Replicate Round Up for September 11th, 2015

How well does your church disciple believers? If you’re like most church leaders, you probably feel like you don’t do it as well as you’d like to. This is especially true for small churches. You’ve looked through curriculum, maybe even tried some of the highly-recommended programs that have worked well in the big churches you admire. But for most small churches, they don’t seem to work. They haven’t worked in my church either. That’s why we stopped using them. Why didn’t they work for us? Because curriculum is not the best way to disciple people. No, using curriculum isn’t bad. There’s some great curriculum out there and I’m grateful for every believer and every church that has been helped by it.

Every small group should have all three elements of the purpose and function of groups, but one element will be predominant based on the overall discipleship strategy of the church. And that’s the sweet spot. Transformational small groups that are going to serve the church well are going to flow out of the church’s strategy for discipleship and mission. And they are going to be most effective when they augment, rather than duplicate the weekend services.