Join us for a FREE live conference call on Exponential Fall: Maximizing Your Fall Connections with Brett Eastman the founder of Lifetogether and small group strategist. You will be joined by dozens of other pastors and church leaders from across the country. Register today for our next Free Exponential Fall Conference. Click here to reserve your spot today. All churches who attend this conference will be eligable to attend a FREE Group or Private Consultation with Brett Eastman in the weeks following. Maximizing your connections this Fall could transform your church in just a few weeks.
Exponential Fall
Maximizing Your Fall Connections
Every Pastor dreams of reaching and retaining more people during the Fall season more than any other time of the year. Most Pastors think “If only I could retain a small percentage of those who attend our church this fall they would be thrilled to discover new ways on how to maximize their connections this fall. This fall would be a gift to their team."
Each year Pastors get their hopes up only to experience a typical trend. The attendance goes up for a few weeks and the attendance goes down just a few weeks later. Fall has become known as a time of rising and falling but rarely a time of retaining and sustaining beyond the opening series.
Does it always have to be this way? How are other churches making that work? How do you maintain the impact of any Fall series?
The following is a 6 step strategy on how to maximize your fall connections not only till the end of the year but into the New Year as well. The six step strategy is as follows:
1. Make It A Two Step Strategy
One simple thing you can do to maximize your connections this Fall is to link your Fall sermon series with a Winter series. I don’t mean just on the weekend but in the Small Groups as well. Have companion Small Group Curriculum that compliments your study series. This will help retain 30+ % of the existing group members and help to assimilate another 20-30% more.
You can start anytime after your Fall series but you can use Fall as a catalyst for the sermon/small group series that follows. This was one of the lessons of "churchwide alignment." The strategy is a small group factory. Challenging people to sign up this Fall for a kick off series is huge. Following it up with another series is critical. It’s as simple as two steps put together at the same time.
Then all you have to do is hand out their Small Group Kits (DVD/10 study guides) and they will pay you when they pick up their materials. We recommend ordering a Small Group Starter Kit with the DVD and study guide for each of your Leaders as a gift to ensure they study the companion Small Group Series. Remember it’s not one but two steps.
2. Host A Small Group Campaign At Your Church
Most churches have either hosted or heard about the Purpose Driven Life: 40 Days of Purpose church wide campaign. The impact was big but for some the cost and complexity outweighed the impact. The financial outlay for resources was significant. A small group campaign receives 20% of the energy and expense but offers 50-75% of the impact.
Again, what yiou have to do is encourage people to pre-order the material at the weekend services through Group Leaders so it doesn’t cost so much out of pocket for the church. Have your congregation pre-register for the series and then order your resources. This way you can focus on the impact and not the income. Small Group Campaigns is simple alignment. Finally, it requires the minimum investment of time for the maximum impact.
3. Encourage Each One To Host One
40 Day Campaigns introduced a new model for starting new groups. It simply shifted the focus off recruiting members and put it on recruiting leaders. The approach was more effective than traditional models of multiplying groups, training leaders and mentoring existing leaders. This approach only harvested a few leaders. People just have to have a “Heart for God”, willingness to open their homes, serve some refreshments and turn on the DVD. It as easy as that!
This can revolutionize your Fall as you know it. Better yet, create a boost not only for your Fall season but your entire year. If you find one host you can connect 10 people on average but if you focus on recruiting 10 members who will host a group, now you have 100 people connected. Now that's what I call "Maximizing Your Connections This Fall." That's the equivalent of connecting 100% of most congregations this Fall. At Saddleback Church alone this accounted for over 5,000 new leaders over the last 10 years. Then all you have to do is order one Small Group Starter Kit for the leaders and hand out a pre-order form for the study guides for each leader. No mess, no fuss.
Many people ask me “So what do you do and when”? It’s not always easy to say, depending on the Pastor, staff and stage of the ministry. However, your first task before God is to discern not only where you are going this Fall but what are you going to study in your groups. This may be counter intuitive but first you decide on a purpose (fellowship, discipleship, etc.) and a felt need topic like spiritual maturity, relationships, finding purpose, etc… Then select your curriculum and it will anchor all the other decisions from your sermons to your music. Knowing where you’re going and what purpose you are studying makes everything else easy from there. Lifetogether has 12 different individual studies reviewing each of the 5 purposes. Take a look and see which of the 12 DVD driven studies best suits your needs.
5. Consider Creating Your Own
Sometimes choosing a curriculum is harder that it looks. You’re not alone especially if you are a Pastor/Teacher. If you have done 40 Days of Purpose you know the power of DVD and video curriculum. It helps lead new groups and grows existing groups. But every church comes to a place where its "been there, done that." If that’s you then you may want to set up a call with one of our ministry consultants. We can help coach you through that difficult territory of video production and curriculum development. You may be surprised at what you can do with your own stuff. If you are interested, please complete the Doing Life Together Consultation Survey and we will get back to you right away.
You may know this but pray anyway. What does he ask you to pray? He tells us to pray the Father’s heart for sheep that are untended and unconnected. Pray His heart for the harvest where the fields are ripe for harvesting. This is just a good place to begin. The irony is many times I didn't see the harvest even when it was right in front of me.
Second, pray for workers (Small Group Hosts) to come forth from the harvest. They are sitting in the pews you just need to pray God's way. Tell them where you are going this Fall and remind them of God’s heart for people. Ask them to pray the heart of Jesus for the harvest and challenge them to join you for the next 6 weeks.
Then reassure them they don’t have to lead because the curriculum will. They just need to show up. Gift your new leaders with a free DVD and study guide. Lifetogether Starter Kit They will be thrilled and the group members will get their material on their own or through their leaders. Simply say, "Would you open your home for a few weeks for a few friends?" Only God has truly seen all that he has in for you and them. All we need to do is pray His prayer.
Some have asked, "Is it really that simple?" It really is. If you still don't believe us or wonder if you can do it on your own, we can help you with that as well. We are hosting private coaching opportunities for churches seeking help with their Fall Campaign, Curriculum Development and Building a Small Group Ministry. (For more information).
No matter how you do it, don't walk this road alone. Because in this case, as Pastor Rick Warren says, "We truly are Better Together."