Written forpastors, supervisors and small group leaders
Someone comes up to the pastor after the service and says they want to serve on the worship team.
In many churches, the answer is a name: “talk to so-and-so, he runs worship”.
In others, the answer is a question: “which small group are you in?”
You probably know which answer your church gives. This article asks something else: does the routine answer the same thing?
The difference is the place the small group occupies: in a church with small groups it is one ministry among others, and in a small-group church it is what the life of the church runs through.
You have probably read that definition before. What almost nobody publishes is how to check whether the routine of your church matches the name it uses, and that is what comes here:
- Thirteen signsObjective ones, to answer this week, without calling a meeting.
- What to ask of eachWhat you can and cannot expect from either model.
How does a small-group church work in practice?
The small group is the structure, and the rest of the church exists to serve it. The care of each person happens in the group, the visitor is sent to a group, and the leader is trained in a school with a beginning and an end.
Every level of supervision exists, among other duties, to care for the level below it. It is that care that holds up the rest, and multiplication, which is the stated goal, comes out of it.
Joel Comiskey, who has studied these churches for decades, defines the two in two sentences. He calls them cell churches, which is the same thing we call a small-group church:
“A church with cells doesn't organize itself around cell ministry.”
“In the cell church, everyone is encouraged to attend cell and celebration.”
Pastor Lucas Donha, of Igreja Amor e Cuidado, in Araçatuba, told us on our podcast that in 2009 his church had eight or nine small groups, and they were a ministry.
By around 2012, in his words, “the small groups stopped being a ministry and became the life of the church”. The original is in Portuguese, and the translation is ours.
That sentence is the summary of what Joel Comiskey writes.
The image people use in the small-group vision is the one of two wings, the small group and the service. Neither of them is optional. You already know that. What you may not know yet is the design on the inside, and it is the part that matters.
What is the structure of a small-group church?
Five pieces, in a church of any size: the lead pastor out in front of the vision, a supervision designed to care for those who care, a school with a beginning and an end, a meeting with a known flow, and a report that shows what the visit cannot reach.
The org chart changes with the size. The pieces do not.
He is the one who holds the vision. He is the one who sets the heart of the church on every believer being a disciple, and not merely “keeping a pew warm”.
That is why the most common thing is for him to lead a group, and, when he does not lead one, to be a regular part of one.
It exists so that care reaches every level, and not merely to collect reports.
A small-group church that is starting out usually has one level. One that has been through cycles of multiplication has two or three. In settled ones the levels vary a great deal, and can go past seven.
It is usually divided into stages, with a beginning and an end. Each stage follows the maturity of the person, the vision and the doctrine of the church.
The school never stops, but every course ends.
It follows a flow the church sets, which comes down to food, an icebreaker, worship, the study and prayer. It always varies from church to church.
What does not vary is the aim: winning lives for Christ, and everyone in the room knows it.
In a small-group church, the group report matters as much as care, discipleship and assimilation. It is the only way the pastor sees what is happening.
What the report does not show is the quality of the meeting. That is what the supervision visit is for.
Pastor Ricardo Capler, of Igreja Batista Betesda, told us on our podcast how it went at his church. It had around thirty groups in 2011, and it knew what it wanted to be. What it lacked was structure: there was no supervision, and no track for training leaders. The turn, for him, was from 2011 to 2012, when the structure arrived.
The names change from church to church. The five pieces do not.
How do you know whether your church works as a small-group church?
Not from the org chart, but from what the church actually does. And there are clear things you can look at.
Thirteen signs, and they do not exhaust the subject: what separates a small-group church from a church with small groups does not fit into thirteen questions. We chose these because they are objective, and you can answer all of them this week, without calling a meeting.
In each one, the first sentence describes how it works in a small-group church, and the question is whether it is like that in yours.
The small group exists to evangelise, and multiplication is the consequence.
When you ask a leader what the goal of his group is, does he answer evangelise or multiply?
Whoever is welcomed at the service is sent to a small group.
Does the Sunday visitor leave knowing that a leader will get in touch during the week?
The group is the door into everything else the church does.
When someone asks to serve, to get married or to be counselled, is the first thing they are asked which small group they are in?
Absence is noticed inside the group, where people know each other by name.
When someone starts missing services, is the leader of that person's group the first to notice?
Everyone in the room is free to speak, ask and disagree. A prayer group, a Bible study or a support group happens, but as the exception.
In the groups you visited this year, were the people free to speak, rather than sitting through a service in miniature?
The weekly outline is written by the church, sent out ahead of time, and it talks to what is preached on Sunday.
If you ask three leaders what they are teaching at the next meeting, do all three say the same thing?
He leads a group, and when he does not lead one, he is a regular part of one.
Does your senior pastor lead or take part in a small group?
The whole pastoral team holds up the groups, rather than one person being in charge of them.
Besides the senior pastor, do the other pastors of your church lead or supervise a small group?
Every level of supervision cares for the leaders of the level below, and nobody is left without someone.
If you ask a supervisor who walks with him, does he know the answer?
Almost every course has a beginning and an end, and how to move forward is clear and known to everyone.
Do the people of your church know clearly how the courses work and how to move forward?
The church calendar is always planned so as not to clash with the small group meetings.
When the church sets its events, is there care not to get in the way of the small groups?
The report shows what the visit cannot reach, and it is how the pastor sees a hundred groups he has no way of visiting.
Can you tell, from the reports, which groups have gone more than a month without a supervision visit?
Most new groups are born from inside another group, through multiplication or by sending out a leader trained there.
In the past year, were most of the new groups born from people who were already in a small group?
What comes below is a leaning, not a verdict. Neither of the two models is the right one, and choosing to have small groups as a ministry is a legitimate decision, made by people who know their own church.
The question that counts is another one: does the result match the vision you have for your church? If you call it a small-group church and the answers point the other way, that is where there is something to look at. And it works the other way round too.
Does a church with small groups have to become a small-group church?
No. There are churches that choose to have small groups as a ministry, and it is a legitimate choice, made by people who know their own church. What does not work is expecting from a ministry what only a structure delivers, and asking a leader for a multiplication nobody designed.
A small group that is part of a ministry has to deliver what the vision of that ministry asks of it. Who decides what is asked is the leader of that ministry, and nobody else.
In a small-group church, the small group is what the life of the church runs through, and what is needed is not only to evangelise and care for people. It is in the group that the next leader is formed, and that is how the next group is born.
Pastor Samyr Trad, of Igreja Batista Central in Belo Horizonte, said on our podcast that the small group is the first and main place where leaders are formed. The original is in Portuguese, and the translation is ours:
“The small group leader should have as his greatest aim not merely to multiply his group, but to multiply himself, in another person.”
Multiplication is not the end of the line, it is a natural cycle.
What to do now
The next step is the same for pastor, supervisor and leader, and nobody can take it for you. Reflect on what you felt reading this, and take it before God.
Reflect on whether the vision God gave you is what is happening in practice.
If it is not, that is the direction your church needs to walk in, and the next step comes from the one who gave you the vision.
Reflect on what you have been passing on to your leaders: is it the vision of your church, or what you understood of it?
If the two do not match, the ones who feel it first are the leaders, and perhaps that is what you have to take before God.
Reflect on whether what you believe is what you live in that group.
When the two stay in conflict, the question stops being about the model of your church and becomes another one: is this the community where you should exercise your ministry? The answer does not depend on it being a small-group church or a church with small groups, and it comes from the one who called you.
A small group as a programme fits into the calendar. A small group as the structure changes the life of the church.
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References
(2024). A Church with Cells and a Cell Church. Excerpt from Reap the Harvest, published on the Joel Comiskey Group site on June 9, 2024. Read it open access
(2018). Training cell group leaders. célula.in podcast, in Portuguese. Listen to the episode open access
Should your church build an app? célula.in podcast, in Portuguese. Listen to the episode open access
Multiplying a youth network. célula.in podcast, in Portuguese. Listen to the episode open access
This article is revised whenever a fact or a practice it cites changes. When that happens, the revision date appears next to the publication date.