Inside a 4X Growth In Group Engagement at a Growing Church with Joe Boyd

Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Joe Boyd, lead pastor of Grace Fellowship in Minnesota. They are one of the fastest growing churches in the country as well as a church-planting church and have started 28 churches during their 34 years of service.

Jesus changed the world with a small group. Groups help fulfill discipleship and fellowship functions, create a connection and family, plus are a critical component to helping your church close the back door. Listen in as Joe talks with us about how Grace Fellowship shifted their groups culture and saw a huge increase in engagement.

* Take a look at the groups. // When Joe first stepped into his role as lead pastor at Grace Fellowship, he took a look at the small groups within the church to gauge their health. Within his first three months in leadership, Joe visited each of the small groups and found that only 23% of the adults in the church were participating in groups. The groups that were in existence were strong and the members enjoyed them, however no new groups were being started.* Create a plan ahead of time. // At this point Joe and his team made the commitment to shift from being a church with small groups to a church of small groups. They didn’t want to rush into things, so made a plan to launch more groups nine months out. Grace Fellowship looked to the Rooted experience at Mariners Church to provide training and brought their staff through it before rolling it out to the rest of the church. Both adults and youth were exposed to Rooted and the result was a 70% participation of adults and 100% participation of teens in groups.* Drip it before you drop it. // Before relaunching groups, Joe dripped the topic to the congregation by talking about groups over and over. After the staff went through the Rooted experience, the church rolled it out to their leaders. By reimagining small groups, by modeling it, and then by challenging their leaders to carry it out, Grace Fellowship began building a new culture.* Devote the resources. // As Grace Fellowship rolled out their plan for groups, they devoted a significant amount of time, money and key people to leading the process. They also built a campaign around the launch of groups through the fall and didn’t allow anything else to compete with it. This was tough on one hand because the church didn’t grow through the fall, but Joe saw existing people at the church consistently engaging and taking ownership of the church. * Make it a priority. // While growth didn’t come in the fall for Grace Fellowship, it did come at the beginning of the new year. Now people were confident that if they invited their friends to church, they would have a positive experience. Make it a priority to get groups right because it will give you the foundation to grow and not have constant turnover.* Slow down and work together. // If you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go with others. Slow down and spend time getting your team together to talk through a plan for groups. Not only does it allow everyone to bring their gifts and talents to the table to develop the plan together, but everyone will be bought-in when it comes time to roll out the plan.* Have a leadership structure in place. // Some lead pastors may think that churches become successful and grow based simply on their outside appearance – making themselves look attractive and fun. But the secret behind a growing church is having a leadership structure in place that is focused on developing and retaining leaders.* Focus on groups. // Looking to the future, Joe believes one thing that will scale up will be groups and group pastors. In groups you have to care for leaders and identify additional leaders for new groups so that you can mak...