In most churches, the senior pastor wants to kick off a big fall series as soon as everyone has settled back into church. The pastor will give a “State of the Church” message right after New Year’s Day, then launches into a major sermon series. If these sermon series are aligned with a small group study, then when do you recruit group leaders? And, when do you form groups? Before everybody gets back?

The biggest issue in your small group ministry is the issue that is holding you back right now. You may be struggling to find new group leaders. You might be frustrated with connecting people into groups. Your senior pastor may not be as cooperative in promoting groups as you'd want. What issue is blocking you? For me, it was my need to control. And, that was holding all of us back.

This is the story that started it all for Allen White. After seven years of handpicking group leaders and then begging my leaders to develop an apprentice, our church hit a wall with small groups. We had 30% in groups and were completely stuck. Now, here's the part that will help you -- We figured out how to break through that wall.

Isolation from the pandemic is basically over in most quarters. But, if your church is like most, your worship attendance is not back to the where it was pre-COVID. Here are four reasons why.

The political landscape is more polarized than it’s ever been (and it’s never been great). Here are some ideas about how groups can make disciples amid a hostile political environment.

As much as you might hate to think about this, the world is on the eve of a global recession. Now, I am a pastor and not an economist, but I play one on Facebook. (Just kidding). Sequoia Capital, the backer of companies like Apple, Google, and AirBnb, just released a presentation calling for founders to preserve cash for survival. With the oncoming recession, things are about to take a downward turn. Here are five ways you can recession-proof your church.

If you are honest with yourself, the good old days were really not that good. Sure you would love to see your church’s worship center filled again. Of course you would love to see all of the people come back that you used to see for 20 seconds every Sunday morning. But in romanticizing the past, you’re forgetting about all the things that were broken and all of the things that you didn’t like. Now is the opportunity to fix them.

Sometimes churches offer so many competing groups, classes, Bible studies, and other activities for their adults that the small group message gets murky. But, this is not all bad news. Some of those other groups might actually be small groups. There no use in pitting small groups against Sunday school classes. There is also no use in promoting things that aren't producing the results you want. This episode includes a free exercise to define your small groups and see what's working in your church.