes.
But that one, this next one is
about the tools you develop.
And the tools you develop, again,
mirror what you're trying to produce,
and this is the success thing.
What, what is success?
It's how we answered number one.
So the primary tools that we use are
a health assessment for individuals
and a group assessment for the groups.
And with that, you wanna make sure
that you're doing things in such
a way that you're able to, uh,
help people understand, how am I
doing and where do I need to go?
And the different tools that you have
can be tools that assess health in the
group and health in the individual,
but they can also be ideas for how
they can do what they need to do or
ideas on what you want them to do.
So tools can both be, both be idea
generators and also accountability
or diagnostic tools to see,
you know, how they're doing
and what you want them to do.
You can see a lot of this in what we do
if you, if you even do a search engine on
a, our spiritual health assessment, you'll
see h- what we do for an individual.
And then we have a 10 question one
that we use for groups just so that
they can figure out what they're doing.
So one time a year, probably right
around January, we would want groups
to say, "Hey, how are we doing
spiritually as an individual?"
And then in February and then
in October, we would want them
to take a group assessment to
say, "How is our group doing?
H- how healthy is it?"
But again, these are tools that they have.
On the idea side of it, we have multiple
books that we've done on, um, 250,
uh, ways- Or 250 ideas for your small
group, uh, for your small group leader.
And then we also have another,
uh, booklet called, uh, Big Ideas
that the small group network did.
And then also in my book, Leading
Small Groups with Purpose, is
another, uh, couple hundred ideas
in that book that groups could use.
The point is, answer the question
or kind of say to yourself, "Am
I giving my leaders the tools
that they need to be able to
accomplish what I want them to do?"
Speaker 3: In the framework here
of building a house or a structure,
uh, a builder can build a nice,
uh, structure as bad as he wants,
but without tools, he's really not
gonna get a whole lot done, right?
So-
Speaker 4: It's a- ... tool would
be- It's an excellent analogy for
what we're talking about because it
really is those, uh, those tools,
and sometimes they're hand tools.
But what we're trying to do is
give them power tools so they
can do it as quick and as easy.
So kudos for the analogy.
Speaker 3: High-tech power tools.
All right.
On- High-tech
Speaker 4: small group ministry.
Speaker 3: Right.
To number four, hit us.
Speaker 4: Uh, yeah.
So the fourth thing also kinda
completes this, uh, head guardrail,
and this is your curriculum pathway.
And one of the dangers I've seen
is that so many small group leaders
use curriculum just as a filler.
What are we gonna study next?
How are we gonna study?
But if your tools reflect a
deficiency in something, then what
you want them to be able to do is
say, "Hey, if my group is weak in
evangelism, what is some curriculum
in evangelism that will help me out?
If it shows I'm weak in serving,
what's some, uh, curriculum that
can help people find their spiritual
gifts and volunteer in the church?"
It may be discipleship.
They're not in God's word enough,
and so what are some of the
curriculum that we can do to do that?
My point is, is that
curriculum just isn't a filler.
Curriculum should be a strat-
strategic tool that you use to
help your group get healthy.
And so often we don't even have a
listing of our curriculum that will
help them see how the curriculum can
help them build a healthy small group.
And so in the curriculum pathway,
there's recommendations that you can
use for your, your groups to have in
the first year, in the second year,
or the third year, so that they have
a well-balanced diet of being able to
get enough of the, the trainings that
you want them to have so that they can
have a healthy small group ministry.
Speaker 3: What, what was
that saying you used to say?
People will join for curriculum
but stay for the relationships?
Speaker 4: Yeah.
And the more- Um, relevant the
curriculum, the more it attracts people.
And so they'll come for the
content, but they'll stay-
Speaker 3: That was it
... Speaker 4: for the
fellowship or the community.
Speaker 3: And that's so true.
Like, if you're not, uh, doing good
advertisement on your curriculum, like
if you're doing a new campaign, you're
really doing a disservice because,
like you said, all the Saddleback
campaigns you used to do, like, it was
amazing how people would get excited
about, uh, like the transformation.
Was that one of the campaigns you did?
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Transform, bro.
Transform
Speaker 4: was the campaign, yeah.
Speaker 3: It was like five
ways to transform your life.
Like, who doesn't wanna be
transformed in some way, right?
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And so that's an example of
curriculum being used properly to pop, uh-
Speaker 4: Properly
... Speaker 3: properly, now I need your
help- ... to get people excited to
join, and then they realize, man,
this, this small group is amazing,
and they stay for the relationships.
Awesome.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Number six, right?
Speaker 4: Uh, one, two, three, four.
How about five?
Speaker 3: Five.
Speaker 4: The fifth thing, we're
gonna switch down to the bottom.
If you're looking at the diagram
that's in the show notes, we're
going into the, the heart guardrail.
And in that heart guardrail, what we're
talking about is that you're gonna need
one of, one of the two things is you
need, uh, to be able to collect data.
Now, the great thing about data is
data can tell you so many things
if you cor- collect the right data.
Dude, we're having a tough time talking.
We, we should never do
an afternoon podcast.
And when the weather is turning nice.
Um, but data can serve you so well
if you're collecting the right data.
And so what I would encourage you to do
is the data you collect should be that
data that helps you with your end in mind.
You remember the first question we ask is,
you know, what are you trying to produce?
What is success in your
small group ministry?
Well, the data you collect should be
data that is helping you achieve that.
Now, there's data that we wanna
know, and then there's data
that people wanna give us.
And part of what we do is we call
this soft data and hard data.
And the hard data is what
the church wants to know.
You know, what's your roster?
What are you studying?
When are you studying it?
What time of the day or w- of that
day, when is your group meeting?
Have you done leader training one?
Have you done leader training two?
Uh, you know, have you
checked all the boxes?
All of those detailed things.
But in data, what you also wanna collect
is you wanna be able to collect the soft
data, because soft data is how you get
to know your small group leaders, and
you're modeling to them what you want
them to do with their small group members.
And, you know, when you collect data
that is secure, when you collect
data that is kept private, then
you can keep great notes with each
one of your small group leaders.
But I would encourage you, before you
ask them anything about what they're
studying or anything about, you know,
what day they're meeting, use data
to find out, do I know their family?
Do I know the spouse?
Do I know the children that they may have?
Do I know their birth dates
and their anniversaries?
So you can use data to help you
take people to that next level.
So you wanna have good data
that is clean and accurate.
You gotta know, you know, how many
groups do we have and stuff like that.
But it als- it all is
gonna happen relationally.
And just like in real estate,
it's location, location, location.
In ministry, it is relationship,
relationship, relationship.
And oh, and a fourth one, relationship.
And the relationship gives you the
keys to get the data that you want.
Speaker 3: Data, data, data.
All right, that was number five.
Now on to number six.
Speaker 4: Number six is a
close companion with that.
And what happens with so many churches,
the reason why churches, uh, have a tough
time breaking the 100 barrier rule is
because we don't structure it for scale.
And what this sixth thing is, you
gotta ask yourself, "Do I have the
people around me that are helping me
to build my small group ministry?"
Because you, there's no way you can
know the spiritual health of more than
10 or 15 groups because, you know,
you wanna get to know them, you wanna
get to know all the pieces about them.
And so what you wanna be able to do is
what some churches will call coaches or
what Saddleback called community leaders.
You wanna be able to get people around
you that can help scale your ministry.
You know, in science, nothing
can grow over nine inches high
without a skeletal system.
In the same way, your coaches or your
community leaders help build the skeletal
system so that your small group ministry
can grow because they become mini yous.
Uh, not like as, as in the
sheep ewes, but, uh, Y-O-U-'-S.
But they become people like
you that are shepherds.
And it's clear in God's word that in
1 Peter 5, uh, 1 through 4, that God
calls some to be more like elders,
some to be more like overseers,
but He calls some to be shepherds.
And what you wanna do is look for
shepherds that can come and give
care to each one of your groups, and
they will come around and they'll
be able to help you make sure that
everything is going accordingly
to what you need to have happen.
And that's why this part is so critical
for the scalability for your small
group ministry to grow without it
going out of control and being like
a house of cards and falling apart.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
In this building block here of
people or the coaches is key.
Uh, having been at Saddleback, there
was a season where I was, uh, not only
a small group leader, but I was also
a volunteer coach or community leader-
Speaker 4: Mm-hmm
Speaker 3: to help other groups.
So I really got a, a front row
seat on how, um, important it was.
And p- uh, Steve, tell everyone
real quick, all these community
leaders or coaches at even
Saddleback, they were all volunteers.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So it's not like
you have to pay these people.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
And it's so beautiful 'cause
people who have that gifting,
that's what they wanna do.
They wanna be with people.
They n- may not, might not necessarily
wanna be pastors in the f- in the early
part, but again, this is one of those
training pathways that you wanna have
for your coaches or the people who
help you with your groups, to be able
to take them from a coach to being a
minister, and giving them the tools
and the resources that they need.
And so you're exactly right.
When you find people who are passionate
about it, uh, caring for other people,
then you'll be able to do just that,
get people to volunteer to do that.
Speaker 3: All right.
That was number six.
And now, God's favorite
number, number seven.
Speaker 4: Number seven is the
pathway from the beginning of a group
to the full maturation of a group.
And what you wanna do, we call this the
pathway, that when most groups start,
they tend to be heavy on fellowship
and maybe a little discipleship,
but they're not doing any serving,
probably not engaging evangelism, and
for sure not understanding what it
means to worship in your small group.
And I'm not talking about singing.
And so part of what you gotta be able to
do is define the pathway that helps the
group from what they start, uh, the way
they start to where you want them to be.
And so for at Saddleback, we knew that
most groups started, needed to be heavy on
fellowship and building community because
they needed the sticking power to say,
"Why do I wanna be with these people?"
But what we wanted to do over time was
move them to balancing or using the
word balance as a verb to help harmonize
the five verbs of the Great Commission
and Great Commandment in their group.
Now, would that start,
you know, immediately?
No.
But we had training and coaching and
tools that would help them get to
that place, and that's why these two
guardrails that we talked about, and
you can see in the diagram in the
show notes, kinda helps secure and
keeps a group on track from where it
starts to where you want it to be.
Now, the, the thing that you gotta make
sure is that you have resources available
that clearly explain what, what the
terms mean so that fellowship for one
person can mean one thing and can, can
mean, can, can mean something completely,
totally different for somebody else.
So in the seventh little diagnostic
thing that you're looking at in building,
you know, the building blocks of your
group, is saying, "Do, do I have a
pathway that's defined for when a group
starts to where I wanna see them?"
And the, and the aspects in be- in, in
there so that all through that pathway
they're getting the training, the tools,
the curriculum, the coaching, and the
data collection so that you're achieving
what you're wanting to, to achieve.
Speaker 3: Reminder to everybody to, uh,
click the link in the show notes to see
this image that Steve is referring to with
the pathway and the guardrails, and we
are talking about 10 building blocks to
engineer dynamic small group ministries.
That was number seven, and now
we're going to number eight.
Speaker 4: So in this one,
we're gonna talk about eight,
nine, and 10 all in one swoosh.
And part of what you gotta do is when
you're looking at, you know, building
the building blocks for your small
group ministry, you're gonna have to
say, "If I have everything that we just
talked about perfectly in sync," what
you wanna be able to do is now say, "How
do I get people invited to the party?"
And this is all gonna be dependent
on your church, the way your
church is, uh, structured.
So if you have adult Sunday school, you're
gonna go at it a completely different
way than if your pastor is on board with
decentralized groups than if your pastor
is not on board with decentralized groups.
So there's three dynamics that you
wanna start to look at as saying, "If
I have adult Sunday school-" How am
I working with those teachers to make
sure I'm not getting a mini temp-
Temple courts happening on Sunday?
But how am I making sure
that they're producing the
disciples that I want produced?
Because again, you don't care where they
meet, but you do care what they produce.
Then another part of this, if that was
number eight, number nine would be if my
pastor isn't on board with small groups
yet, is likes them, but doesn't, isn't,
isn't on board, then you wanna have a
connection strategy that can work towards
trying to build, uh, or get people into
small groups the best way possible.
And then if your pastor is on board,
then you wanna look at a church-wide
campaign to be able to supercharge and
inject starting, you know, hundreds
of small groups at your church.
Now, each one of these three things I
talk about in my book, Small Groups with
Purpose, and that's in chapters 15, 16,
and 17, as you'll see on the diagram.
And what I would encourage you to do is
say, "Do I have one of these in place?
Do I need two of these in place?
Do I need all three of these in place?"
Because it may depend on different
aspects of where your church is at.
So diagnostically, I would wanna look
to say, "What is the best way for me
to get people on board, uh, in this?"
So you might have a pastor who
is, you know, really on fire for
groups, but you may also have adult
Sunday school, so you've gotta
use, you know, two of these things.
Or you may have a pastor who's not on
board with small groups, and you have
adult Sunday school, and you gotta be able
to be able to work with those two things.
So it's, it's a kind of, they're kinda
three things that are very different,
but they're both, all three of them, I
mean, not they're both, but all three
of them are very critical for you
to look at in the life of your small
group ministry because you may move
from a pastor who wasn't on board at
first, which really Rick wasn't in the
early days, to Rick being on board,
and we could do a church-wide campaign
every year to supercharge our groups.
Speaker 3: And then there's so many
variables kind of in this broader
point you're making that a pastor may
be somewhat into groups, but he wants
them on campus, like on a Wednesday
night around tables, and he's not
all about groups in homes, right?
Speaker 4: Exactly.
And so, and that's why
it's just so important.
And so what I really wanna encourage
everybody is that, you know, although
I've been doing groups for 35 years,
I've always had to look almost more
than two or three times a year looking
at our small group structure, being
able to say- Where, where have we
drifted and where are we not on point?
And so what I'd encourage you to do,
this is a perfect time of year as
in this, at the time we're recording
this, we're going into May 6, you
know, trying to figure out, you know,
where as we're heading into summer.
Look at these 10 things, look at
this diagram, and I would print it
out and I would say, "Where are we
maybe not hitting it in, in the best
places in our small group ministry?"
And then say, "Okay,
how do I grow in that?"
And kind of look at the guardrails
and say, "Are the guardrails
shored up as best as possible?
What do I need to work on?"
Uh, if your diagnostics, you're looking
at this like this and you wanna take it a
step level, I mean, a, a layer deeper, I
wrote a book called Planning Small Groups
with Purpose that'll take you through 20
questions that will, in essence, do the
same thing as, as what we just walked
through here with this visual, but it'll
take it much deeper for you to look at
your small group ministry and answer the
question, how healthy is it in the culture
and the context of where our church is at?
Speaker 3: So there are your 10
building blocks to engineer a
dynamic small group ministry.
That was great, Steve.
Um, we hope this episode encouraged
everybody watching or listening.
Uh, if it did, consider sending
it to somebody else in small
group ministry to encourage them.
Don't forget to click the link in the
show notes to check out that graphic.
And Steve, any parting words?
Speaker 4: No, I mean, it's just
gonna be, it's an ongoing process
and a never ending process because,
again, it's like a family system.
You don't train your kids once.
It is a process from the birth of your
child, uh, through their 30s and 40s.
So buckle up because, uh, this is
the great thing about, you know,
raising a small group ministry.
It is very dynamic, very exciting, but it
also needs to be looked at periodically.
Speaker 3: It can be very
messy is what you're saying.
Well, we hope this episode
encouraged you and equips you to
lead healthier, better small groups,
and we will see you next time.
Goodbye everybody.
Speaker 4: See you later, man.
Louisa: Thank you for listening!
And don't forget to subscribe
wherever you listen to podcasts.
If you'd like to go deeper and get
more resources or join the small
group network, just head over
to small group network dot com.
We'll see you next time!