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What is your culture?
By elaineb | August 19, 2008
By culture, I’m talking about who makes up the congregation. What’s the average age, marital status, number of children per person? How long do people stay around? Where do people live and what jobs do they hold? These are essential factors to how we do journey groups. For example, at my previous church, most people were “transient.” At least half the church turned over completely every 2 years. So that church had a semester system: there were 3 periods each year when groups started and ended, creating easy and natural entry and exit points so new people could easily join a group and commitment shy people could join without fear of locking in for 2 years.
You can see Evergreen’s culture in action already: we have a women’s prayer group on Thursday mornings, which works because we have a number of stay at home moms (or in my case, wives). Our people tend to stick around, so our groups are more long-term in nature. And because of the cloning operation in our basement, lots of people have kids, so childcare is an important factor for any small group.
One good way for us to incorporate growth is to start new groups, since we don’t operate by semesters and many of our groups have very well established relationships. Another option is to have periodic “interest” groups which only last a few weeks or months at a time. What are some of your ideas? Bonus points if you comment on the “controversial” comment I’ve used here…
Topics: General |
August 19th, 2008 at 9:18 am
By interest groups, do you mean by demographic (singles, over 50, etc) or topic-based studies (money management, parenting, Christianity 101)? I think both are appealing and would complement the current system. Newcomers may feel intimidated visiting a regular, existing journey group for fear of being the outsider.
You don’t have a basement, as I recall, so no controversy there : ).
August 19th, 2008 at 9:56 am
I think you chickened out on the controversial comment - either that or your going to have to point it out. After all She loves woman AND children AND basements (well I’m guessing there on God and basements)…. but I did LOL at work!
I do think our current groups are very intimidating - I was just thinking this week that I seriously don’t know people from the Sunday Or Tuesday (Ral) groups. It would be nice to implement a start and stop or something. BUT, Tuesday night WF (we meet based on location) will always be basically the same people and Friday will always be basically the same people (because we prefer that night of the week)! Perhaps if we made virtual starts and stops
…xoxoxo
August 19th, 2008 at 10:42 am
As far as interest groups, I was thinking more about topical studies, but I do think that demographic groups can be helpful - like the GH and high school groups are now. I wouldn’t want to see all our groups go that route, however, as it’s important to mix demographics: Dale and I benefit from knowing parents, even though we don’t have children; men and women benefit from being in groups together, etc.
Then, it’s true that our groups can be intimidating. There’s a pretty cool growth model called G12 which I’ll be talking about in a few weeks - a way to start new groups without dismantling the existing relationships. As far as getting to know people in other groups, there are other ways to do that: ministry is a great way to mix up different “cliques,” as well as church-wide events and pilgrimages.
Finally, as for the controversy, our church is too diverse to say anything TOO wild - someone is almost guaranteed to agree…
August 19th, 2008 at 11:18 am
I have no problem with cloning as long as I get to choose who/what is being cloned. (There is your agreement statement!)
I think short term (or semester specific) topical/interest groups might be a good way for newer people to get their feet wet. I agree that having some sort of end date makes it easier to check a group out.
I think, though, this would be easier to grapple with if we better defined the purpose of our groups. Are we using them primarily as an entry point to ECC community? Are we using them as a potential end point to community? Are they primarily for ECC’ers or primarily for outreach?
My own answers are that most of the current groups are almost exclusively for fairly established ECC’ers. Most do some sort of Bible study or religious book studies, etc. That might not be friendly for an atheist/seeker-type. A knitting group or discussion group that is topical without the structure of a religiously based book might be more “outsider” friendly.
I’d love to see a discussion based group start on neutral territory, like the coffee shop. However, a significant concern is that the current leaders are already dangerously close to overcommitted…which reinforces the need to be training new leaders.
August 19th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
What about every time a Journey group starts a new series, book, study, etc. it is announced as an invitation to join the current topic. next our group is doing a study on the fiction book, The Shack. Maybe some people not involved in a group would be interested in that.
August 19th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
I think announcing new studies is a great idea! I would be happy to coordinate all the PR for a new study - but it would be the leaders’ responsibility to tell me a few weeks prior to the start date.
And even then, joining a group which has been around for a while can be very socially challenging. Having temporary groups, and starting new long-term groups is probably a better strategy for incorporating new people.
Alicia raises the question of why we have groups - for more info on this scroll down to my previous post on the topic!
August 21st, 2008 at 11:43 am
Well - now - did we define their (groups) purposes? Certainly there isn’t just one? We need entry points into community, we need places for deeper study, and some times we just need a change of pace!
Alicia’s other point is huge too - how do we train up new people or empower those outside “the five”??
August 25th, 2008 at 8:46 am
Training up leaders is an essential part of any small group structure. We’ll be discussing that as soon as we finish this series of questions.