Growing People Through Small Groups
by David Stark and Betty Veldman Wieland
Help people thrive and develop their spiritual gifts when you start a small group ministry with God’s leading and people’s needs in mind rather than with program and structure. Straightforward, informative, and practical, this people-based strategy works for smaller churches as well as larger ones.
David Stark has published a number of resources, including the LifeKeys books. He is the director of Changing Church through Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, the founder and director of training for Church Innovations, and leads workshops and seminars throughout the United States. He and his family live in Minnesota.
Betty Veldman Wieland was introduced to small groups through a women’s Bible study, which led her to leadership positions in Christian Reformed Home Missions small group ministry. She and her husband live in Michigan.
What’s the key element for a vibrant small group?
If I were to choose one key element to a vibrant small group it would be that the agendas it is working on together fit where the people are in their faith journey, circumstances, or season of life they find themselves in. That way, what they are doing is important to the participants’ lives.
How can small groups celebrate diversity?
One of the best ways is for the church’s small group ministry to have a wide variety of types of small groups. That allows for a very diverse set of people to all take advantage of different atmospheres for growth.
How does understanding why people join small groups help in focusing the group’s direction?
Time is the number one commodity in our culture today. Therefore to make time for something new in their life, it has to align with what people want to receive from being a part of a small group. Therefore, knowing why they are joining will help focus a direction that is worth the time people are investing.
What’s one step churches can take in moving from programs to people?
Rather than designing small groups by simply deciding what you want them to do together, start by listening to the various communities within your congregation. Then design groups that meet people where they are and take them in their next step in faith.
What’s the best piece of advice you can offer group leaders?
Always build relationships as part of your meeting time – people came together to be with other people.
Explain what you mean by organizing a group that might address peoples’ hurts.
Pain is perhaps the largest motivator of change and transformation in our lives. Therefore when you pay attention to where people hurt, you are also aligning yourself with the highest possibility of genuine change and transformation in their lives.
How can you evaluate a small group’s health?
I always aim at four goals for any small group – Motivated and excited small group leaders, deepening and growing small group dynamic, individuals who developing as Christians, and growing the church’s overall small group ministry if possible.
What is the greatest challenge in motivating a small group to grow?
Typically people have felt needs to build relationships and receive support. They do not necessarily have a felt need to gain insight, transform their lives, be held accountable to goals, or use their gifts in service – those last four agendas are put in place as a person interacts through the Holy Spirit with God. We have to bring the members close enough to Jesus, long enough, to want to be motivated to keep growing beyond felt needs.
Give us some examples of small group success stories.
So many, but I will tell you about Stan. Stan is a well known doctor in our town who was not motivated for his own spiritual growth when he joined the Fathering Team, but wanted to be a great dad. This is an accountability group that makes plans to love your wife and kids each week and then reports weekly to other members on how the week went. We also studied how God as Father loves us as a model for how we ought to love our wives and children. Over time as we studied about God, Stan asked a million questions he had wanted to ask for a long time. Slowly, God began to change Stan’s heart and he became a vibrant Christian.
A couple of years later, he was on call in the hospital and one of our associate pastors was rushed to the hospital with stomach pain. Stan saw her come through the door, and he asked two or three nurses to take time to pray for our pastor before she was examined. Stan would not have ever taken that step had it not been for the change of heart that happened in the Fathering team– something not related to his reason for joining the small group.
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