75% of Mountain Lake Church's adults are active in small groups and 80% active in ministry. In this workshop, Shawn will discuss the simple steps and systems his church has had in place since the beginning that have allowed it to connect people quickly and break through various growth barriers. Do you need a breakthrough?
We stumbled on some simple systems.
Transferrable to all sizes.
Enjoy the meat and spit out the bones. Some of it Eyou’ll take and some you’ll leave depending on your culture.
Great Commission
To create simple systems that work, we must redefine discipleship.
At first, we created systems to assimilate people. But I couldn’t find that in the gospel. Assimilating people is a good strategy for building an organization but discipleship is the strategy of building a church.
Not only do non-Christians need to be saved, today many Christians do as well. We need to disciple people, we do not need more bound Bible studies, Christian aerobics, etc.
Have you asked the question – what does a follower of Jesus look like?
Someone who goes to church and is a good person. In NT, who did this describe? Pharisees.
Think Fruit not Meat. Don’t go for depth or knowledge or information. It’s not who “hears these words of mine”, but who “puts them into practice.”
Measure results not activity or assimilation.
75% of adults are active in small groups on a weekly basis.
80% of adults are actively serving in ministry.
250 people sent around the world.
To redefine discipleship, we need to think processes and not programs. And think long-term process.
With limited time, what do we want people to do.
Alan Hirsch says, I’m not against attractional churches. I’m against extractional churches – churches that keep their people so busy that they don’t have any time to be “on mission.”
Mountain Lake Church - we don’t have a men’s ministry, women’s ministry, we don’t have activities at our church during the week. No daily Bible studies or anything during the week that people sign up for. We don’t have programs and activities.
All we do in our church - Worship Service, Small Groups, Volunteerism
We do these things well.
Our calendars don’t compete with these three things so we’re able to get higher percentages of people involved. Jesus focused on people and process and not programs.
Think cyclical not linear.
Stopped calling missions program “missions” and started calling it our World Care program. We stopped the interview, testimony for mission trip and saw more and more people going and started baptizing 30% of the trip participants on the trips.
Lowered the bar for entry into ministry/volunteerism. Take out the pharisaical hedges. You don’t have to be a member or a Christian to serve. (Mountain Lake has two lesbians who hand out worship programs.) However, we don’t let anyone lead or teach that isn’t a Christ follower.
Within weeks of their first attendance, we connect people into service at Mountain Lake.
Mountain Lake Church - A place to belong and a place to become
Unchurched guests are not initially interested in becoming a member, they are interested to your story, what you believe, how your structured, and how they can be a part of it.
We’ve learned that to rethink discipleship, we need to qualify the unqualified. Roughly 75% of their small group leaders had never led a spiritual discussion before or often even prayed in public before. Often the first time they led their group is the first time they did those things.
Do we think that the disciples or Mary Magdalene were all cleaned up before Jesus started using them?
One of the best ways we disciple people in our church is to place them in leadership, then hold them accountable and coach them.
Think clear, simple steps.
Moving people from front door or worship service into groups and into volunteerism.
Moving people to leadership from membership.
Communication card is a clear simple way that people take all of these steps. (giving, baptism, small groups, volunteerism, welcome class)
We contact people within 48 hours of sign ups.
Ministry connection class – Explore Volunteering
About 60% of people that sign-up, show up.
We know that we’ve got to connect people to relationships and responsibility as quickly as possible.
If we can do this within 60 days, we’ve got them.
Similar process with small groups.
Starts with the guy at the top. The guy at the top has to be the primary groups spokesperson.
3-4 week blocks of time for group launch. Get in a life group for two weeks.
For two weeks, 6:45-8:15 every night. Have them meet there at that time on that night for 2 weeks and then move to a host home.
Preferred night, contact info, age, kids ages, life-station group you’d like to be in,
Facilitator - They don’t do apprenticeships. Instead, they cut the head off the monster. We want the best leaders to launch the new groups. We go for the leaders of existing groups to start new groups. Then the second leader will step into the leadership role for the previous group. (Typically, the person who the leader looks to in their absence.) Message based group discussions.
Host home – that first night, announce that we’ll need someone to host the group. 99% of the time a new person steps up to host.
Social coordinator – coordinate food and any other social type stuff that the group wants to do.
Get off the couch coordinator – keeps serving on the radar and every month or so serve somewhere as a group
Childcare – line up childcare. Couples can rotate childcare or hire a sitter. Charge $3 per child or $6 max per family.
Group members evaluate the groups. Tell what they like, don’t like, like to stay in that group, try a new group, etc. Turn into host home, compiled and feedback given to leader/facilitator.
Every Wed. morning the preacher and two staff sit down and write discussion questions based on where message is heading. You could know nothing about the Bible and get enough information in the prepared materials to lead the discussion.
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