Transitioning Away from Small Groups (Part 2 – SG or MSC)

Back in May 2013, I was featured on Rick Howerton’s Blog with NavPress for a four day interview on “Small Groups or Mid-Size Communities?” He has since joined the staff at Lifeway, and thus the previous posts have gone away. Here’s the second post:

2. When you met with your leadership team, especially your senior pastor to consider the move from small groups to mid-size groups, what questions arose (and/or what conversation took place) that drove your church to move to mid-size groups?

Well, first of all, I try not to use the phrase “mid-size groups,” since most people like to create acronyms and this movement would become…well, let’s just say that the Asians would like the flavor of it. But getting back to your question, my senior pastor and the leadership team knew about the problem, as I mentioned in the previous post. The statistics showed that our small group system was good, but not great. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, our small group system was so successful, that we even hosted our own small group conference with Willow Creek’s Bill Donahue. This conference happened even before small group conferences were popular. However, as our church continued to grow, the percentage of individuals in small groups didn’t. There were spikes here and there, but no sustained growth.

Since the senior leadership knew about the problem, they were open to suggestions, but the ideas had to be well thought-out and processed through before any trigger could be pulled. After all, small groups had been such a powerful part of many our church members’ spiritual journeys.

The change management process was long and arduous, but it was well worth it. I could have done my research, written up a proposal, and brought it straight to the senior leadership, but I decided to take the better approach. This approach involved praxis, extensive conversation, and collaboration amongst staff, key lay leaders, and the unconnected in our church.

Here are the change management steps that I took to implement mid-size communities at my church:

1. Research and compile information regarding mid-size communities from current and theoretical models. Contact other churches who are doing some variation of this model.
2. Explain the model to key stakeholders and staff members and ask for their feedback.
3. Compile a comprehensive document to present to the leadership team of your church. This document should contain all of the research done on current and theoretical models, in addition to the feedback from the staff and key stakeholders.
4. Begin a pilot group experimenting with this community size.
5. Go through this comprehensive document with key staff members, then receive feedback so that the document can be increasingly contextualized to your setting. Repeat this process until every area is covered.
6. Summarize the document and present to all ministry staff for feedback.
7. Present the model to the board for the purpose of introduction and feedback.
8. Explore organizational and ministry-planning implications with staff members, while continuing to revise the document based on research and praxis.
9. Present the revised document to the board for feedback.
10. Reveal aspects of the model to all small group leaders.
11. Create training materials to provide support and systems to run this model.
12. Reveal the entire model to all small group leaders.
13. Run the first round of a leadership training course for mid-size community leaders, then launch those mid-size communities.
14. Run the second round of a leadership training course for mid-size community leaders, then launch those mid-size communities.
15. Have a leadership forum to introduce this model to all of the leaders in your church, before introducing this model to the entire congregation.
16. Preach a sermon series on the value of community and introduce this model to the entire congregation.
17. Advertise and sign individuals up for existing mid-size communities.
18. Have another leadership forum to celebrate successes from these mid-size communities to all of the leaders in your church.
19. Run the third round of a leadership training course for mid-size community leaders, then launch those mid-size communities.
20. Have a banquet for all leaders in your church to celebrate them and the successes of mid-size communities.
21. Continue on…

This process took me 24 months, but since beginning the process, we have now connected over 600 people into mid-size communities and we only went public with the concept at month 21. The fascinating aspect of these mid-sized communities is that, a year into introducing mid-size communities, over 90% of those connected were not in any other form of community before hand. It seems like we are onto something viral.

What are your thoughts on this change management process? What would you do differently?

Join us next time as we explore the tension between small groups and mid-size communities.