Dabble and experiment

Grow into ministry; don’t go into ministry. Dabble and experiment. Try this. Try that. Experiment. Keep what works. Chunk what doesn’t.

Let’s say you want to start home groups. Here is the wrong way to do it:

Here ye! Here ye!  We will hither to not do Sunday night and Wednesday night in favor of the home group program. This is guaranteed to fail.

Here is a better way.

We would like to try something this fall. For four weeks we would like to invite everyone to be in a home group. In order to accommodate this we are going to cancel Sunday night and Wednesday night activities for four weeks. After four weeks we will resume as normal. Then we will all talk, and see what we want to from there.

When you talk, one of three things will happen. No, four things.

1. Everyone will love it and you will go immediately to home groups.
2. Everyone will hate it and you will never do home groups again.
3. Half will love it and half will not. From here, reasonable people will agree that it is fair to do about half and half for a while. Knuckleheads can’t agree on anything; they just want things their way.
4. We will not be sure what we want. In this case, you might try a longer experiment — perhaps six or eight weeks in the fall.

It is the process that is golden. Dabble. Experiment. Talk. Pray. Change.

If you have an idea for group life, I’d love to share it. Send it to me at josh@joshhunt.com