Title:

Life’s Groups Are Our Life Boat

Notes:

Churches, business, organisations always grow from the inside out...never from the outside in... 

If I gathered 300 new guests to a Beyond Church location this weekend for one of our services…. 

• would they all have a place to serve on a team next week?

• would they all have a Life Group to connect with next week ?

• Would there be enough families, already within the life of our location, to invite them around for a meal? 

• If 30 of our guests said yes to Jesus could we meet with each one those people the following week and take them through Alpha, or a new to church course?

“The answer is NO. Gathering a crowd is not the same as growing the church.”

What we know is that the ONE thing that actually grows a church, is a church that is growing…a church that is raising and releasing leaders who make room for increase, who make rom for growth by growing their own capacity to lead more.

In February 2013 Rachel and I started leading Beyond Church and that stage the church didn’t do Life Groups. So with 40 people in our single weekly service on a Sunday morning at 60 people on the church roll, we knew that we needed at least 6 life groups just to meet the baseline for everyone in our church to connect to a Life Group where they could feel known. BUT we wanted to make room for growth. So in addition to started our first 6 Life Groups, we started 6 more. We invited 12 life group leaders to lead, and we grew from a weekend attendance of 40 to 120 over the course of the next 2 years. We are now constantly assessing the need for Life Groups to meet the growing needs of a growing church! 

So let’s look at how we build a healthy life group culture to see our services grow in 2021 

A healthy life group culture: 

1. Is led by location leaders who are passionate about Life Groups 

2. Is a part of a church where it’s core messaging supports the Life Group imperative 

3. Has comprehensive training and culture input for the Life Group leaders 

4. Is celebrating the good reports from Life Groups privately and publicly 

5. Has Life Group leaders who know they are there to raise a new leader to release into their own new Life Group

Actions:

Location Leader homework 

• Based on our church’s growth goals for 2021, how many life groups does that look like at 1 group / ten people in each of our locations services? 

• How many active groups have we got today?

• How many excellent asks can we make at the front half of 2021 so that we see growth by the end of the year? 

Team Leader/Member homework 

• Could you lead a Life Group?

• Pray, and seek God about leading your own Life Group?

• Who could you see leading a Life Group. Who would make a great Life Group leader? Share that with your location leader. 

Resources:

Leasderscape 2.0 Material 

https://soundcloud.com/user-92051399/rec-ls-20-fb-mod-2-known-needed-led-tut-3-help-people-feel-known-mp3/s-Om96K

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