I’ve heard soccer called “The World’s Game.” I’ve been around enough soccer enthusiasts to hear them rant and rave about the superiority of the sport. They say things like, “It takes such great skill and strategy! It’s the most beautiful game because it combines both strength and finesse!”

I can still remember my first pee-wee game. The game primarily consisted of twenty-two six year olds chasing a ball in circles around a field for thirty minutes. There was no strategy in this game! There was no finesse! None of us really knew what winning was. We didn’t know about having strategy and scoring goals. We just wanted to kick the ball and get a juice box! It wasn’t until a year or two later, that I learned what the actual goal of the game was.

In working with LifeGroups at our church for quite a while now, one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned in small group ministry is that you have to know what the win is. You have to know what success for a small group really means. In his book, The 7 Practices of Effective Ministry, Andy Stanley calls defining the win as, “communicating to your team what is really important and what really matters.” Too often, I’ve found that small group leaders, directors, and pastors don’t always know what their goal is in small group ministry. When it comes to the church, we can’t be like six year olds on the soccer field; we have to know what we’re striving for.

A few weeks ago I grabbed coffee with a couple of LifeGroup leaders from our church. From the look on their faces, it was clear that they were quite discouraged. They had that anxious look about them that says, I really don’t want to tell him this, but I’ve got to because I just don’t know what else to do.
With their eyes glancing back and forth between me and the floor, one of them spoke up: “Bailey, we just don’t know what we’re doing wrong! We’ve been doing everything in our power for our group to be successful, but nothing helps. We do our best to pour into our people and lead well prepared group times, but our folks just don’t seem to be committed. It seems like every week a different one of them has something going on and needs to miss our group time. We feel like our group is a failure. What should we do?”

The more I’ve been around small group ministry, the more I’ve realized how common this particular discouragement arises. Because the group meeting time is such a clear responsibility for the group leader, a direct correlation is inevitably made in their minds between the success of group time and the success of the group. The two, in many cases, become synonymous.

I’ll admit the issue isn’t necessarily an incorrect notion. There is definitely some justification behind the idea. If time together isn’t a priority for the group then they aren’t much of a group. A small group is built on relationships. If those relationships fail so does the group. In marriage, if a husband and wife never spend time together, their relationship will suffer. They will grow apart and begin to resent one another. The opportunity for sin and other issues to come between them will grow exponentially. It’s the same for a small group. If they never spend time together, the health of the group will suffer similar consequences. However, just because people spend time together doesn’t mean their relationship is healthy either. If you’re a small group leader, director, or pastor, determining the success of a group based solely on group time attendance, in my opinion, isn’t the best idea.

The Bible teaches us that the goal of the church community is much deeper than that. If the purpose of their group is simply to provide time for people to hang out under the guise of “biblical community,” then, in the situation of my leaders, they are right; their group is failing. However, in light of the church we see in Acts 2:42-47, we see that the purpose behind biblical community encompasses time spent together, but goes a great deal further. This text reveals a group of individuals whose lives have been radically altered by Christ and who now live intimately connected with one another in pursuit of knowing their Savior and becoming more like Him. They are a group of people intent on growing as disciples of their Lord. They are devoted to learning about Jesus and gaining wisdom, praying, sharing meals, serving, and, yes, spending time hanging out together too!

This is where we should find the purpose for our small groups. This is how we should define the win. Small groups aren’t just about getting together once a week. They are about our growth as disciples. They exist as tools to help us grow closer to knowing and becoming more like Jesus… with each other. Understanding this dramatically changes the way we determine whether or not our group is successful. In the Gospels, whether or not the disciples showed up every day didn’t seem to concern Jesus, but rather He was concerned with whether they knew Him and followed Him. The question ceases to be, “Is everyone coming to every group time?” and becomes, “Is our group looking more like Jesus?”

I smiled a little as I sat across from these two leaders. Knowing that our LifeGroup leaders are truly concerned with their groups always warms my heart. But, I also smiled because even though they thought they were failing, in reality I knew their group was succeeding. “Tell me a little bit about your group members,” I said to them. They replied, “Well, there’s… who is getting ready to lead a LifeGroup of their own… and then there is… who has been preoccupied with community missions… and then there is… who has had a really busy school schedule, and is trying to become an EMT, and on top of has all the volunteer stuff with Midtown she does…”

Granted, there were some people they mentioned who definitely weren’t growing. Their lack of commitment to the group’s time together was, actually, an indicator of this. However, it was evident that the majority of their group were developing as sincere followers of Christ. They may have needed to learn how to better schedule their time, but as a whole, the group was absolutely succeeding. They were giving their lives to what Jesus was doing in and outside of the church. They were looking more and more like Jesus!

Should we put a lot of thought and care into our group times? Absolutely. Should we desire and urge our people to be committed to our time together? Absolutely. Can commitment to group time be indicative of health? Absolutely. But, does this mean success? Absolutely not.

If we’re getting a bunch of people to sit around together one night a week, but we’re not seeing them grow closer to Jesus and live lives that reflect who He is, we’re just like six year olds on the soccer field. We’re not about kicking a ball around for thirty minutes, we’re about winning the game. Jesus said it plainly in Matthew 28.19-20, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you…” Disciples are our win, nothing less.