IS YOUR CHURCH STICKY?

“If the back of a church is left wide open, it doesn’t matter how many people are coaxed to come in the front door – or the side door, for that matter. Yet most churches give the back door scant attention.” With those words, Larry Osborne opens his book Sticky Church.

Osborne seeks to help churches deal with the problem of keeping people from leaving through the back door. He says, “Our churches need to be stickier,” and “stickier churches are healthier churches.” In helping churches strategize how to keep people, he also offers them a solution to the puzzling problem of what kind of small groups will be most effective in the church.

There are a variety of options available for small group programs. Some churches use them for evangelism, having the small groups split after a group reaches a certain size. The idea is for people to invite their non-Christian friends into the group. Other churches form them by geographical area. Still others form them to meet a variety of needs where people who have the same need in their lives form a group.

Osborne’s approach comes out of his experience as pastor at North Coast Community Church in northern San Diego County and through consulting with other churches in this area. At North Coast, they began their approach to small groups in 1985. Since then, they have had at least 80 percent of their average adult weekly attendance participating in one of their small groups. Not only that, they only count attendees in groups that meet under the umbrella of their small group ministry. Like any church, they have people who meet in many other settings, but they do not count them in their small group count. When I read about this record of success, I thought that this is an approach to small groups and to closing the back door of the church that we need to learn from.

North Coast’s small group philosophy is really quite simple: they use sermon-based small groups. They run three sessions of small groups a year. The first session begins in mid-September and goes until just before Christmas; the second session begins just after the start of the new year and continues until Easter; the third session begins two weeks after Easter and ends right before school lets out. Any church may have to modify the schedule to fit their circumstance, but their approach is a starting point. Osborne gives a significant amount of detail as to how they organize their sign-ups and manage their training and leadership for the groups.

A key component of the book is the two chapters on what sermon-based small groups do for sermons. One chapter is titled “Making the Message Memorable.” Osborne discusses how people will give increased attentiveness to the message when they are going to have a small group discussion about it. They will also increase their note taking during the message and will review their notes and discuss the message both in anticipation of their small group and in the group itself. All of this discussion helps people move beyond mere exposure to the theme of the message to actual knowledge and application of the message. Since people are discussing the sermons, leadership is able to keep the entire church focused and headed in the same direction. The message also reaches more people, because those who did not hear the message are more likely to get a CD or download it.

Another chapter is titled “Making the Message Accessible.” Marginally interested people are more likely to give attention to the message when, for any reason, they decide to attend a small group. Osborne has also found that they move new believers more easily into the mainstream of the church because the groups are a less intimidating place to learn for those who lack a spiritual or biblical background.

That just gives you a taste of what Sticky Church offers in the way of a method of developing small groups that will close the back door of your church. I have not implemented this approach yet, but am moving the congregation I serve in the direction of eventually doing so. I encourage you to give such an approach consideration.