The Saddleback Small Group Story

An Interview with Brett Eastman, Former Small Group Champion Saddleback Church

• So Brett you landed at Saddleback Church after serving as the small group champion at Willow Creek for 5 years, how did it all begin?

I can remember it like it was yesterday. I was only on staff at Saddleback Church for a few weeks and Rick told me he reserved seats for over 800 men on 7 different 747’s headed for Washington, DC for the Promise Keeper Event. I had the bright idea of suggesting we recruit leaders from some of the existing men’s groups to launch a few more men’s groups from the 800+ men going to the event. Over 300 men said they wanted to join a group and I had a half dozen men to lead them…the story of a small group pastors life.

I showed up Saturday morning along with everyone else to get into a group and I had a momentary (some would say that’s typical) loss of my memory capacity and I tied something that has affectionately come to be called the “Small Group Connection” process. People gather into pairs, then fours, and then groups of eight in respective geographical areas according to where they live. The process simply allows people to traverse down a spiral of questions and the group moves from icebreaker like questions into deeper spiritual conversation. This allows them to discern the relative spiritual shepherd (not leader) in the circle.

This model follows the Acts 6 example where the disciples encouraged the people “select amongst this church” 7 people to serve tables. We would never tell them that Stephen was later raised up and died a brutal death…Just thought that was too much detail. Read more