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Our junior high ministry has lots of strengths, and more than its fair share of weaknesses! One of the things we seem to do best is get kids connected in a small group with about 10 peers and an adult leader or two. We have a fairly defined purpose/goal for our small groups, but I often wonder if a “narrow focus” for our small group ministry as a whole is the right way to go, or if we would be wiser to loosen up a bit and let individual small groups take on their own feel and personality….in essence becoming a custom-made small group for the kids in that particular group.
CURRENTLY: Our small groups all meet on Tuesday or Wednesday night, they are expected to choose curriculum from a pre-approved “menu”, We create the calendar of meetings and events for them, they are all same grade/gender with no mixing of other “tribes”, they all meet for the primary purpose of “fellowship” with a strong dose of “discipleship”.
BUT WHAT IT: We loosened it up? what if groups could form however they want and meet whenever they want for whatever purpose they want? What if we trained and empowered our leaders to decide what the spiritual pace of their group is and pick their own curriculum…or have no curriculum at all! I know things would get a bit squishy, hard to define, hard to measure and hard to control…but things would also get very interesting in a hurry.
We have probably all heard the saying, “It it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. I believe that is a saying that has caused lots and lots of people and organizations to wait too long before they begin thinking about change and progress. The truth is, by the time something is noticeably broken it is often well beyond repair. I don’t know what, if anything, about our small group ministry will look different a year from now, but I’m thinking about it!
QUESTION: Is there something in your ministry that is working well, maybe so well that you haven’t thought about how it might be improved? Try it…it’s kinda fun, and really important.
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We kind of had the opposite situation going on. When I came on staff a year or so ago the small group leaders were just finding their own small group resources. There was a shelf full of options, but they were pretty much left to their own to figure out what their group needed. What seemed to happen was that most leaders were just winging it from week to week – this year I spelled it out with a curriculum plan for the year (giving leaders the option to do something else if they had it, but other wise stick to the plan), and it’s been really well received. Every few weeks I have a leader thanking me again for putting more structure to the system. For us, that meant using the Active Bible Studies book with the 20 lessons in there, Bible Stuff and Tuff Stuff. : )
Kurt – it’s interesting you use this statment – “It it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. One of my prof from liberty said in youth ministry “if you need to change something change it – if you don’t need to change something – change it.” We are always thinking about what can be different, even if it is something that we are doing really well. I’m glad you are thinking this way – it helps me to relize that it is important to change.
We try to integrate a bit of both structure and freedom. While, as the youth pastor, I plan out enough material or structured resources to be used for the entire small group time, I also encourage the adult leaders of our small groups to do what is needed in their groups. For some, they (the leaders) need that structure, while others operate better with the ability to pick up on a ‘rabbit trail’ and really develop it into an amazing teachable moment. Other specific needs may present themselves throughout a meeting and our leaders must feel the freedom to be able to address them. Our younger boys and our older girls are on way different pages when it comes to styles of study and so our leaders have the freedom to mix things up a bit as needed. We also have some weeks that are simply free nights. Each group is free to do whatever they want. Usually these free nights are more ‘fun’ activity based, but sometimes we just have a leader’s choice night where the leader completely chooses their own topic. Basically, for us it comes down to our small group leaders. Since there are some that need that structure, I help provide it for them. At the same time, I encourage them to not be locked into it and to allow the group to go wherever it may…as long as it is still accomplishing the purposes of the group.