Myths Church Leaders Believe About Church Growth (Part 3)
Myth #3: Discipleship happens in small groups
“If you can open a bag of Doritos, you can lead a small group!”
I frequently said these words during our years of leading our new church plant in Flint, Michigan, which we launched in 2015. The hope was that people would see how fundamentally simple it was to lead a small group and, consequently, more people in our church would become involved in small groups.
But if I were to be honest, I hated…hated…HATED small groups. On some level, I think our church picked up on that vibe from me, because small groups never really took off. People didn’t want to lead them, people didn’t want to be a part of them. So our approach to twice-a-year, six-to-eight week semesters of affinity and Bible study based small groups was largely dead on arrival (with a few notable exceptions, of course, such as a guys group who met on Saturdays to devour bacon together in Jesus’ name).
The genesis of the small group model can be attributed to a few different thinkers—as far back as John Wesley’s 18th century “class meetings” and “bands,” which were essential to the growth of early Methodism to the more recent models promoted by Willow Creek and Saddleback and standardized by derivative ministry models that sprung up in the latter church growth movement of the 2000s and 2010s.
For many churches, small groups are explicitly “where discipleship happens.” So if you’re not in a small group, you can reasonably expect that you’re not going to engage in much of the spiritual formation rhythms of the church. I can understand this motivation, though it is ultimately misguided for several reasons, which we will now explore together.
1. Small group model are less effective than they used to be.
Statistically, small group attendance is on a steady decade-long decline, down roughly six percent in 2022 (44%) since 2008 (50%).1 According to a February 2025 study conducted in partnership with Gloo, only about 25% of people being discipled are discipled in a small group, with younger generations citing “social insecurities and anxieties” as a significant barrier.2 Millennials and Gen Zers typically prefer less formal avenues of relationship and spiritual formation than the programmatic approach that has been popular in the past.
What’s more, a fairly old study (mid 2000s) from Willow Creek found that an over reliance on a programmatic approach to small groups did not equate to deepening spiritual growth. In fact, in a 2013 study, millennials did not cite church at all within the top ten drivers of their spiritual growth.3 On the whole, millennials (which, lest we forget, are your 30 and 40 somethings in your church now), have a fairly negative perception of small groups, associating it with boring programmatic faith.4
Simply put…small groups just aint as effective as they once were.
2. Modern small groups overlook introverts.
Extroverts love meeting new people. They tend to enjoy small talk (though this can vary by culture). They typically don’t mind doing something out of the ordinary to make new relational connections—all the while, tending to those connections fuel their energy tank.
If you’re an introvert like me, however (though one that has adapted to appear extroverted on demand if the occasion requires it), the thought of walking up to the home of someone you’ve never met to spend an evening with a group of people you hardly know (or, worse yet, don’t know at all!) sounds about as enticing as a root canal. Like much of American culture, the way we often construct our small group ministries makes it much easier for extroverts to connect than introverts and, if we’re not careful, can subtly imply that our introverted nature is a weakness to correct rather than an intricate part of how God made us.
For introverts, the relational leap from Sunday morning worship services to a small group is too large a chasm in the rapport building process, either making it brutally painful and exhausting or simply something we will not do. Much of this can be remedied by addressing the next issue of the absence of second spaces.
3. Modern small groups ignore the need for “second spaces.”
You may or may not have heard about the concept for third, second, and first spaces—a sociological construct that describes the different types of environments people inhabit and how those spaces shape community life and personal identity. While popularized by Ray Oldenburg, I’ve adapted his construct a bit to talk about church spaces.
Third spaces are the neutral, public spaces we inhabit—the “social commons.” These spaces allow us to interact at the most surface level of relational intimacy. For our purposes, we can think of third spaces as the Sunday morning church service. The social dynamics are fairly superficial—you may learn someone’s name or even a little factoid about them while in the lobby, but Sunday morning is generally not conducive for relationship building much beyond that.
On the other end of the spectrum are first spaces, such as the home. Homes are private spaces where generally our most personal social interactions take place. While this was not always the case, in the United States today it is often a sign of relational intimacy to be invited into someone’s home, as our culture typically views the home as a refuge from people rather than a place to entertain people (in my opinion, this is unfortunate, but that’s a topic for another day!). It is in our home that we entertain our closest friends, and it is with our closest friends that we share our deepest vulnerabilities. We are our authentic, unfiltered self in the home.
The problem with modern small groups is that at the same time small groups (generally held in first spaces—people’s homes) have grown in popularity, there has been a steady erosion of “second spaces” in church life. While Oldenburg defines second spaces differently, I’m suggesting that second spaces are the often-missing bridge of smaller environments—less public than third spaces, but also less private than first spaces. In thinking of church life, second spaces are things like church potlucks, Sunday School, Sunday night church, discipleship classes at the church, and so forth.
While these second spaces were mainstays of church life a generation ago, they are a dying breed today. But these second spaces are essential to forming relational bridges between the Sunday morning service and the intimacy of a small group. It is here that you exchange deeper conversation, get to know more about other people, express yourself in less intimidating social settings, and more. For introverts especially, second spaces are crucial (though increasingly missing) components of relational formation in a local church.
Is all hope lost?
If, as I suggest, the idea that the spiritual formation of a church happens in small groups is a myth, then what is the truth? And what can be done to recover a better approach to spiritual formation? I want to suggest a few things to consider:
1. Some discipleship happens in small groups, but most happens elsewhere.
The idea that spiritual formation/discipleship (I’m using these two terms interchangeably) can be siloed into a ministry function does a bit of violence to the beautiful mystery and rich tapestry that is the Christian faith. Human beings don't learn in isolation but from a multisensory intake of information that spans the whole of our lives. We don’t parent our children in thrice-annual, eight week semesters…so why in the world do we think that spiritual formation happens this way? Especially when the parent/child, rabbi/follower images are so explicitly laid out in Scripture!
We need to recapture a broader, more holistic vision of formation that includes whatever community life dynamic we have in our churches (such as small groups) but transcends it as well. The stories we tell in our music and preaching, the art and visuals with which we communicate transcendent truths, the rhythms of time we spend with one another, how we model the faith to each other, and our capacity to break bread with one another without it having to fit into a particular mold, all contribute to our formation (and more!). If we relegate discipleship to the realm of small groups, we lose the intentionality of formation in every other area of church life.
2. Recover the lost Second Spaces
As noted previously, we need to recapture the lost art of second spaces, which is one of the richest traditions in the community life of a church that has slowly become an endangered species in American church life. We need church potlucks. We need revival services. We need Bible studies. We need Sunday School. We need those spaces where people can get just a step or two immersed in the community life, so that they can feel comfortable building deeper relationships in a way that is authentic rather than forced, organic rather than programmatic, and ongoing rather than scheduled.
3. Retire Event-Driven Ministry
This may sound counter-intuitive to some leaders, but if you want people to more frequently and more organically develop close relationships, we need to stop blowing up their calendar with event after event after event—especially when those events do not directly contribute to the church community’s shared life together or its service to the broader community. Many churches are so busy “doing ministry” they’ve left the Holy Spirit behind, who has pulled up a seat at our table, beckoning us to sit and commune and isn’t all that interested in our obsession with programs. Get rid of the fat on the calendar and focus on doing those things that add value rather than those things that just add razzle-dazzle but are void of any lasting meaning.
4. Guide the Formation of Organic Community
It’s probably more accurate to say that I don’t hate small groups, but rather programmatic small groups groups. We have a rich, centuries old tradition of Christians meeting together in each other’s homes—that was, and in many parts of the world still is, a primary means of the church being the church!
But if you want to shift from ineffective small groups toward community life that is authentic, especially for the 45 year old and under crowd, it has to not only feel organic…it has to be organic. It has to be the overflow of genuine relationship, which means that group leaders do in fact need to know more than how to open a bag of Doritos. They also need to be equipped to host well (I love Hugh Halter’s book Happy Hour on this) and how to cultivate a ongoing community that is welcoming to outsiders, focused on prayer, and is genuinely interested in the goings on of one another’s lives.
To be “organic” does not mean to be hands off. Instead, a church can support the community groups like a trellis supporting the growth of a grapevine—enough to encourage it to bear the fruit it is naturally designed to bear without being so restrictive as to stifle or constrain its growth. That requires living more in ambiguity and discernment than in defaulting to what is scalable and reproducible. But the end result is worth it.
https://baptiststandard.com/news/faith-culture/declining-percentage-of-churchgoers-in-small-groups/#:~:text=On%20average%2C%20Protestant%20churches%20say,49%20percent
https://www.christianpost.com/news/gen-z-struggles-with-small-groups-barna.html#:~:text=In%20its%20February%20State%20of,stumbling%20blocks%20for%20younger%20generations
https://www.barna.com/research/5-reasons-millennials-stay-connected-to-church/
https://churchleaders.com/smallgroups/small-group-articles/302200-millennial-perspectives-small-groups-mike-mack.html#:~:text=These%20millennials%20are%20dissatisfied%20with,what%20today’s%20church%20has%20become; https://churchleaders.com/smallgroups/small-group-articles/302200-millennial-perspectives-small-groups-mike-mack.html#:~:text=We%20are%20not%20calling%20people,involvement%2C%20business%2C%20individualism%20and%20organization