6 Tips for a Better Small Group
Small groups are an essential part of local Church life. Certainly there are ways to get to know a fellow Church member after a Sunday morning service. But, in my experience, a mid-week small group is the best way for a subset of the Church body to mingle, worship together, and get to know one another. Like any gathering of the local Church, there is always the potential for your small group to remain shallow or to fail at it’s goal of fostering spiritual closeness among believers. That is why I want to give 6 tips for a better small group based on my own experience.
Tip #1: Define “small” and keep it a small group
This is one of the most important keys to a better small group. It is easy for a small group to grow and grow until it is no longer “small”. Why is this a problem? A larger small group can make it difficult to foster a deeper spiritual closeness with those around you. A small group must be “small” so that you can really connect with the group of people you regularly meet with. Once the group gets too big, you end up in most cases trading depth of relationship for vague familiarity.
Additionally, a large small group can make it difficult for Church members who aren’t comfortable in large groups to share their thoughts and prayer requests. Not everyone is this way, but a good chunk of your congregation will likely have a tough time sharing any deep spiritual concerns once your group reaches a certain size. Finally, a large small group ends up becoming challenging logistically. Your small group size will determine where you can meet and, the larger the group is, the less options will exist.
How can you avoid thees problems? Define from day 1 what “small” means. How large will you let your small group become before you split it into two groups? And once you have defined what “small” means, be up front with the members of your small group. Let them know and prepare them for the day when the small group will need to become two. Prepare potential small group leaders ahead of time so everything is ready when you need to “plant” another small group.
Tip #2: Meet in a Church member’s house (or at least not at Church)
If you want a better small group, meet in a Church member’s house if at all possible. In my experience, nothing beats the comfort of a home to foster closeness and open discussion. If this isn’t possible, then at least try to meet somewhere other than the actual Church building. You want to distinguish as clearly as possible to your small group members that this is not a mini-Church service. It is a gathering whose goal is to bring together Church members in a more intimate setting.
Why is where you meet is so important? I have attended small groups both in Church member’s houses and in the actual Church building. Both were great and spiritually profitable, however, I personally find that people are generally more comfortable with opening up in an actual house. Think about it this way: small group is a time to engage with and interact with fellow Church members in a different setting than Sunday service. Part of that is actually physically meeting and interacting with Church members in their “home turf” if you will.
Small group and hospitality go hand in hand. If you keep your small groups actually “small”, then the hope is that two or three attendees will be able to host you in their home. Will it take sacrifice on the part of the host? Of course. But:
You shouldn’t expect to become close with fellow Church members if you never open up and let them into your world. Your real world, your real home, the real place you and your family live.
Tip #3: Pray and sing together
Small groups can fall into two extremes: becoming a mini-Church service or becoming a completely loose “hang out” time. What is the middle ground? A structured gathering that is spiritually profitable, but also allows time and flexibility for Church members to simply interact. The best small groups I have attended have had a time of prayer and singing. Both of these are spiritually profitable, interactive, and semi-structured.
If you have someone who is musically inclined in attendance, give them the responsibility of leading the singing. 3-4 songs is usually sufficient but I have been in small groups where people want to keep singing and praising the Lord. “A small group that sings together and prays together, stays together” should be a motto. After a time of singing, I would go immediately into a time of prayer and sharing prayer requests. This shouldn’t be rushed. Let your attendees have time to really think about what sins they are fighting, what issues they need prayer for, and what praises they want to corporately bring before the Lord.
If you lead a small group, be okay with a small group meeting that spends most of its time simply singing and praying to the Lord. I don’t think you can pray or sing “too much” as long as both are focused on the Lord. Additionally, some small group members will open up and engage in the singing and prayer time who won’t feel confident enough to chime in during a group Bible study. Give these people a chance to engage and worship and grow closer with the group.
Tip #4: Have a structured discussion around God’s Word
After a time of singing and praying, I would have some form of structured discussion around God’s word. My small group discusses the sermon from the previous Sunday and tries to think through applications of the sermon to our lives. But this is not the only way to dive into the Word together. The benefit of sermon application, however, is it provides a structured conversation around a passage that all attendees are familiar with.
Whatever you choose to do, make your time in God’s word structured. Have someone leading the discussion with a passage chosen ahead of time, questions chosen ahead of time, and a general flow of the discussion chosen ahead of time. Keep the questions open ended, but make sure your small group isn’t going around simply sharing their assorted thoughts and feelings about a particular passage. Have a goal in mind and then help lead a guided discussion to get your group there.
Tip #5: Initiate open and honest discussion
Every Church member I have met likes the idea of having close, meaningful, spiritually-edifying relationships with their fellow Church members. They like the idea of being open and honest about their sin, their struggles, their spiritual victories, their doubts. But when it comes time to gather with actual people, everyone is wary of dropping their guard and opening up.
Here is the reality: someone has to initiate openness. And that someone is going to have to be you. If you wait around for your small group to spontaneously develop a culture of loving openness and spiritual honesty, you are going to be waiting a long time. Take personal responsibility to lead the group in the right direction. And it does not matter if you are the actual small group leader. Someone has to initiate spiritual openness. Why can’t it be you?
Be the Christian who is so passionate about God’s glory, so certain of Jesus’ justifying grace, and so focused on corporate sanctification that you are comfortable with candidly communicating where you are at spiritually.
Most of the time, fear of man is the thing that keeps us from sharing the not-so-perfect parts of our life. Of course, there is a balance to this. You don’t need to go into all the gory details of your most recent sin. And you don’t want to spend the whole discussion time focused on self. But take the initiative to drop your guard and accept that you are still have areas where you need to grow in Christlikeness.
Tip #6: Find a couple people to go deeper with outside of small group
Small group is a great place to go deep with fellow Church members. But there will always be a limit. You cannot have the same level of closeness with everyone and chances are, your small group is already too large for you to go deep with everyone. The solution? Use small group as a way to find an even smaller group of people to meet up with and go even deeper with. I would say that you and three others is probably an ideal sub-small group.
This will do two things: first of all, you will have a close couple Church members who you will really know and will really know you. Second, that closeness will manifest itself in a number of ways when you gather with the entire small group or even on a Sunday morning. Let gathering with Church members begat further gathering with Church members. Find people within your small group who you want to disciple or be discipled by and then meet up some other time during the week.
Conclusion
Small group is a great tool to ensure the members of your local Church are developing close, discipling relationships. One of the great joys of being a Church member and committing to a local body is getting to know other Church members. This means not just knowing their names, their vocations, or that their week “was good.” It means loving them in the fullest Biblical sense. It means sharing your lives, encouraging one another’s faith, and seeking to do spiritual good to the other person. I hope these 6 brief tips have gotten you to think about how you can make your small group even more glorifying to God and more edifying for those who attend.
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