“The main way to plug into the church is to plug into the church—the whole church. For years we took on the role of matchmaker. But the role of church leaders is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry (Eph. 4:11–13). As we embrace our call, by God’s grace and his Holy Spirit, we trust that meaningful relationships will blossom along the way.”

This fall we did something that will seem crazy to many. We moved from a small group model to a Sunday school model (under a different name).

Most church-growth material over the past 20 years would advise against this move. We are a young, growing, contemporary church. Why would we make that change?

1. To Grow in Biblical Knowledge

The average committed evangelical today goes to church twice a month. Many churches don’t have an evening service, so that means only two times a month people are being taught the Bible. Couldn’t they just open a book? Yes, but most don’t.

Small groups are rarely times of Bible teaching, but Sunday school is. Small group leaders prepare for about 10 minutes, while Sunday school teachers study and prepare all week. In early September, we replaced discussion groups about the sermons (which tend to happen naturally) with classes like Christian Essentials, Engaging the World, Church History, Systematic Theology, Old Testament, New Testament, Marriage, Parenting, Unity and Diversity, and more. We adapted these from the Core Seminars at Capitol Hill Baptist Church.

2. To Develop Teachers

We have added 14 people to the Sunday teaching rotation. They have been trained, equipped, and developed. As the church grows, more tracks will be added, and more teachers will be developed. Our small group leaders were trained in small group facilitation dynamics (a much harder task), but not Bible teaching.

What about the organizational strain of developing teachers? It requires no more effort than identifying and training small group leaders. In some ways, it’s easier. The curriculum already exists. No homes need to be identified, advertised, cleaned, and opened. We do no matchmaking. We are using a time already occupied in their schedule. On top of all that, children’s Sunday school removes the burden of what to do with the kids.

3. To Foster Deeper Community

This one sounds counterintuitive, doesn’t it? But any small group that thrived was predictably homogenous. We also saw there were as many people meeting in small groups organically as were organized institutionally. This means the thriving homogenous groups would likely be meeting in some form anyway. They don’t need to be organized. Small groups aren’t going away; they’re going on the free market. People now have an extra evening each week to pursue the relationships they feel called to pursue, both Christian and otherwise.

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