Chapter 4: 12 Tips on How to Lead a Sermon-Based Small Group

If you’re not involved in a mid-week Bible study group, you should be. If your church is so large that it’s difficult to be involved in genuine Christian fellowship at the public gathering on Sunday, or if the Lord’s Day is so crowded with other ministry activities, then you need to find another way to accomplish this. Mid-week gatherings are the way to go.

Often the only way to facilitate body-life and community is to join a small group. Your small group should be made up of people from your church so that you’re all being impacted by the same biblical truths, and overseen by shepherds who all have the same basic biblical convictions. That doesn’t mean that you’ll agree on everything, but it does mean that you have the same foundational theological convictions and are all contending for the same faith. It makes no sense to be doing regular Bible studies with a Roman Catholic or a Mormon who preaches “a different gospel, which is really not another” (Gal 1:6–7), believing this constitutes Christian fellowship. It doesn’t.

Some study groups have an evangelistic purpose and that’s fine, but that’s not what I am describing here. I am referring to Christians meeting with Christians for mutual edification. I don’t wish to undermine the need for evangelistic pursuits and I encourage you to do all you can to expose the lost to the gospel by loving unbelievers and spending time with them just as Jesus did. But in order to do this effectively, you need to be sure you’re both hearing and acting on God’s Word yourself in the context of biblical fellowship. In fact, to the extent that you are living the gospel yourself, your gospel ministry will be invigorated and biblically enabled.

Regarding the necessity of being involved in small fellowship groups, C. J. Mahaney writes,

[God] will of course use teachers of the word through sermons, books, and tapes. But he will also use the regular guy in your small group—and there’s the rub. We can ignore teachers, close books, and turn off tapes. When we do pay attention, we can conveniently misapply teachings. But the people closest to us, if they’re doing their job in fellowship, are not likely to let us ignore God’s urgings so easily.[1]

Some mid-week small groups choose to focus on an area of study that’s different to the subject of the Sunday sermon. Many of these studies are helpful, aid Christian growth, and facilitate Christian fellowship, but they don’t maximize the impact of a church-wide focus that the Sunday sermon brings. Rather than allowing that corporate focus to come and go without significant effect, we should mold our mid-week small group ministry around the shared sermon experience. It’s better to have a singular spiritual focus that is actually being fleshed out in practical personal application, than to have multiple spiritual inputs that don’t have the opportunity to affect real change.

Pastor Larry Osborne of North Coast Church in northern San Diego County introduced the church to sermon-based small groups. He and his elders made the decision that this would be the main ministry focus which would be promoted to the entire church even at the expense of some other long-established ministries. As a result of their purposeful efforts, 80 percent of the average weekend adult attendance are involved in sermon-based small groups. Osborne soon noticed the following benefits: increased attentiveness during the sermon, increased note-taking during the sermon, spirited discussion after the sermon, single-minded church-wide focus, and Bible knowledge that extended beyond mere familiarity.[2]

At Faith Bible Church, we have several sermon-based study groups that meet on weekday evenings to discuss and apply the previous Sunday’s sermon. The effectiveness of these groups is proven. The people involved in these groups want to maximize the outcomes of the corporate sermon event. They’re not willing to let the experience come and go without reflection and prayer. They want to challenge one another to apply the truths of the preached passage. They want to pray for and encourage one another in the process. It’s been an effective way to build community and facilitate body-life.

Colin Marshall writes,

In a sermon, the whole congregation can be challenged to make application in certain areas. In small groups, however, each member can think through personal applications in more detail. Struggles in applying the Bible can be shared and there is time for prayer for each other. Small groups can provide a sense of accountability where members help each other act upon decisions to change.[3]

Of course, it’s important to not let these sermon-based study groups devolve into preacher-critiques. You’re not there to talk about the pastor or the pros and cons of his preaching style. Rather, you’re there to discuss God’s Word and its effect on your life.

I suggest the following tips for undertaking a sermon-based small group.[4]

First, plan ahead. Before meeting with your group, read your sermon notes and reflect on your personal points of application. Remember what questions you had and make mental notes of how you might contribute to your group’s discussion. Pray ahead of time, asking the Lord to make your study group the most profitable time of fellowship ever.

Second, agree to meet in comfortable surroundings that promote easy discussion. Sit in a circle rather than in a classroom format. Make sure each person can have eye-contact with everyone else. Start with tea and coffee. The informal atmosphere will break down the nervous feelings that those who are not accustomed to such settings invariably experience. Do everything you can to make people feel comfortable and at ease. As the group gets to know each other more intimately, this will happen naturally.

Third, encourage everyone to be prompt. Time is as valuable to many people as money. If the group runs late (because of a late start), these people will feel as robbed as if you had picked their pockets. So, unless you have a mutual agreement, begin and end on time.

Fourth, ensure the group size doesn’t grow beyond a number that makes personal interaction impossible. If people feel like there was no opportunity to contribute due to too many overly talkative people they’ll become frustrated and eventually leave. If there are too many silent moments created by the fact that there were not enough people present, the introverts will become quite uncomfortable and they’ll eventually leave too. Larry Osborne believes “the ideal size for a group of married couples is usually twelve to fourteen people. For singles, eight to twelve can be ideal. That’s because a group of six couples has a radically different dynamic than one with a dozen singles.”[5] Each group will be different, so you’ll need to evaluate from time to time to ensure discussions are going well and intimacy is actually happening.

Fifth, start the discussion by re-reading the sermon passage. This will orient the ensuing conversation around the text. Keep your Bibles open throughout the meeting so that your focus always returns back to the text whenever there is a transition in thought.

Sixth, involve everyone. Group learning works best if everyone participates more or less equally. If you’re a natural talker, pause before you enter the conversation. Maybe you could ask others what they think. If you’re a natural listener, try to contribute more to the discussion. Introverts are typically satisfied to go home having been ministered to, but need to learn that they also have much to contribute to the lives of others. No one person should dominate the session, so be careful to measure your contribution after each meeting and adjust next time if necessary.

Seventh, make sure the church leaders appoint or affirm a leader for your group. The leader must be apt to teach but mustn’t see his role as the sole teacher in this particular setting. Instead, he’s to facilitate group learning. The leader should help group members to make their own discoveries. If you’re the leader, ask the folk:

·      What personally challenged you in the sermon?

·      What are areas of agreement or disagreement?

·      What questions did the sermon leave unanswered?

·      What new thoughts about God or the gospel were impactful?

·      What areas of change do you/we need to implement now?

·      What hindrances to personal change do you foresee?

·      How can we pray for one another in these things?

Everyone needs to understand that there are no silly questions. Each person should feel secure to share, and the leader will need to work toward this kind of openness in the group.

Eighth, there’s a lot to accomplish, so the leader (and the group) will need to pace the discussion to get through as much as possible. The areas of discussion should include observations of the Bible passage, interpretation, church-wide implications, personal application, specific changes that each person will make in their thinking and/or actions, and prayer for one another. Theology and Bible interpretation are important, but do not get so bogged down in these early discussions that you run out of time later. Remember the whole point of the small group is to ‘get personal’ about Christian living.

It’s far better to have people leave the meeting wishing it’d been longer, than to have them leave wishing it’d been shorter. If people believe there was so much more ground to cover in the meeting but feel that it wasn’t achieved, then their fellowship will continue in personal relationships throughout the week. This is a good thing. The study group has achieved its purpose—namely, to promote spiritual partnership beyond mere attendance.

Ninth, finish the sermon-based discussion by offering at least one prayer request each. The request can be about anything, but it’s best if it has originated from the discussion itself. Then pray for one another.

Tenth, the last five minutes of the meeting should be used to preview the next Sunday sermon. Read the upcoming passage and encourage people to attend Sunday services so they can be ready to contribute at the next small group meeting. Make sure you end on time so that those who have arranged for babysitters can get home to relieve the sitter as planned. If others want to stay longer and the host agrees, offer more refreshments and encourage further interaction.

Eleventh, commit to take breaks over the summer period and for other public holidays. This helps people to plan for other activities and not feel guilty that they are abandoning the group. It also helps them to see what it’s like to remove regular weekly fellowship from the sermon experience. They’ll come back excited to re-engage with the family of God because they now understand its value for themselves and for others.

Lastly, how do you know if your sermon-based small group is serving its purpose? The measure of its success is faithful attendance—but only in part. The goal is certainly not to have people pass a group quiz at the end of each sermon series. Similarly, motivating greater evangelistic effort, committing to deeper theological studies, shepherding the flock, and developing future leaders are excellent results, but these are not the primary goals of small fellowship groups. Instead we need to measure the quality of Christian relationships. Are the group members loving one another? Are they serving one another? Are they both giving and receiving significant spiritual input to and from those around them? Larry Osborne says, “I look for stories of mortgages and rents being paid, meals provided, hospital visits, holidays and vacations spent together, encouragement, and tough confrontations. All in all, the same stuff I’d look for in a healthy extended family.”[6] We hope to see the kind of fellowship that existed in Acts 2 where both spiritual and physical needs were being met by loving church members. Osborne adds, “The best way to see the most people grow deeper in their walk with God is . . . by having lots of folks tightly velcroed to other Christians and the Scriptures for the long haul.”[7] Sermon-based study groups are one of the best ways to maximize both.

---

[1] C. J. Mahaney, Why Small Groups? Together toward Maturity (Gaithersburg, MD: Sovereign Grace Ministries, 1996), 21.

[2] Larry W. Osborne, Sticky Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing, 2008), 60–63.

[3] Colin Marshall, Growth Groups: A Training Course in How to Lead Small Groups (Kingsford, N.S.W.: Matthias Media, 1995), 21.

[4] These suggestions are derived in part from John MacArthur, Jr., The Body Dynamic (Colorado Springs, CO: Chariot Victor Publishing, 1996), 135–36.

[5] Larry Osborne, Sticky Church, 77.

[6] Ibid., 106.

[7] Ibid.