In January of this year we ran a church-wide survey and discovered that many people at our church weren’t in life groups. Many people who called our church ‘home’ for different reasons weren’t plugged into groups.
Research shows that people who aren’t in a life group are already on the slow elevator out the back door. More importantly they just didn’t have many, if any friends at church which is a tragedy.
There were other ‘ah-ha’ moments that came from the survey that I’ll cover in other posts.
I was part of the team dedicated to turn this around. We developed a 4 week sermon series all about community. Each week the preacher would invite the church to get connected in a life group for a short term commitment of just 6 weeks. This strategy was based on experience that if people are asked to take a short time based commitment toward community many would continue on that journey beyond the initial 6 week commitment.
At the end of the 4 week sermon series over 60 new groups began (many with new leaders). Over 380 people who were not previously connected are now connected into group life. Even better, every group was invited at the end of the 6 weeks to continue – over 40 groups chose to do so.
To support the new leaders during the 6 weeks my team created discussion videos and discusion questions for each time they met. This enabled so many people to lead because they had support on the night and did not have to create their own material. Check out the branding for the 6 week campaign below.
Oh, by the way we still have discussion videos, discussion question & journal booklets left over. If you are a church that could use resources give me a call on 9886 3700. For church leaders we also have a detailed strategy documented which is available on request.
