Ask almost any Sunday School teacher or participant what they love about Sunday School and you’ll get a variety of answers, such as: studying God’s Word, ministering to class members, fellowship, prayer and more. But there is little doubt about the Sunday School directive that gets the most opposition and has got to top the list of most unpopular expectations of a class: starting a new group!
No doubt about it! Starting new groups is unpopular. If you want to swim upstream in your church, start expecting new groups. If you want to experience the second coming of the Inquisition, announce to your class that you are starting a new group. If you want to upset the seating chart in your class, then start a new group.
But let me share more…
If you want your church to grow… start new groups!
If you want to reach more lost people with the Gospel… start new groups!
If you want to re-engage inactive church members… start new groups!
If you want to involve more people in leadership… start new groups!
If you want to provide more opportunities for people to serve and use their spiritual gifts… start new groups!
By the way, dead fish only travel downstream.
Here is how starting a new group addresses
each of the above statements:
First, for every new group your church starts, your attendance increases by about 10 people. We call it “The Power of 10”. So if you want your church to grow by reaching 50 people in the next year, start 5 new classes. If you want your church to decline by 50 people next year, combine 5 classes.
Next, for every new class you start, as a general rule you will reach the following people:
- 5 inactive church members;
- 3 people will step up as leaders for the new group;
- 2-3 unchurched people will attend the group over the course of a year (and statistically speaking, at least one of them will accept Christ).
Starting new groups is the launching pad for all sorts of opportunities that are great for the church. New groups require new leaders. New groups provide more opportunities for more people with hospitality and administrive gifts to serve. New groups break up the status quo. New groups get the church moving.
I could go on and on about numbers and multiplication and reasons to start new groups. One thing I’ve learned from previous experience though is that understanding the science of new groups is not a great motivator to start new classes. Cold facts are no substitute for a warm heart. It’s heartwarming for a teacher to see people that they have discipled step out of their class and start a new group. It’s heartwarming to see new people connecting to God and each other.
New groups require regular people to exercise the one thing that we all should have in abundance but often are found lacking – faith. It takes faith to start a class, faith to become a teacher or leader, and faith to serve. It takes faith to believe that God will be faithful. A new group is a way for a leader and a couple of core members to put the Gospel on display and be a part of redeeming wayward human souls.
If we are going to have a Sunday School awakening, it will have to include new groups. It is time for us to make starting new groups the “cool” thing to do. Starting new Bible study groups is where we need to send our best people.
It’s time for a new awakening of the Sunday School and classes need to lead the way. Buck the status quo, swim upstream and start a new group… The movement starts with you.
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Bob is the Sunday School and small group specialist for the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma. Bob has also served the Arizona Southern Baptist Convention and he has been minister of education at First Baptist Church, Chandler, AZ and Indiana Avenue Baptist Church in Lubbock, TX
It is unpopular, but those who do are happier. I just spent the weekend with a couple in Muskogee, OK that have started 3 or 4 groups in the last 5 years. These people are far happier than your average Sunday School teachers, as they always are.
Bob Mayfield said:
“Next, for every new class you start, as a general rule you will reach the following people:
•5 inactive church members;
•3 people will step up as leaders for the new group;
•2-3 unchurched people will attend the group over the course of a year (and statistically speaking, at least one of them will accept Christ).”
These statistics are very exciting. Can you please provide where these ‘general rules’ were obtained? Was this a study done by the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma or are they simply based upon your own anecdotal evidence? Thanks!
Bobby… I think we ask, no let’s beg Ed Stetzer to include this in his next research project. The reason I used the phrase “general rule” is that this is anecdotal evidence based off my own experience with starting new groups.
However, Andy Anderson’s book “The Growth Spiral”, states that one of every three lost people who join a Bible study group will accept Christ and be baptized in one year! I have visited with many Sunday School educators, like Mark Yoakum at FBC-Euless, who tell me that they are seeing an even tighter ratio that is closer to one out of two (half) will convert to Christ in one year.
I personally believe that the most effective evangelism strategy the local church has is an open-group Bible study that is actively open to new people. Open groups (Sunday School, home groups, etc) provide the opportunity for a small group of Christians to put Christianity on display to their friends and neighbors who join the group. For a lost person, it’s like putting your toe in the water before you jump in. An honest, open group gives an unchurched person the chance to test the “Jesus thing” so that they can see what they are getting themselves into.
Much like our church planting brothers experience, new groups are just naturally more inclined to actively engage and invite unchurched people to their group. This experience is why new groups tend to grow faster and be more evangelistic than other groups.