Three necessary people you need to start (and run) a successful small group
In this day and age, a church has a wealth of tools at its disposal to help them succeed. You can automate your finances, and stream your church online to reach more people, and COVID’s made passing an offering plate obsolete with online giving. Heck, you can even write your sermons with ChatGPT (however, we advise against this).
While there are platforms like Togather, which helps staff and volunteer leaders run successful small groups, technology is useless without the people to run it, and small groups fundamentally need to feel human above all.
Here are the 3 core volunteer leaders you need to equip a small group to succeed.
The Communicator
The first person is the Communicator. This person is good at sharing the purpose of the small group. Are you spending a month going through a book of the Bible? Three months reading and discussing Bob Goff’s Love Does? Or is it a time to discuss last Sunday’s message? The communicator is someone who can help plan, and then clearly communicate news and updates to the small group members.
Clear lines of communication are a must in all aspects of life. Whether you use a library of different apps, or you use the streamlined community tool Togather, letting your members know what to expect and who to go to when they have questions will boost trust and attendance.
Having a plan and communicating it to your members (preferably at least three days ahead) allows people to come prepared and be present each week. Important things to communicate are time, location (especially if it’s something that changes on a regular basis), and what people need to bring (especially if you’re doing a potluck or asking people to bring food each week). This may feel redundant at times, but remember that ideally, you have guests and new people on a regular basis who need to know this information.
Sending a short message to your small group might seem unimportant and not urgent, but it’s just the first domino to fall.
Imagine this. You send a message out three hours before the small group starts, asking people to please bring their favorite topping for Taco Tuesday. But Rick’s in his busy season at work and doesn’t see the message until two days later. Ryan, Kate, and Esposito, all see the message, but there’s not a grocery store on the way from Rick’s work to Small Group. Esposito and Kate both stop and grab their toppings (pickled jalapeños and Mango Salsa respectively) but arrive just as everyone’s sitting down for a discussion with their already-made tacos. Now Esposito and Kate feel down, and maybe, frustrated. All are easily avoidable by planning and sending a message a few days before.
The Communicator can also be the person who is the face of the small group. Good communication skills are essential for leading a small group. Leading doesn’t necessarily mean giving a mini-sermon every week or having to be the one with all the answers (see our article Things Not to Do When Leading a Small Group on why you actually shouldn’t be the one with all the answers). Instead, leading is more of a moderator role. Giving the introduction to whatever the week’s theme is, whether it’s briefly summarizing the sermon from the previous weekend or a synopsis of the chapter of the book you’re going through and facilitating discussion. The Communicator can be this role, or it could be someone else the Communicator works with and empowers to be the discussion lead that week.
The Coordinator
Small groups aren’t as complex as the Met Gala, but they require a bit more effort than an impromptu brunch-and-mimosas after church. Enter the “The Coordinator”: Someone with a knack for event planning. They don’t need to be a professional event planner, just be organized and on top of things.
Even if it’s something as simple as a weekly gathering, a smoothly run event lets people live in the moment and enjoy the people they’re with. A badly run event is one where you’re asked to bring something two hours before it begins, and end up outside at 7 pm in a dark park in 41-degree weather, with one bowl of hummus, five bags of popcorn, and a six-pack of Lacroix for 12 people (not that this is based on experience or anything). I’d be willing to put money on most of your members wishing they had worn their parkas and day-dreaming about hot cocoa instead of being focused on the topic of the night. Not to mention the discussion being periodically interrupted by a growling stomach.
Making sure things are prepared well in advance decreases the stress of last-minute planning and minimizes things that can go wrong (after all, even the Met Gala has snafus ). Coordinating with the communicator is a great way to make sure things happen on time and people have enough notice to plan ahead, especially if they’re supposed to contribute anything.
The People Person
The last instrumental person is the People Person. This is the person who’s the Mom or Dad of their friend group. Someone who knows and understands people. You don’t necessarily need to feel seen or known at a Billy Joel concert or a poetry slam in the West Village, but feeling like a stranger or invisible in a small group can quickly drive members away.
The People Person doesn’t have to be a front-facing group leader, or even officially on the leadership team. But you need someone to remember the birthdays, important events, last week’s prayer requests (we suggest Togather’s Prayer & Praise feature), and that Chris is allergic to nuts and Jen has celiac disease before planning a peanut butter cookie bake-off for next week’s icebreaker.
More importantly, not everyone is going to be super extroverted. It’s possible to show up to a small group week after week for months and still feel like a stranger. Not everyone is a natural at making new friends and sometimes just showing up requires an act of bravery. Your People Person can be the person who, at the very least, always has a smile and a hello for them. Feeling like you’re seen and known is the first step to feeling welcome and part of a larger group.
The Backups
One last note. Small group leaders both are the backbone and face of your church community. They’re the leaders, mentors, and friends to members of your church–and they’re most likely volunteering their time to do it. They might even be the first person in a leadership position that a visitor encounters.
But they’re also human. They most likely have a job, family, and commitments outside of church. On average, it takes about 5–6 hours to run a weekly small group. Split between a leadership team of 4, it’s only an hour and a half or so commitment, but leaders also arrive half an hour early the day of to set up, cook, and pray and usually stay late to help clean up.
Not to mention, those leading small groups are often also volunteering in different capacities at your church as well, such as the welcome team, prayer team, helping with production, or leading worship. Having people who are willing and able to step up when a leader gets sick, or has to take a week off allows the rest of the small group to continue without a hitch and protects the leaders from burnout. Even Lin-Manuel Miranda had an understudy.
Burnout doesn’t discriminate between long hours working on Wall Street and long hours serving at church. Make sure you, as a church, are equipping your small group leaders and protecting them from burnout. This can come in the form of a stipend to provide food or snacks each week, equipping leaders with the technology to streamline their planning, and providing resources (like this article).
Don’t let your desire to grow your church and kingdom lead to neglecting those who are already in it.
Building community is hard, but we’re trying to take some of the ambiguity out of it and equip small leaders everywhere to build lasting friendships. If you found this article helpful, check out our other articles: Three Things to Help Make Your Small Group Work and Three Things to Avoid When Building Small Groups for the three things and people you need to have a successful small group.
This article was originally written by Aspen Lenzen for the Togather resource library. Togather is a ChurchOS for leader tools that grow your church through small group engagement and management revolutionizing church connection and retention. Learn more at gettogather.co.
