Pastor Mike Johnson
2025-01-22
I watched a family leave our church in the parking lot one Sunday. They'd been coming for over a year.
"We just never connected with anyone," the wife said. "Nobody would notice if we stopped showing up."
She was right. I'd seen them dozens of times, shaken their hands, made small talk. But I couldn't have told you their kids' names or what they did for work. Among three hundred people flowing through our doors each week, they'd been completely invisible.
That conversation wrecked me. And it's why I became obsessed with small groups.
Here's the brutal truth: Sunday services don't create community. They create audiences. People can attend your church for years, hear great teaching, sing great songs, and still feel utterly alone. That's not a criticism of weekend services—they're great for what they're designed to do. But they're not designed to help people know and be known.
That's what small groups are for.
Before we talk about building groups, let's talk about why so many of them fizzle.
They're boring. The group gathers, someone reads from a study guide, people give safe churchy answers, and everyone watches the clock. Nobody shares anything real. Nobody would call each other during the week. It's church homework, not community.
The leader isn't equipped. We grab whoever's willing, give them a curriculum, and say "good luck." Then we're shocked when they can't facilitate discussion, handle conflict, or create environments where people open up.
There's no multiplication plan. Groups form, become comfortable, and close themselves off. New people can't get in. Old people won't leave. Eventually the groups get stale and the whole ministry plateaus.
Nobody actually connects them to the church. Groups exist in their own bubble. Church leadership doesn't know what's happening. Leaders feel unsupported. When problems arise, they fester.
If your small groups have any of these problems, you're not alone. I've made every one of these mistakes. The good news is they're all fixable.
There are basically five flavors of small groups:
Sermon-based: You discuss Sunday's message. Easy for leaders since the content is done for them. Works great if your preaching is strong and people want to go deeper.
Curriculum-based: Everyone works through a study guide or video series together. More structure, quality control over content, easy to run church-wide campaigns.
Book clubs: Read a chapter, talk about it. Attracts readers, but participation tanks when people don't do the homework.
Life groups: Less structure, more hanging out. Great for relationships but can drift into "just friends having dinner" territory without intentionality.
Service groups: You do something together—serve at a food bank, build houses, whatever. Attracts doers who don't love sitting around talking.
Here's my advice: don't get paralyzed by the choice. Pick one model for your first pilot. Try it for 8 weeks. See what works for your people. You can always adjust.
Your leaders make or break everything. I cannot overstate this.
Bad leaders create bad groups. You'll spend months cleaning up their messes. Some damage (hurt feelings, broken trust, terrible theology shared confidently) can't be undone.
Good leaders create good groups. They make you look like a genius. People grow. Community happens. You barely have to manage them.
So who makes a good leader?
Someone who naturally gathers people. They're the person who hosts game nights, organizes dinners, and somehow always has people around. This instinct is really hard to train—look for people who already have it.
Someone who's still growing. Perfect people make terrible group leaders. They've forgotten what it's like to struggle. People who are still in process, still learning, still wrestling with stuff—they create space for others to be real.
Someone with margin. The overcommitted person who's already running three ministries and coaching their kids' soccer team? They'll say yes, then burn out by month two.
Someone who handles conflict. Groups will have friction. The leader who runs from hard conversations will let small issues become big ones.
Here's who NOT to recruit:
For your first pilot, recruit 3-5 leaders. That's it. Any more than that and you can't support them well.
Most training is useless. Three hours of lecture followed by a binder nobody reads.
Here's what actually matters:
Vision. Why are we doing this? What's the win? What does success look like? If leaders don't get the why, they'll just go through the motions.
Facilitation skills. How do you draw out quiet people? How do you shut up the person who talks 80% of the time? How do you handle tears? How do you handle bad theology? These aren't obvious—you have to teach them.
What to do when things go wrong. Someone shares about abuse—who do you call? A couple in your group is getting divorced—how do you handle that? Someone clearly needs professional help—what's the handoff look like?
Role play these scenarios. Seriously. It feels awkward, but leaders who've practiced handling hard situations handle them way better when they actually happen.
Your first season should be:
Promotion matters less than personal invitation. The best way to fill a small group is the leader personally asking people to join. Stage announcements help with awareness, but they don't close the deal.
Follow up fast. If someone expresses interest on Sunday, contact them by Monday night. Interest evaporates quickly.
Did it work? Be honest.
Ask your leaders:
Ask participants:
If things went well, recruit more leaders and run another season. If things were mixed, figure out what went wrong before expanding. If things bombed, pause and reassess—don't multiply problems.
Once you have more than 5 groups, you need infrastructure. I know—systems are boring. But unsupported leaders burn out, and burned out leaders quit.
Monthly leader gatherings. Get all your leaders in a room together. Let them swap stories, troubleshoot problems, pray for each other. This is also where you reinforce vision (people forget).
Coaches. One person can't directly support more than 5 leaders well. Assign coaches—one coach per 3-5 leaders. Coaches check in regularly, are available for crises, and keep leaders connected to church leadership.
Resources. A shared folder with curriculum options, leader guides, and FAQs saves everyone time.
Here's where most churches stall out.
Groups form. They get comfortable. They don't want new people. They definitely don't want to split.
But groups that never multiply eventually stagnate. And your church can't grow beyond your number of groups.
The fix: build multiplication into the DNA from day one.
Every leader needs an apprentice. Someone learning alongside them who could lead a group themselves eventually. Groups should know from the beginning that the goal is to multiply—it's not a surprise we're springing on them later.
When groups multiply, celebrate it publicly. Same energy as baptisms. "This group is becoming two groups! More people will now experience community because of your willingness to multiply!"
Groups that won't open. "We're full." (They're not.) "We're too close to add new people." (That's a problem, not a virtue.) Solution: require groups to open at least one semester per year. Groups that refuse to welcome newcomers get closed.
The person who talks too much. Every group has one. Train leaders to redirect: "Thanks for that. Let's hear from someone who hasn't shared yet." If it persists, private conversation: "I love your enthusiasm. I'm going to ask you to hold back a bit so others can participate."
Groups that become hangouts. All fellowship, no formation. The Bible never opens. They're basically a friend group who started at church. Solution: require a minimum of spiritual content. Coach leaders on creating moments of depth.
Burned out leaders. They dread group nights. Preparation feels like a burden. They start canceling. Solution: build in breaks (one off-week per month), develop apprentices who can share the load, and be willing to transition leadership when someone's done.
Some things that actually tell you if your groups are healthy:
Consistent attendance. 70%+ of the roster showing up regularly = good. Below 50% = problem.
Leader tenure. Average 2+ years = healthy environment. Less than a year = leaders are burning out.
Multiplication rate. 1 new group for every 3 existing groups annually = healthy. Zero multiplication = stagnation.
The question that matters most: If someone joins your church, how long until they're in a group? If it's more than 6 weeks, your pipeline is broken.
I think about that family a lot. The one who left because nobody knew them.
I wish I could go back and tell them about the group that was meeting on Thursday nights, three blocks from their house. A group where they'd find a couple going through the same parenting struggles. Where someone would've texted when they missed a week. Where their kids would've been known by name by adults who cared.
That group existed. I just never connected them to it.
Small groups aren't a program to manage. They're the answer to the deepest problem our churches face: people who come but never belong.
Build them well. The invisible families are counting on it.
What's your biggest small group challenge? Drop it in the comments—I've probably faced it and can help.
Small Group Ministry Director with 8 years of experience in community building and discipleship. Pastor Mike specializes in launching and multiplying small groups that create deep connections and foster spiritual growth.
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