The trip to Bangladesh consisted of 47 hours of flight. Needless to say, I had plenty of time to dig into some great books in order to grow in ministry. One particular area that I was hoping to do some research into was in the area of small groups.
A little more than a year ago, I attended a webinar hosted by Larry Osborne that surrounded the topic of his new book at the time, Sticky Church, and I was blown away by the great information. So when I began to study small groups, it was on the top of my to-do list.
In Sticky Church, Osborne explains that it simply doesn’t matter how many people come through the front door of the church, if there isn’t strategy to keep them from walking out of the back door. This insight occurred to him when he decided to stop trying to grow the church by widening the front door, and tried instead to close the backdoor.
According to Osborne, the most effective way of keeping the back door shut (thus increasing the church’s “sticky” factor) is sermon-based small groups. In these small groups, there is a very simple goal: to velcro people to “the two things they will need most: the Bible and other Christians.”
I love this idea, and we’re already in the first-stages of implementing sermon-based groups as part of the overall strategy at Crossroads. I can’t wait to see what God does in and through our church as we slam the back door of the church shut, and effectively minister to and serve those whom God brings our way.
