As you will probably have heard by now, we are moving forward with a significant change in our church. Many years ago, we had a robust small groups ministry. Let me clarify right off the bat that our current small groups are healthy and a blessing; it’s just that so few people who are a part of our church attend them, unlike years ago. Many of you have heard my dad, Pastor Larry, tell the story of how God spoke to him about starting to have midweek services, and how he didn’t immediately like the idea but that he had never heard God more clearly about anything.
And of course, Wednesday night services were wonderfully successful, and a blessing to many. What many of you don’t know is that for a couple of years before he stepped down, dad felt strongly that the church would be better served by putting a renewed emphasis on small groups ministry and moving away from the midweek service. Small groups offer greater opportunities for developing relationships, intimate prayer, and in many cases, church growth, because people might be more inclined to accept your invitation to a small group than a church service.
Small groups really are the engine of growth (spiritual and numeric) for some of the most dynamic and successful churches in the world. But that is not the main reason for doing this. I really do believe it is the direction God is moving us at this time. As I mentioned, this is a change Pastor Larry was moving toward, but there were and remain a number of obstacles. We need to figure out how to do children’s ministry without Wednesday night SuperChurch, we need to figure out how this will affect youth group. We need to figure out how families with young children can participate in this. It’s a lot to tackle, even for a great leader like my dad, and Lord knows he had enough on his plate during his later years at the helm.
And I’m a man who knows my limitations. One of the things I’m determined to be good at is finding people who are good at things. So I have recruited Jayk Knight to lead the small groups ministry at LWFC. Jayk is an organizer, a server par excellence, and absolutely dedicated to Living Word. You will be hearing more from him soon.
What I wanted to share with you in the remainder of this space is how important it is for YOU to be part of a small group. The reason we are doing this INSTEAD of Wednesday night rather than in ADDITION to Wednesday night is that we want to remove every possible obstacle to anyone participating in this, including busy schedules. We have a lot of details to work through, and it will be a couple of months before we launch, but here’s what I can share with you:
We are adopting a “free market” approach to this that I learned from a great Rhema guy who led a very successful small groups ministry at a large church. And in this context, successful means that a high percentage of church members were involved in small groups. Free market small groups means that there will be several different options for you; not every group will be doing the same thing. Some might do a Bible study, some might watch a video series. Some will be a Basics class, some might be aimed at different seasons or aspects of life, like parenting, marriage, finances, etc.
These groups will meet on different days and at different locations and YOU get to choose your group, but numbers will be limited. The really exciting thing, at least to me, is that after a specified period of time (3-6 months), we will rotate. New groups will be posted and you can choose another one. This is meant to foster relationships with more people, which will lead to more fervent prayer for one another.
This is down the road a few months, but I wanted to share it with you here and now so you can be PRAYING about this. Pray for me, pray for Jayk, pray for the future group leaders. Pray that the right people step up to lead, that we arrive at the right course of action for children’s ministry, and that God will bless this direction as we follow Him in it!
I love you guys and look forward to great things with you in the near future as we do this together!
Blessings,
