Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Ed Stetzer: Ways to Grow Your Group (Part 1): Five Ways to Connect with Disconnected People


Smaller groups are essential in reaching out to disconnected people in our churches.

One of the higher priorities for the church in recent years has become assimilation, and rightful so. The days are gone when people would find the nearest church and commit immediately—more people are secular and are not looking to jump in to a church and more Christians are cautious in their involvement. If people visit your church, however, they are probably looking to connect in some way, regarless of their spiritual condition. If they don't, they won't be around long.

So, this article is intended to help you find ways to connect with people who visit your church but are not connected in community. In a later article, I will deal with connect (via groups) with people in your community.

Simply put, you need to find opportunities to connect with disconnected people that attend the church gathering. People need to be assimilated into the church fairly quickly. It has been said that if people do not get plugged into some meaningful community within six months of their attending a church, they almost always drop out. In some cases, that may look more like six weeks.

On the other hand, if they are successfully connected (or "assimilated"), they are probably going to stick. This opens up doors for evangelism, discipleship and spiritual growth for not only with those people and their family, but also their extended family and friends. Keep reading

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