The Secret Ingredient to Home Group Success
Home Groups have been apart of the New Life Student Ministry even before I took over as the Youth Guy. We started off with one, then gradually moved to another. Then finally this year we launched 3 new ones.
Through the launch of these 3 new groups and the development of the 2 existing ones, I’ve learned a few things. Of all the things I have learned, there is one things that I learned that I believe clearly sets apart a Home Group from being a bust or successful.
Finding the right family to host the Group is absolutely CRITICAL to the success of the group.
Having the right family to host your group will make or break it. That is because having a family that is well established and known in the community in which they have been involved for years is key. For example, I have been in my community for almost 15 years. I have children who have grown up in this community. Because of my children, I have met countless children (some now tweens), their parents and school administrators. It is through those relationships and the interactions I have had that I have established a pretty good reputation in the community. To start my home group in my community, I used that good reputation to reach out to parents and tweens.
If I was not known in the community and built some solid relationships with my children’s friends parents, I don’t believe my home group would have gotten the start it did. That is the same for another one of our High School groups we started. The family was established and firmly involved in the community. Because of that, they have been averaging 20 students a week from their group…most of whom have never been to our Church!
On the other end, we tried to start a group at a home where the family was relatively new and had NO teenage children. Despite putting solid leaders there, we were not able to get students to come out to a house where the family was not known. We ended up closing the group after 3 very unsuccessful meetings.
If you don’t have great food…not a problem. If your games or fun are less than par…it’s ok. But if you don’t have a family well established in the community you are trying to start a home group in, it will fail.
Thoughts? Comments? Post a comment so that we can all learn and benefit from.
