January 7, 2009

Make a Big Church Small

From Dave Treat

Author, speaker, Group Life Advisory Team member and all-around great guy Bill Search is a real video star.

Bill is the author of Simple Small Groups: A User-Friendly Guide for Small Group Leaders. He regularly trains small group leaders at Willow Creek Association events. His day job is "Community Groups Ministry Leader" at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, KY. It doesn't get anny bigger than that. So how do they go about making Southeast "small?"

Over at the Simple Small Groups blog, Bill posted a great new video called "Make a Big Church Small." Great use of animation to promote connection to a small group. And Bill's the star. You can watch it by clicking here.

What do you think? Do you use video to promote Group Life Values?

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Comments

January 7, 2009 23:43 PM #

Excellent video quality and production. They even made Bill look relatively attractive!

Something's nagging at me though. The content of this video is indicative of so many mega church's mentality about their small groups. They're in place to fill a sociological hole found in the large group worship and they're "marketed" this way in most every instance.

While it's certainly true that small group life fills a relational hole not found in the weekend services, the theological basis for living in biblical community, serving others, asking others to serve you, reaching friends for Christ, discipling those friends, and learning to live out one's faith victoriously is the real deal.

Moreover, I truly feel that one's church significance should be found in his or her small group first before identifying with the ocean of people in a mega church. Of course, to see this happen a church must maintain a completely different mentality about doing church.

Just some thoughts I'm writing about now and blogging about.

Randall Neighbour

January 8, 2009 00:19 AM #

Randall... you make great points, but I wouldn't want to confuse a theological apologetic with a marketing call to action. The overall vision cast for community should include the points you mentioned. That falls heavily into the weekend/main pulpit responsibility and should ultimately support calls to live in community.

Practically, however, I think most people don't jump into a small group out of a call to theological correctness or philosophical integrity. They ultimately try it because they think it might help them become a better parent, spouse, ... or because they are lonely. They ARE lost in "the ocean of people." I'd rather encourage them to get in the lifeboat than to yell out instructions on how to tread water... although I know I need to do both.

Dave Treat

January 12, 2009 10:15 AM #

Dave, I see your point as it pertains to assimilation of the general congregation and visitors of congregational meetings into groups... and that's really the basis of your blog post.

I'm coming at it from the other end. If a church's small group ministry grows primarily through congregational assimilation, those group members will not truly understand their purpose as a biblical community to band together, work hard, and reach friends for Christ outside of big meetings.

Far too many churches in the West use small groups as an assimilation strategy alone and do not help group members become soul-winners through relational evangelism. The power of authentic biblical community is going to waste in many churches.

Rick Warren said it best in week six of the 40 Days of Purpose video presentation: "Every group has a ministry and a mission. Your ministry is to serve one another and your church in some practical way. Your mission is to work with others in your group to build relationships with unchurched people in the community in which you live and work." (I'm no fan of 40DOP or any other campaign that programatically launches new groups, but I sure did love that quote. Rick's right on with it.)

Randall Neighbour