My experience with small groups @ church & where we might be going next
In my experience, small groups are as different as people.
If you're joining a group in progress - doesn't matter what you call it - house church, small group, disciple group, huddle group or whatever - you don't know what it is until you get into it and see for yourself.
If you're starting a new group, it will be what you make it to be. A lot of times groups are started without clarity on what they're going to be like and might or might not be a good experience, "successful", or even helpful. Expectations and assumptions vary greatly.
What I've seen for the most part are groups that are: 1) a kind of a Bible study with cheese dip or cookies, 2) a social group with religious flavoring/occasional "devotional" time, or 3) a home version of a very formal Sunday AM service (which is thankfully more rare).
I went through a lot of training for developing and maintaining small groups for churches over the decades and even a good bit of study of non-church working groups/teams and the dynamics that guide them. Most people I trained were a little surprised that it wasn't "just show up and it'll be a good group".
I had many people who pushed back against small group leadership training in a church setting with "I don't need training. I know what a group is. I've been in one before." And most of the time, I let them do their thing and watched as they and their group crashed and burned in a few months.
I had some places I did training for that wisely said, "Thank you for being honest about what makes groups work! We can see we were about to make a bunch of small groups that would have had very different expectations about what would happen in them, how we'd determine if they were "good" or not, etc. We're not going to attempt to have groups right now."
Most churches want a group that combines socializing, friendship development, "fellowship", maybe a little teaching and discussion that supports what the church is focusing on, and low expectations of group members. Those groups are usually "successful" to the degree that they are homogeneous in personality, social interests, and life stage. Most of those exclude people who are different in age, background, etc.
It is rare to find a long lasting "successful" small group that includes age differences spanning over 15-20 years, cultural or educational differences that require you to "be on" to a high degree whenever you're with them, or other large differences in the group membership.
Most groups that can handle that kind of difference in its members is usually more of a medium sized group (15-40+) of people that relies on a few stronger leaders or personalities to guide gatherings to stay at a more surface level kind of interaction. They usually are actually a collection of two to four small groups that have enough in common that they can get together and not have issues.
The kind of group I usually encouraged people to develop were what I'd call discipleship groups where people were together as a group to encourage one another, learn together, and share God together. It's a tough kind of group to make.
If you're not intentional about doing things in your gatherings to make sure you're encouraging each other, learning together, and sharing together, it always devolves into a social gathering. Nothing wrong with that, but at some point people begin to ask "Why are we doing this again? Why should I miss _____ and instead go to that group? I think I'm done with small group."
I remember one of the last trainings I did a good while back - a lot of young professional people ready to do small groups with some level of excitement! The further we got into the training time, the more apparent it was to me that there was little to zero interest in being THAT intentional with groups.
There was a lot of excitement about getting together with other people who were in a very similar life stage and how it might be a way of inviting other people of a similar life stage to their group and then to the church worship service, but no interest in much more than that.
After that experience and a couple more years of that kind of dynamic, I did a good exploration of what people thought of groups and discovered that we had a wide range of ideas - many that were contradictory and self-defeating. Many felt like "small groups" were just for "young people" and anyone really excited about church and church stuff. Even had some formal leaders/elders who said, "I am not doing a group."
We had a lot of aspirational value tied to small groups, but no connection in reality. We aspired to look like people who enjoyed small groups to grow together and share Jesus, but we really didn't want to commit to what it would take to make small groups. Keep on saying we are, but don't ask us to do it.
I eased up on my expectations of what groups were to be and partnered with some "lay leaders" to set up an organization that would blend people from different backgrounds together and make some small groups that were age based and some that were geographically based.
Some of them went well and others tanked pretty quickly. One that I was in was geographically based and combined people from four or five different age groups and backgrounds. After the first couple of meetings, most of the "young couples" found another age based group and ghosted us.
People want to go where they feel comfortable and don't want to go where they have to endure significant differences for very long. And who could blame them? Especially if you have a kid or two and you're in the home of someone who doesn't have kids and you're worried about what they're breaking, etc.
I remember the last "all leadership meeting" I attended a little over a year ago and watching two or three different leaders in my little collection having a kind, but obvious disagreement right there in the meeting about the kind of groups we were promoting at the time.
It's tough to have small groups when there's not much collective understanding of what they are or could be.
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Small groups that know what to expect and "work the plan" can be highly "successful", very satisfying and encouraging to its members, and effective in helping people share their faith with others.
Probably the best example I personally experienced was several years back when I started at first base with a new collection of people to start a new wave of small groups. We went through six months of training a group of people who would be leaders in a new set of groups.
It was hard to train, hard to work through personality differences, hard to work through the childcare/"what do we do with the kids" issues, hard to work through learning to say "No" when people wanted to bend the guidelines to make it easier on themselves or not hurt people's feelings, etc.
I have never seen a group bond more quickly and get as "deep" together as that particular collection. When they all graduated and started their own groups, they went through a lot of the same issues we faced in our original group training and I walked alongside all the leaders as they worked through their own challenges. It was cool watching God at work in real time.
By the time that second wave began to make ready for the third wave, we had a significant sized group of people who were moving out of state to other jobs and it ended up gutting what was happening. The third wave reverted back to social groups that were hit and miss.
It is work. You have to be in it for the long game.
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I remember a poignant time a few years back when having a conversation with the person who'd originally trained me and others in small groups. They were in town for a consulting weekend with us for a larger project and we asked them over a coffee break how small groups were going for them where they were currently worshipping at a local congregation.
He said, "Well, honestly, my wife and I aren't in a group." He went on and told the longer story of how he and his wife had invested into different small groups over the years and how, after a while, each group would move on - people moving away, people died, people having life changes and reorienting their time and priorities.
He said that his wife told him she just couldn't face working hard at making yet another set of friends, investing into them, only to have them move on and the friendship, practically speaking, coming to an end. My heart broke for him and I could 100% empathize with that.
A lot of people join groups and enjoy the benefits of the group for a season and then, when they've got what they want, move on to their next thing, assuming that is all there is to it. Not everyone is wired the same way. People have different needs or understandings.
You shouldn't take it personally, but you do anyway because you assumed people were as committed to you as you were to them and the reality is different.
Starting fresh occupationally and financially after 35 years is a big thing.
I've intentionally avoided making any long term decision for at least a full year regarding any "church decision".
We've enjoyed our Sunday AM spiritual conversation collective that meets at our house and I've enjoyed the Thursday PM men's groups/cigar church I'm part of. That may be the direction we continue in indefinitely.
The past 11 months have been very instructive to me about my walk with God and my trust and dependence on him.
NOT being in a church leadership role and having to see things from a fresh perspective has been beyond amazing.
God gets a chance to rip away some blinders you didn't know you had.
You get to see what you've really been trusting and depending on in comparison to what you're called to trust and depend on.
All I can say is that God is way more merciful and graceful than any one of us can possibly begin to imagine.
The brightest spot of a glimpse into the future is something to do with home groups/developing a collective of fellow believers that grow organically.
If you're a person who talks to God, ask him for wisdom for me about all that.
Thanks much and Happy New Year to you and yours!
Grace and peace.
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