Seven steps towards building outreach into CU small groups

I've been thinking a bit recently about how to make CU small groups in all sorts of different university contexts more effective in outreach.

Here are seven steps I've come up with that can build a more of a missional edge in CU small groups:

1. Work hard to show your small group members how all components of small group time are inter-related. CU small group outreach tends to fail if outreach is seen as an unnatural intrusion to small group life. Outreach becomes more effective and natural when, for instance, Bible study is presented as something which energises the group's mission; as group members grow in trust and relationship with each other, they gain a sense of community in witness, and so on. Prayer topics in CU small groups should be wide-ranging (and it’s important to make space for the real needs that small group members have), but there should be an ongoing eye on outreach.

I made some practical suggestions on how to do this in a post a while back.

2. Ask questions that encourage discussion in the small group about how the gospel really is news that is good for people today. For instance, in a Bible study on 1 Peter 2:9, you could ask:

• What are Christ’s deeds?
• Why are they wonderful?
• What kind of darkness previously surrounded you?
• What is your present experience of God’s light?

(This is based on an approach I read in the book Good Things Come in Small Groups, which I believe is now out of print). Questions like these help small group members grapple with the specifics of God’s love, encourage them to appreciate the grace of the gospel, and help them begin to personalise and talk about it.

3. Set the perspective from the beginning that outreach is both necessary and natural. If your small group is less confident in evangelism, start initially in forms of non-threatening outreach, in which group members confident. As gospel confidence increases in your group, you can step up into more stretching forms of outreach.

4. Ask for help. If you need help in your outreach, don't let this stop you! Speak to your CU's small group coordinator or your CU Staff Worker for help.

5. Press for group ownership in outreach. Work towards small group members seeing your small group as a think tank. Work together to reach consensus on what specific task God has for you. Group ownership enables everyone in the small group to work as a team: this is much more fun, more effective and you'll find small group members are more committed.

6. Plan time for planning. To reduce undesirable last-minute panic, start the planning process far enough in advance. Factor in small group time to make these plans. Make sure too that you've thought about how you'll follow up those people who show interest in the gospel.

7. Surround all outreach in prayer. As we ask God to intervene in lives and events, we learn to rely on his strength rather than ours. While God commands us to be stewards of our gifts, energy and resources, it is not our job to change hearts. The Holy Spirit alone can do that. Our role is to serve as signposts pointing to Jesus.

It’s great when small group members keep a list of 3-5 friends, praying that they get opportunities to share the gospel and that their friends hearts would be open to the gospel. Set aside time regularly for prayer for these friends who are without the knowledge and experience of Christ's love.

When you have an event, ask for prayer wherever you can - at your church, in CU central meetings - and, of course, spend good time praying together in your small group too.

Making CU small groups work - part 2: think relationship

In part 1 of this mini series, I highlighted that I consider mission to be an integral part of making CU small groups work. Without a focus on being explicitly outward looking, CU small groups run the risk of becoming social groups or otherwise merely replicating that which could be done in church small groups. An all-round mission focus, like the one I suggested, is necessary.

Think relationship

An equally important emphasis needs to be placed on relationships, and to let small groups be as strategic as they can as small groups. As a rough rule of thumb, I think that a small group that has more than about twelve regular attendees in it should be split. Getting much larger than this takes away all of those things that makes the small group format work. One of the larger college groups in Lancaster splits into two groups for some of their small group time. Two Bible studies are run concurrently, allowing all members of the group to discover and engage with Bible passages for themselves. This is particularly helpful for those who are non-auditory learners.

It's not only Bible study that benefits from a 'smaller' small group. CU members can support each other more adequately too. Of course, primary pastoral support for small group members should come through their own local church. However, the Bible does envisage that all Christians should care for each other (as shown in the 'one another’s'). Rather, support amongst CU small group members should fall into two categories:

• Small group members care for each other and encourage each other to radically live and speak for Jesus through prayer and friendship;
• Small group members are on the lookout for any deeper problems that cannot be handled by ‘one-anothering’, humbly leading people struggling with these problems to those in local churches who can help.

I've seen trust amongst small group members develop as they loved each other in these ways. This has an amazing effect on wanting to witness together. As I mentioned last time, evangelism can be transformed from the activity of an individual to a group activity through regular small group outreach. It's been really pleasing here to see one small group in particular take this to heart. They're not only friends with each other, but also friends with each other's non-Christian friends.

I would say that the other important relationship in making CU small groups work is the relationship between the small group leaders and their Staff Worker. Ideally, small group leaders need to commit to attending weekly training. This acts as a kind of 'team time' for small group leaders. Ideally, this acts as a safe time when leaders can ask questions, grow, develop godly practice and get trained. Weekly meetings help small group leaders bond on a corporate journey as they grow, and also allow the staff worker to ensure that small group leaders aren't getting overburdened, or playing the role of church leaders.

Part 3: coming soon - think grace

Making CU small groups work - evangelistic events

In a recent post, I said that if CU small groups are to be evangelistically effective, then evangelism needs to be written into each small group gathering.

In the CUs I work with, we use a system called 1-2-3-Go! (or at the University of Cumbria 1-2-3-Connect4). Having an evangelistic event every four weeks is a good way of keeping small groups outward looking. However, small group events will normally fail if the fourth week is just seen as an 'interruption' to normal service. Small group leaders need to be encouraged to weave outreach and personal evangelism into every small group gathering.

Below is a table we use at Lancaster University helping small group leaders to do just that:

Making CU small groups work - part 1: think mission

I've found myself chatting over the past few days to a wide range of people about CU small groups. Some people think that they merely replicate church, others think they are wonderful, others are just left confused.

Over the past few years, I've been thinking about how CU small groups can best function. Here are my rough thoughts:

Think mission

CUs are not designed to be rivals to local churches - rather, CUs serve local churches by uniting members of their congregations to live and speak for Jesus in areas which might otherwise remain unreached (Dave outlines the vision beautifully here). For CU small groups to be really strategic, and to avoid merely replicating church, it's important that we don't just think uncritically about the existence of small groups. CU small groups must fit into the CU's ultimate reason for existence: outreach to students.

Small groups (both in CUs and in local churches) aren't generally outward-looking by default. In CU small groups, mission needs to be threaded into every area of their life. Part of this means ensuring that the group has regular outreach times together. In our area, we tend to use the 1-2-3-Go system where every fourth gathering is an outreach night. This keeps outreach very high on the agenda. However, merely hosting regular outreach events, by themselves, isn't enough. All of the gatherings of the small group also need to be outward-looking. At the very least, prayer for friends and outreach to them should be included, as well as reviews of outreach nights.

The nature of outreach events can vary. Sometimes, CU small groups can organise very effective larger events. (These are particularly worth thinking about if the small group meets in a hall with shared space - such as a bar or TV room - and where access to all rooms or kitchens makes flyering easy). However, I'd recommend CU small groups to focus on smaller-scale events, where those invited have already seen something of the gospel in their Christian friends' lives. Events can be effectively 'tailored' to what's most appropriate, and this is a great way of showing Christian community on a small scale. My non-believing friends can meet with some of my Christian friends: given these Christian friends are then likely to bump into my non-believing friends, I'm no longer left witnessing alone.

Hall-based small groups tend to be most effective as there is a ready-made 'mission field' in existence. This tends to focus the mind of small group members. However, there's no reason why other CU small groups shouldn't remain effective and strategic in outreach, and avoid merely replicating the content of church home groups. This is especially true if the group takes joint responsibility for witnessing to the close friends of other Christian small group members (housemates, sports team mates and so on).

Part 2: coming soon - think relationship