An activity for a small group with few people is a different problem, not a smaller version of the same one. With four or five people you cannot split into teams, you cannot vote, and nobody can hide behind the group. The six below were made for that size, with the time and the materials of each one.
Preparation
Set up the circle with one chair to spare, without explaining why. Let them notice.
How it goes
When someone asks about the empty chair, or once everyone has sat down, explain that it stands for those who stayed in the other group. Ask each person to say one thing they learned from someone who is no longer there. Start yourself, to set the length and the tone.
Wrap-up
The group got smaller in size, not in history. What those people taught is still sitting there, in each one.
Passage
In the story of the banquet, the servant comes back and tells the master he did everything he was told, and adds: “there is still room”. The master answers by sending him out again to the roads so that the house will be full (Luke 14:22-23, NIV). The empty chair is the “there is still room”.
Closing
A moment of prayer. Each person prays for a friend, by name, asking God to prepare their heart for when the invitation comes. The chair stops being the chair of the one who left and becomes the chair of the one still to sit in it.
Preparation
Write one podcast role on each slip of paper, nothing else. Prepare one slip more than the number of people present.
Host. Co-host. The one who welcomes the guest. Researcher, who picks the topic and prepares the questions. Sound and music. Producer, who sorts out whatever is missing. Editor, who cuts what is left over and keeps the time. The one who promotes it and brings in the audience.
How it goes
Say the group is going to put together a podcast. Spread the slips on the table and read the roles out loud.
The question is not who wants to. It is who here has the profile for each one. And nobody nominates themselves: each person is nominated by the others. Lines will come up like “Leo has to be the host, he can talk to anyone” and “Duda is the producer, she remembers everything”. Let them argue, that is the activity happening.
When every role has a name, put the slip in front of the person chosen.
Wrap-up
Now turn it around. Say the podcast already exists and that it happens every Thursday night. Go role by role, without using any title:
Nobody handed the group any roles. The group recognised on its own what each person already is, and only then found out it had a name.
Passage
Jethro watches Moses judging the people alone, from morning till evening, and says it cannot stand: “You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone.” The way out he gives is to share the load among officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens (Exodus 18:17-18 and 21-22, NIV).
It is the oldest text there is on delegating, and almost nobody uses it in a small group activity.
Closing
A moment of prayer, each one for the role the others saw in them. Then ask, without demanding an answer right away: who is up for taking on their role at the next meeting? Whoever says no keeps the slip in hand, and nobody insists.
And the slip left over is not filled. It stays on the table, next to the empty chair from the previous activity, waiting for whoever is still to come.
How it goes
Say the group has just moved house. Everyone used to live in the same house, and now lives in this one.
Each person writes on a sheet two things they want to bring from the old house and one box they want to leave in the truck unopened. Agree beforehand, out loud, that a box is a habit of the meeting and never a person. Read every sheet. Choose together two things that stay and one that does not come.
Wrap-up
Moving house is not starting from scratch, it is choosing what fits. And what the group decides to leave says as much about it as what it decides to bring.
Passage
Crossing the Jordan, the people take twelve stones from the riverbed and carry them to the other side, on purpose, so that in the future, when the children ask “What do these stones mean?”, someone has something to tell (Joshua 4:6-7, NIV).
They did not carry the river. They carried twelve chosen stones.
Closing
A moment of prayer for the old house, naming those who stayed there. Write the two things that came on a sheet and hang it where the group meets. It is this group's first agreement, and the leader did not make it.
How it goes
With a large group, each person answers one question and time runs out. With five, there is room for two. Ask a light question and, in the same round, one that asks a little more. For example: what was the best thing about your week, and what was the hardest. Each person answers both before passing the turn.
Wrap-up
Almost every conversation in our week stops at the first answer. Someone asks how you are, you say everything is fine, and both move on. The second question is what separates knowing a person from knowing their name. And it costs no money and no preparation, only the willingness to stay one more minute listening.
Passage
Bartimaeus sits by the roadside, blind, shouting for mercy. Jesus has him called over and asks a question that seems completely unnecessary: “What do you want me to do for you?” (Mark 10:51, NIV).
It was obvious. He asked anyway. And the answer that came was the man's, not the diagnosis everyone around had already made for him.
Closing
A moment of prayer in which nobody prays for themselves. Each person prays for their neighbour's second answer, the hard one, using the words the person used.
Why this activity works
A large group has no time for the second question, which is why most leaders have never asked one. With five people there is time to spare. Do not spend the whole round trying to liven up the group, because the meeting happens in the second answer.
How it goes
Ask each person to write five names of people they spend time with who are not in any small group. Nobody has to show the list. Then ask each person to pick one name from their own list and tell the group why that person came to mind.
Wrap-up
Nobody's task is to convince anyone. The task of the evening was to remember that people exist and to put a name in someone else's mouth.
Passage
Philip finds Nathanael and calls him. Nathanael answers with disdain: “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”. Philip does not argue, does not reason and does not defend anyone. He only answers: “Come and see” (John 1:45-46, NIV).
His task was not to convince.
Closing
A moment of prayer in which each person chooses which of the names they heard they want to pray for, and says in one sentence why they chose that one before starting to pray.
Two rules, said beforehand: nobody chooses their own name, and each name gets one prayer only. That way no name is left without anyone.
Whoever chooses last will have almost no options, and there is no way around that. Say out loud that this is how it is, so the last person does not feel they got the leftovers. And if, by chance, only their own name is left, they swap with someone who chose earlier. It takes five seconds and the group laughs.
Start the choosing with a different person each time you run this activity, so it is not always the same one with no choice.
During the week two things happen. Each person sends a message to the name they brought, with no invitation, just asking how the person is. And each person asks the member they prayed for whether they have spoken to their person yet.
Nobody chases anyone, and still everyone is remembered.
Why this activity works
The reason for the choice usually says more about the one who chose than about the one chosen. Someone says “I chose Bia's friend because I also have a brother who stopped coming”, and the group has just found out something important about that person without anyone having asked them anything.
That is why the reason is said before the prayer, and not after.
The challenge
During the week, remind the group once only, in the message group, without demanding an answer and without naming anyone. One line is enough: who has already sent a message to the name they prayed for?
Reminding is the job of the one leading. Chasing is what makes the group stop answering.
How it goes
One rule, said before starting: only what you admire in the person goes in. And nobody corrects what was said about them, nor answers on the spot.
Ask the group: if someone came here just once, and later somebody asked them what each of us is like, what would they answer?
Each person answers about the person on their left, in one sentence, the way the visitor would say it. “He is the one who makes everyone laugh.” “She is the one who organises everything.” “He is the one who arrives and already asks how you are.” On a video call, the one leading gives the order of the pairs.
When the circle closes, turn it around. Say something like this: you have just heard how you come across in here. Now the question is inward, and nobody has to answer out loud: is what they said about you really you, or is it the part you play in this room?
Give a real minute of silence. Then, whoever wants to speaks. Whoever does not, does not, and the one leading does not insist nor stares at anyone waiting.
Wrap-up
Almost everyone plays a part in some group. Not because they are fake, but because that is how they found a place in there. Playing a part is not the problem. The problem is when it gets so comfortable that you can no longer show up any other way, not even on the day you badly need to.
Passage
In Antioch, Peter used to eat with the Gentiles. When some men arrived from Jerusalem, he drew back and began to eat separately, afraid of what they would think of him. Paul confronts him and calls it hypocrisy (Galatians 2:11-13, NIV).
The word used there, in the original, is the word for a stage actor: someone who plays a part before an audience. Peter did not change his conviction. He changed his audience.
One caveat for the one leading: in the text the confrontation is public, and in this activity it is not, on purpose. The passage shows the problem, not the method.
Closing
A moment of prayer. Each person prays for the person they described, giving thanks out loud for the thing they saw in them. And asks, in silence and without telling anyone, for one thing they would like to manage to be in this group beyond the part they play.
Why this activity works
Two things hold this activity up.
The first is the rule of only saying what you admire. “He is very serious”, said out loud about someone who already feels left out, hurts, and it is the same mistake as sticking a label on a person's forehead. And the turn works just as well or better with a good description: everyone thinks you are the funny one, but are you funny, or is that what you do here so you do not have to be anything else?
The second is that the turn is an inward question. Admitting out loud that you play a part is a confession, and a confession forced out in front of twelve people is the opposite of care.
The challenge
Nobody drops a part inside a circle of twelve people. They drop it in a conversation between two.
So make the invitation once, without insisting and without calling anyone by name: whoever recognised in themselves a side that shows up outside here, or in hard times, and that this group does not know, sets up a conversation. With you, or with another person in the group they choose themselves.
Three things hold that invitation up.
And one thing has to be clear before you open that door. Something may come up in that conversation that you are not prepared to carry alone. When it does, tell the person right then, frankly, and go together with them to whoever looks after you in the church. Never behind their back.
Three things change, and the first is the one that gets in the way the most.
Half of the activities out there assume twelve people. They ask for two teams, a vote, someone left out watching. With five, they simply do not run.
There is time to spare. In a circle of twelve, each person speaks once and the evening is over. With five, there is room for the second question, and that is almost always where the real conversation starts.
And if the group got small because it multiplied, there is a layer nobody deals with: half the people there have just been separated from people they loved. Ignoring that and opening with a lively game is the fastest way for the evening not to work. On that phase, the podcast episode on small group multiplication is worth a listen.
The same activity builds closeness in one group and hurts in another. What decides is not the size and not the age of the group. A three-year-old group may have people who have never talked outside the meeting, and a newly multiplied one may have five people who have been through a lot together.
There are visitors, and there are people who do not know each other's last name. Here the ordinary is what protects: a light question, a short answer, nobody exposed. On this page, activities 1 and 5.
People know each other and seek each other out outside the meeting. A personal question works, and the group can take an activity that asks a little more of each one. Not confrontation yet. On this page, activities 2, 3 and 4.
They have been through things together. They can bear discomfort on purpose, emotional impact and a question that stings. On this page, activity 6.
Almost every leader overestimates their own group, and for a specific reason: they know everyone, so they assume everyone knows each other. They talk to each person during the week and project that onto the room.
Three questions settle it in thirty seconds, and none of them asks you to assess anyone's spirituality.
Any one that does not depend on splitting the group into teams or on someone being left out watching. With four or five people, the ones that go one by one, the ones that use an object in hand and the ones that make each person speak about another work well. The six on this page were chosen for that.
Getting smaller after multiplying is arithmetic, not a symptom. The number does not say whether the group is doing well. What does is whether people are being cared for and whether someone new is taking on part of the meeting. A group of five with four people involved is healthier than one of thirty with only one.
Three are enough for most. What changes with a small group is not whether it is possible, but the kind: competition between teams goes away and conversation comes in. With few people nobody passes their turn unnoticed, so it is worth agreeing beforehand that whoever does not want to answer can say they pass.
Most of the good ones use no materials at all. A well-chosen question, an object someone already has in their pocket, whatever is on the table or the group's own silence carry the evening. On this page, two of the six ask for nothing, and the others ask for paper and a pen.