Reproducing New Groups

http://pastors.crossmap.com/article/reproducing-new-groups/item221.htm

[The Pastor's Tool Box] 10 Jul 2006--What if it works? What if we invite every member and every prospect to every fellowship every month? What if we give Friday nights to Jesus and end up doubling our class in two years or less? Then we will be faced with one of the biggest problems known to adult education in churches: how to divide the class. (Because it is so offensive, we usually do not even use the word divide, we choose rather to use such phrases as "create new units" and the like.) I have known many Ministers of Education who have sacrificed their careers by trying to force classes to divide. I have seen situations in which classes grew to forty, divided, and turned into two classes of ten. Just recently I heard of a new Minister of Education coming to a large church and dividing many of the adult classes. The result was mass exodus. It seems that many would rather not be with the church at all than not be in the group of their choice. It remains to be seen how long it will be before the Minister of Education joins the exodus.