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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.
Keyword: Andy Wood Saddleback, rick warren small groups, church home groups, church groups, discipleship pastor, how to do small groups, elevation worship, hillsong worship, old church basement, crowder, carrie newhoff, carey neuhoff, lisa turkhurst, lysa terkeurst, Joel osteen, max lucado, bible study, how to study the bible, free bible study, sunday school, church near me podcast
Hello and welcome to Steve Gladden on Small Groups. Steve Gladon, Global Small Groups pastor at Saddleback Church pools from his 20 plus years of small group Ministry experience to encourage and equip listeners to lead more effective small group Ministry Street. So sit back, learn, enjoy. Steve Gladden on Small Groups.
Welcome to SG Squared. Steve Gladon on Small Groups. Thank you so much for tuning in. Derek here along with your other host, Saddleback Church's Global Small Group pastor, Steve Gladden.
Hey, Derek, always great to be with you and obviously great to be with our listeners. It's great to have you for another discussion and topic and just fun things about small group life and small group point person realities.
Yeah. Can you believe it's already? June summer is upon us. How is this happening?
I know. June 1, 2022 in the year of our Lord. And uh incredible how five months uh have come and gone since uh 22 ushered itself in. So it's crazy. Yeah. Schools in California, they're going to be out in just a couple of short days. I know. Across uh the planet, across the United States, other schools have already been out. So my son has been home from College since April 22. So it's just like, oh, my, it's just crazy.
And I know in SoCal there what do they call it? May Gray and June gloom. Is it kind of gloomy there right now?
Yeah, it's filling every one of those buckets up. The May Gray and the June gloom is exactly right. When that coastal layer is there, you hate it, but uh then it actually gets warmer from about three till sunset. You're like going, why is it getting nighttime and it's getting warmer? It's a crazy time of our season.
Four suffering Southern Californians.
When we're paying our property tax. You're not feeling sorry for us.
So, Steve, you're a guy who lives, eat, breathe. Small groups. You've been again at uh Sauna back almost 25 years, I believe, doing small groups, I mean, you've got to have a plethora of funny or awkward moments to share with our audience regarding small groups. You've been a part of your own small group. So I just kind of thought this would be fun for our audience if you could pull out of your hat, maybe a uh funny account or an awkward moment that you experienced in real time with your smart group.
Very good. Uh let me think. Let's see. One awkward time for sure was I uh don't know if you've ever been in group before, and all of a sudden there's a nasty little smell. And you may have think somebody had, tooted, but thankfully, uh our innocent dog was there to take the rap. And nobody in this small group had to get sniffed out, uh which is a poor pun. But uh uh it was one of those awkward things where you're just kind of looking around and started out awkward, and then it ended up very funny. But I think we've uh had the other ones like anybody else has said, we had a uh small group vacation together this one particular time, and it was uh a great learning lesson that we looked into the details a little bit better because uh it had plenty of bedrooms, but it only had one bathroom, which led to some awkwardness as you're trying to figure out bathroom schedules and all that as a group is all under the same roof. But I think the most awkward time I would have to think of uh we were going through a um time uh when we have this younger couple. They're more hip than uh the rest of us, and they wanted to take on our service project and they chose for us to work with one of our local ministries. And their uh Ministry was hip hop. Uh so they were doing a hip hop event and we were hosting it. So for those of you that know me, there's nothing more the opposite of Steve Gladden than hip and hop and the shows SG squared. Steve uh Gladden was square. It was not hard, but I was not alone from our small group. But I must confess it was probably one of the most awkward serving events I've been on. But uh it was probably one of the better ones. I've got to confess, it was fun that people uh didn't care that we didn't fit the stereotype, uh but uh it was crazy. How about you, brother? You got to have a funny uh or squirrel one that's no, don't push.
It back on me yet. Hold on. Now, at this hip hop, this was an event, right? And you guys are there to serve kind of the event, right?
Oh, yeah. I had mercilessly, I took the food table. But yeah, it was all a skater hip hop dance event. And uh it's just not me. My wife did much better with it than I did.
So I imagine the music is just kind of going, the beats going. Are you kind of trying to get into, like, was your body moving, man? Were you trying to get into the groove? I'm picturing this.
Well, I think all you do is picture my wife Lisa, saying, don't make an awkward time an ugly time, and so stay still and don't try uh to be something you're not.
That is awesome. And regarding the dog, um once you shared at the beginning, are you sure that was the dog or all I.
Can safely say is it wasn't me. So uh you know what? What happens a group stays in group, but that would be preferably not to stay, not much longer in groups. So we tried to air that one out.
To answer uh your question, I know there's been so many funny things and awkward moments. I guess I'll share one awkward one for the sake of time. So I was in a group, and this was a group that had several families with younger kids. And that can always be a challenge, right? Um one family had smaller children. There was another family that had older children kind of almost teenage age 1011. So quite a big dynamic. And this group is kind of new. So you're all trying to just go with the flow and make everyone happy and kind of trying to establish some kind of ground rules for kids.
Yeah, do your best.
None were really laid. And so I remember we enter into this time of worship and it was kind of like the other adults of the group were kind of just like, yeah, kids just kind of I think we had set ground rules. Like the younger kids upstairs and the older kids hang out downstairs and play with those toys because there was some kind of rowdier older kids we're worshiping. The Holy spirit is descending. It's just us adults, someone's playing the acoustic guitar and we're just getting into the presence. And all of a sudden these rowdy or older kids run up the stairs and we kind of hear a scream. And they had kind of rough housed around one of the younger kids. I'm trying to be really careful here.
You're adding somebody out here from your group that's going to be listening to the show, but keep going.
Let's just say the Mama bears emerged. It was Clash of the Titans. So one mom runs up to check uh on her poor little kids that might be in harm's way. And she's firmly telling these older kids to go back where they came from. The mother of the older kids come up and it was basically a mom cat fight. Ufc almost take down. Talk about killing the spirit, right? This is while Worship's going on.
I would have loved to have seen all the husbands and how they reacted or did they know what to react?
Yeah, it was hilarious. The music kind of just stopped and husbands are looking down and the leader was like, well, let's just all go into this other and let these two figure out.
Was that the awkwardness or was worship the awkwardness? Because I don't know, too many groups that sing. I'm impressed that you guys even sang together, uh let alone the WWF thing that was happening between the moms. I'm pretty impressed that you guys even got that going.
Oh, yeah. So group life, you got to love it. There's always going to be fun stuff uh happening. Awkward stuff is like we say, community is messy, right?
Yeah, it is. And it's fun. It's kind of a bizarre time. So it's always got us opportunities.
So we mentioned at the top of the show, crazy to think about. We're already heading in December, and in this episode, we want to talk about should groups meet over the summer? And so, Steve, why don't you kind of set this up for us?
It's really funny. I can't tell you how many times I am asked at conferences or through uh emails or churches connecting, do your groups meet over summer? And it's probably going to be the number one question that I'm always hearing. Uh i mean, I should say relatively new questions that I'm hearing. So usually how often do your groups meet? Do your groups meet over summer? And then how do you handle child care? Those are some of the top ones that always seem to pop out. But for this show, let's just stick to the shoulder. Um groups meet over summer because I think it's really important to kind of get this topic out there because there's a lot of um strategies that take breaks over the summer or they'll do a summer semester type of thing or they'll do something like that on a school system um as we're talking about. Let me give a couple of uh disclaimers as we head into this topic because it can be very polarizing because if um you've heard me at conferences, we always talk about how the Church is built on a family system. It's not built on a school system. So whenever you're taking breaks over the summer, you're automatically saying, I'm structuring my groups like a school system. But um to be fair with that, let me give you three disclaimers so that we're kind of talking on the same level. Because really what the conversation is always about. Let me tell you, this should be about for small group point people is answering the question of discipleship. So often um discipleship, people that are hungry um for that kind of uh are at odds with small group types. And sometimes small group types are at odds with discipleship, when really your small group Ministry should be your discipleship Ministry, unless you just got oodles of time and people have all kinds of time on their hands. But the disclaimers I've set up is the first thing is throughout the New Testament, it's interesting that temple court culturally happens once a week. That's pretty normative throughout the New Testament, especially on the Old Testament side, but on the New Testament side. But what's interesting is when you look at house to house and especially um when you're looking at the things that house to house is supposed to do, which is the next 242 through 47, that there is nothing said about frequency. Nothing uh is said about how often you're supposed to meet as a group or uh is it weekly, is it monthly, is it every other week or something? But what's focused on more importantly throughout the New Testament is what is the group to accomplish. So the first Disclaimer to acknowledge frequency is not even talked about in the New Testament. But what is talked about in the New Testament are outcomes. And you can look at Acts 242 through 47 if you want to see some of those outcomes that's talked uh about in the New Testament. The second Disclaimer, I would say is that one of the things that I've noticed about semester based groups is that they are a great connection strategy. But if you're going to um take time off from things, I uh would say that it would be hard to qualify that as a great discipleship uh strategy because discipleship is done 360 um five days a year. You're always working on it between your quiet time and the relationships that surround what you're learning in your quiet time. And when you take a break away from um discipleship, uh it would be like taking a break away if you're going to take the summer off from being a parent or take the summer off from being married. So it'd be some unique pieces, some thoughts. You'd have to connect them and figure out how is a break going uh to be our discipleship strategy? Now if you're just trying to get connections going and you're trying to do a connection strategy, I would say it's uh a great connection strategy, but if you leave it there at the connections, then I think it's kind of messed up. The third Disclaimer I would throw out there is that throughout the Bible, the format uh of coming together like a traditional small group or a traditional Sunday school class is not modeled at all. Come together, do an ice breaker, do a study, discuss it. What are you going to do with it, things like that. It's a component. But again, when you look at Acts 242 47, is that what a small group is made up of is all kinds of variety. So based on those three things, I would um want to tackle three dangers that if you're going to break over summer. Now, if you're just purely a connection strategy and you're not worried about the cycleship, then I would say turn off the podcast or fast forward to the end or hear the three things and see how you'd want to work it into your Cyclo ship strategy. But I think there are three dangers that you just got to be aware of as you approach the typical uh summer break that sometimes you can put people on.
I liked the point you made about the Bible not necessarily being clear about the frequency of the house to house. Interesting point. Um never really thought about that. That's great to take note of. So thanks for the Disclaimer there. What would you say, Steve, are some of the things you typically hear about why groups do not meet?
Well, I would say that the first danger is that if you're going to talk about discipleship, it's about spending time together. I'll get to your question, but let me kind of frame it up first with this one. Uh and that is your danger. Is that the first thing I would say? It's about spending time together. And there's a uh famous uh sermon that was talked about the weekend, stupid. I would say that uh if you're doing discipleship, it's about being together, it's about time together, and it's about together. Stupid is how I frame it. I guess if I was going there because you've heard me talk about this on different shows before just being able to talk about that. If you want to speak the truth to somebody, it's got to be built on a platform of trust. And the only way trust is built is you've got to spend time with them. That's why at a Stadium event when some guys out there yelling, if you don't know Jesus, you're going to hell, they're speaking truth. But the problem is that person is not a trusted resource because they haven't spent time with the people and discipleship. You'll see from Jesus and Peter and Paul over and over again that discipleship happens through spending time together. Because when you spend time and this is like in a family system, you want to raise good kids, spend time with them so that when you do speak uh the truth, they'll trust you and hopefully obey you. And so part of it is that one of the dangers you're doing is you're killing great time opportunities or memory opportunities because you uh want to spend as much time together with people so that when you speak the truth and I can give you examples of the truth being spoken uh to me and me speaking the truth. And the more trust I have through having great relational time with them, then the more aptitude they have to apply the truth, which is when you apply truth that's discipleship. So I don't know if you want to say anything before I kind of go to some of the excuses that kind of people use against time.
No, I love what you just shared there, because from my experience with groups during the summer as the leader, it feels like it can really be a low maintenance season for you as the leader. You give some ground rules, but you get a lot of freedom and you're just letting people get together and make connections. And there are some people I've found that they'll jump into a uh small group eventually because they did something fun during the summer that somebody invited them to. Right. That was an onramp that they may not have got on another way, if that makes sense.
Yeah. There's no doubt um our group, the group I'm a part of and part of it for over oh, my goodness. Over um two decades, there's uh been ebbs and flows and high frequency times and low frequency times and high crises times and all kinds of things. But what we've learned is that variety is the name of the game. And if you're doing a Bible study 52 weeks out of the year, then you're just going to kill your group because that's the beautiful thing about X 242 through 47. It shares all kinds of things you can do and a lot of the fun things like what you just were mentioning. They're easier to do during the summer with that. But I digress. Let me go into three things. I hear a lot about this time issue. One of the things I always hear from small group point people is people are on vacation. They're on vacation all the time. And I don't know about the listeners on the show, but um it's rare that Rick comes to me and says, hey, summer is coming up. Why don't you take the next twelve weeks off? Um there's just uh no such thing. And there's no doubt that more people will take vacations during the summer, but maybe they're gone two weeks. I mean, generally people aren't going all that much. And even so, it's still a great opportunity to build relationships with who's ever in town unless the whole small group goes on vacation, then I would go all for that. But people are always on vacation, and that's one of them that I hear quite a bit that I'm like, oh, really? I think during the summer kids are about the only one that really gets the whole summer off with uh that. The other one I hear oftentimes is different parts of the country that have poorer climate throughout some parts of the year is that when the climate gets better, they're gone all the time. And again, I don't know about you, but I still have to work Monday through Friday. I may be going the weekends sometimes uh if I have the uh weekend off. But again, is it really true that everybody in your Church is gone? Because what I've noticed on the first two reasons is that they don't stop the weekend service. I don't see too many churches go into the summertime saying, hey, you know what? It's summer. We're not going to have the weekend service till come September after Labor uh Day. The weekend service never takes a break. But yet for some reason we put uh it in our heads, which I think leads to the third excuse, which may be the one where I get the most fan mail from. But sometimes we don't meet over the summer uh because we have what we call uh vision leakage and we don't even know where we're doing or where we're going as the small group point leader. So sometimes it's our fault because we're trying to look for a break instead of using the calendar uh year as a strategic benchmark. And so there can be all kinds of things. But I would say the first danger is that you're really for discipleship to happen is you're sabotaging great times together with your groups.
Great points, great points. Another thought I had was and I was going to share because as you know, Steve, I lived in Alaska for a season, and if there's any place in the world where people want to be outside and gone, it's Alaska, right? Like the sun goes down uh about 03:00 p.m. In the winter months. And so you get some of that back in the summer when the sun is up non stop, 24 hours. So people are just out want to be outside. But I remember when I was leading groups at my Church up there in Fairbanks, we launched interest based groups. And I mean, it was probably one of the most dynamic semesters uh we ever had. The smaller groups was the first summer we um launched interest based groups. We had mountain biking groups. I almost got killed being a part of that group. Uh me, I'm recruiting. Hey, I was um casting Vision to a friend. You'd be great. You guys leading this mountain biking group, we got a bunch of mountain bikers. And they said, well, we'll start it if you join. So, yeah, literally uh I crashed down a mountain in Alaska and almost broke my wrist. It was intense, but it was fun, great memories, all that. To say that to me proves that if you're all in as uh the leader casting Vision Man, you can thrive in the summer group.
Yeah. People will make time for what's meeting their needs or what's scratching an itch. And wherever you start it with, whether it's a short term group over the summer, whether it is your interest base uh one, when the goal is to cycle ship, you want to maximize every bit of time to build towards when you can really get into the nittygritty of what makes discipleship uh happen. Because throughout when Jesus was with the disciples, there were laid back time and easy times. There was also some very intense times in Ministry where it was all hands on deck. And so it's just a fascinating concept.
Okay, so did you have a third point, too?
Well, actually, I got a second point. So we should probably tell the listeners, you're on some serious drugs right now for your allergies. And you're like, nine brother, but that's uh okay. Let me rifle this through number two. So the first thing that one of the dangers is that you're sacrificing time together to build that trust so that when you need discipleship to happen, another hurt that can happen with this in the area of discipleship, when you start your groups over the summer can be that you may be hurting the very groups that can meet over summer. The easiest. And one of the examples that I share is that when our kids were all in elementary school, in junior high, and yet even in high school, summertime was the easiest time for us to get together. Well, why? Because during summer there was no homework, so every day was a Friday. And the other thing, too, is we had no competition because sports really weren't in full force like they are during the school year. And so Ironically, if our best traction time where we saw a lot of great quality time with us meeting as couples was during the summer. And so one of the inadvertent dangers you could do is that the very fact when you say, hey, we're stopping over summer, you may be killing the groups where they could thrive the best. Now, again, if you're all about trying to get a connection strategy going and so you're having all the groups start together, all the groups stop together. All the groups start and stop together, then this may not be as applicable. But if you're in the process of trying to say, okay, how do we help maximize throughout the calendar year? I mean, you don't know what are the best times or the worst times. And if you do a unilateral, we're all stopping, then you could kill some of the groups that could uh meet the best.
Great point again.
Yeah.
Because you've got those different groups. Uh some people are real rigid. They want to stick to a semester, as you know, at Saddleback, you guys will end a specific semester or season. But you got uh those groups that still want to get together and meet. They're having so much fun. They're such a great dynamic.
Yeah. And you're trying to build off.
Um.
The important thing I would say is that you've got to define what you're wanting in a disciple. Let the group figure out the frequency, how often they meet. You don't care how they get there. I heard the best way. I heard this great illustration, and I told the guy I was going to rip it off and not give them any credit. So I'm going to follow through with it. But I was talking to uh Randy Stone, uh who's one of the professors down at New Orleans Seminary, and he had this great analogy that when you're trying to get from point A to point B, some people may take a car there, some people may take a uh boat. He was using illustration going from New Orleans to St. Louis. Uh he goes, some people may just take a boat up the Mississippi. Some people may take an airplane, some people may hike it. The bottom line is you don't care how they're going. But if you go, hey, we're all stopping now because we're only doing airplane flights because that's what you like, then uh it has the inadvertent uh effect of just stopping the beauty uh of what the community of believers is about and that we're all made very differently, but we can do it. Which leads to the third danger that I think is there, and that is no one rises uh above the leadership bar that you set. So again, as a leader, what I would ask you to do is just say again, kind of bleeding zero one and zero two together, is that if you don't have a vision, if you don't understand what you're trying to build as a disciple, then it's going to be hard for you to be able to set the course for uh what you want to see happen in the area of discipleship. Now, obviously, we want you to be in line with your senior pastor. But what can happen very easily in this moment is that when the leader is setting the course and you have the bar set so low and just leave it low, what can happen is that you're going to train a bunch of people never to step over what bar you set. So instead of setting the frequency, schedule what you may want to start doing is saying in your leadership is understanding that no one's going to rise above what you said. So set it for the highest point you can go to and give people ideas and strategies for how to get there. So for us at Saddleback here, we want to set the bar for discipleship, but let them figure out the frequency because you know how much fellowship your group needs. You know how much discipleship your group needs. You know how much serving they need. You know how much evangelism they need. You know how much worship. Those are our five metrics that we're looking at in the area of not only a group being healthy through balancing the five verbs of the great Commission, great commitment, but also in the person. So let's leave it up to them and set the bar high so that they know what to get to and then have crawl, walk, run steps to kind of serve each one. So kind of summing up, if you're thinking about uh should stop your groups over summer, ask yourself the fundamental question. First off is Acts 242 to 47. Do you know what you're trying to produce? And then along with that and ask yourself, am I trying to do a connection strategy, or am I trying to do a discipleship strategy, or am I trying to do both? But if you're trying to do a discipleship strategy in any shape or form, you got to look at these three things we talked about, that when you limit time together, there comes a point where you got to speak truth into people's lives and it's just going to come slower. The second thing is you may be stopping groups that really do want to keep going on and working your discipleship plan. And then the third thing is that you got to understand that no one's going to rise above your leadership standards. And so set the standards high, but give them a simple crawl, walk, run ability way to make it to those points. So on this first day of June in 2022, it's uh going to be important. You know, as you look at Summer, what are you going to do with it? Are you going to cash it in or are you going to concede it? So see how that plays out.
Great insight, Steve. Loved those three points and your disclaimers. And to everybody listening. If you enjoyed um this episode, which we know you did, share it with somebody, share um the link, maybe on your social media tag us. Join our Facebook group. But there you have it. There is your uh kind of presummer um podcast on should your group uh meet over the summer. We hope you enjoyed it, hope it encourages you, equipped you, and we hope it empowers you to lead a healthier, better small group. So thanks for spending part of your day with us. Until next time, goodbye.
See you uh later, guys.
Thank you for listening to Steve Gladden on Small groups if you like what you've heard make sure you subscribe to Apple podcasts Spotify or wherever you get your favorite podcast if you want to learn more make sure you check out smallgroupnetwork.com for more resources.