Bob's Blog

I had the opportunity to meet with Doug Berry of RockHarbor, a church of over 6,000 with about half the attendees being thirty and younger. He's been with the church since its beginnings and for the past six years has overseen their growing small group ministry called Life Groups.

When they first started with Life Groups, Doug wanted the church to know that this wasn't going to be any ordinary small group program. As he shared with me, "I wanted to raise the bar with their commitment." At the first meeting for those wanting to be a part of the leadership team, around 80 showed up. "I just didn't want anyone leading our groups" exclaimed Doug, so they started off small, refining and tweaking until they looked like what he believed God wanted their groups to look like. "I don't read a lot," said Doug, "but I like to check out what others are doing, to observe their ministries". So, after a few years of experimenting ("I really didn't know what I was doing at the beginning"), Life Groups started to take off and now Doug oversees more than 350 leaders with over 2000 involved.

How did this happen? What are some of the keys that Doug believes made Life Groups successful at RockHarbor? Here are two essentials he shared.

• "First, your leadership needs to be on board. Life Groups are a part of our DNA, to the point that if you are not in a Life Group, you might not feel so connected with our church. For us, church is not on Saturday night or Sunday morning but is really through our Life Groups". As Doug went on to explain, "Our pastors support this by being involved in their own Life Groups and referring to LG's during their teaching time, outreaches, and through other ministries at RockHarbor".
• "Second, Life Groups are a part of RockHarbor's vision. If Todd's vision (Lead Pastor Todd Proctor) wasn't about Life Groups, then LG's would fold". As Doug emphasizes, "We are committed to grow through Life Groups".

Other observations about RockHarbor's small group ministry:

• LG's are normally no bigger than 12 in a group. This works best for discussion.
• Their leaders are facilitators and not teachers.
• Training is huge for LG's. "Nuggets" is an on going training track that every LG leaders must attend.
• "4321" is another training model they use. Each LG leader has a pastor that they meet with 4 times a year. They must attend at least 3 Nuggets, 2 spiritual "experience" (retreat, etc...), and 1 leadership seminar.
• There are no "Age-stage" ministries. Everything they do is as a Body. All LG's are mixed generational.

If you'd like to know more about Life Groups or about RockHarbor, just click onto their link that is posted on this blog page.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 26, 2007 at 3:57 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.