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 last post:
4. What does a mid-size group meeting look like and how often do these groups meet?
Imagine how it would feel like if you belonged to a community…
- Where love was a verb and was characterized by action, rather than shallow words that didn’t do or mean anything?
- Where blessing each other wasn’t a second thought, but it was a normal part of our daily schedule?
- Where apathy and indifference wasn’t the normal attitude, but we were all filled with passion, filled with God’s Spirit, filled with his strength, and where everything we did was towards serving one another and Jesus?
Can you see this? Can you imagine this sort of community? Can you taste it?
I mean, just imagine what it would feel like to belong to a community where no one had any need? Where the community was more about giving to one another, than taking from one another? Just imagine if you belonged to a community that did not just meet each other’s needs, but also the needs of the outsider…of the stranger?
This is what mid-size communities are all about.
I’m not merely theorizing based on the beautiful picture laid out in Romans 12 or Acts 2, but I am simply describing the reality that many of our mid-size communities are experiencing. Mid-size communities are a group of 20-50 people who journey together to celebrate, grow, and be a blessing to those they live, work, and play with.
The acronym “belong” is a great way to understand the core values of mid-size communities:
- Bless and serve others
- Extremely welcoming
- Life together
- Open and engaging
- Naturally connect with one another
- God-centered
In other words, mid-size communities are small enough to care, but large enough to dare.
It’s important to recognize that mid-size communities are the people that compose the group, rather than the regular scheduled gathering that occurs. It’s kind of like how church is the people of God, rather than the weekly event. That being said, there is a regular scheduled gathering that happens where the majority of the community will come together. Typically, the best situation is where mid-size communities meet every other week, so that individuals have the potential to form smaller groups that meet in the off weeks. Thus, the mid-sized community benefits from both the strengths of a medium sized gathering and small groups, as described in this previous post.
There are also three different formats for a mid-size community gathering: discussion, social, or mission. For nearly every gathering though, there will always be food – this helps break the ice and allows even the most socially awkward person to belong and engage in conversation. We love the motto that Mike Breen and his team have come up with – low control and high accountability. So we give the mid-size community leadership teams freedom in how they would like to shape their mid-size communities, but we will keep them accountable to their vision and in regards to character.
I could keep talking about the different facets of mid-size communities and how to lead them, but I’ll save that for a future date. If you would like to read more about mid-size communities or engage in a conversation with me, then check out some other posts on my site or email me.
To conclude, I’m not saying that mid-size communities are a silver bullet, but they are working. From research to implementation, the 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 do you do about child care?
Hey Stephen,
We include the children in the mid-size community. We have evenings where they’re an active part of what we’re doing, and other times, where they’ll be taken care of in another room in the house by some other mid-size community team members.