[00:00:00] Jim Jansen: Hey

everybody. Welcome to the Equip Cast, a weekly podcast for the Archdiocese of Omaha. I'm your host, Jim Jansen. Now let's dive into some encouragement and inspiration to equip you to live your faith and to be fruitful in your mission. Let's go.

Hey everybody. Welcome to the Quip Cast Coaches Corner, where I break down important topics to equip you and your team for mission in your family, in your church, and in your ministry. So my name is Jim Jansen, and today I'm gonna talk to you about how to build a transformative small group movement. So to start off, I just have to say like, I love how.

Small group movements have kind of become a thing in the church over the last, I dunno, five, 10 years. Uh, 25 years ago when I was first starting as, as a missionary, small groups were not a thing. [00:01:00] They were for some, um, they were like maybe seasonal, very connected to a very specific parish program. And man, they changed lives, but they haven't become as normative until, I think recent years.

There's, there's been more of an emphasis on it. Most of you know this, but small groups are an incredible context for changing lives. They're flexible, they're recession proof, they're persecution proof, right? When it's not safe to gather in large groups, you can still gather in small groups in people's homes.

Turns out they're pandemic proof. Didn't know that that was a thing. They're low cost, they're super, right? They're, they're just, they're, they're just a great delivery vehicle for changing people's lives with the gospel. 'cause they connect right with each other because the material can be, uh, specified to the need to those individuals.

Um, there's so many reasons that small groups are powerful, but if we're honest, we have to admit that small groups are easier and harder than we think. First, the harder part. Some things that [00:02:00] we, we, we tend to, uh, tend to forget, a healthy, growing, dynamic, transformative small group movement. You need more than just interested participants.

Now the participants are out there and they'll come if they get a meaningful invitation, but you need more than just people who want to be a part of it. Transformative small group movement needs more than just dynamic materials. I mean, again, you can binge watch form.org and ascension press until Jesus comes back.

But you need more than just dynamic and orthodox materials. You need more than good training. You. Small group movements need more than just a training for the facilitators or those who are gonna be leading the small groups. And even some of you're like, I know where he's going with this. Nope, I'm gonna say something that's, that's maybe gonna, maybe gonna surprise you.

You need more than just missionary disciples because missionary disciples aren't islands unto themselves. They need [00:03:00] support and encouragement and guidance, and ideally, they need to be part of a larger community. So what I wanna do is I wanna give you some elements necessary for a transformative small group movement.

Just like for fruit trees, some of you know, I, I'm an amateur fruit farmer, uh, and we all want the fruit, but there's some things that that have to be in place if you're gonna get fruit. You need. You need good weather, you need water, you need sunlight, you need good soil. And there's like all sorts of stuff that has to be in the soil, good microbes and minerals and all of that stuff.

And then you need structure, like the branches of the tree have to be developed enough to handle the fruit. So with that metaphor. I'm gonna give you three things that have to be present for a healthy, small group movement. Number one, vision for mission. So the mission of each one of us individually by baptized [00:04:00] and confirmed as followers of Jesus Christ and collectively our communities that we call parishes.

Our, our mission isn't just to get to heaven, but it's to bring others with us. So someday the Lord's gonna ask me about. The influence I had on my family and my friends and my neighbors and my coworkers, and there's just no way around that we have a responsibility to bring others with us, and that's a communal responsibility as well.

You know, Canon law and the writings of the church and what a parishes, very clear that every soul in the parish boundary is responsibility of the pastor and of that community. So there has to be a vision for mission. Small groups can't be a self-referential. This is really good for us and we're gonna take care of us and we're gonna like make ourselves good, feel good, and we're gonna learn about the faith and we're gonna love each other and we're just not gonna worry about anybody else.

No, they have to be a [00:05:00] part of a larger vision for mission, that my mission as an individual and. The mission of this community of faith we call the parish, has a responsibility to bring others with us. Apart from that, small groups end up getting sick and dying because they, they become very self-referential.

They, they're just about the care for the individuals involved and is important as the salvation and formation of those individuals involved is a healthy, small group movement has to be bigger than that. So that's number one, a vision for mission. Number two, you have to have a culture of accompaniment.

What do I mean with that? Well, right accompaniment is that patient sharing of life, but not just sharing of life. Sharing of life for individuals who are on a journey towards the Lord. That practice, that patient sharing of life, for those who are on a journey that needs to be celebrated and promoted [00:06:00] and yes trained, it's not rocket science, so it's not like hard training.

But again, if we're honest with ourselves, it's very easy for us as parents, educators, ministry leaders, to be busy with all the stuff and to miss the accompaniment. So culture is sometimes right, referred to as those things that we celebrate and those things that we tolerate. So I'll make some suggestion here, right?

That the things that we're celebrating in a culture of accompaniment, we're celebrating things like conversion. We're celebrating growth, we're celebrating leadership, we're celebrating mission, we're we're celebrating the patience to walk with someone even when it. Seems messy and unclear and inconvenient.

Those are the things we're celebrating, and we're just not tolerating disengagement. We're not tolerating loss of souls If someone disappears and falls off the radar, you know, they, they just stop [00:07:00] showing up. We reach out to them, we connect with them. We're not tolerating division, we're not tolerating people, getting stuck in the spiritual life.

Those are some of the elements of a culture of accompaniment. That's the second thing. If there isn't a culture of accompaniment, if conversion and growth aren't the things that we celebrate, if we just. Stop allowing ourselves to tolerate disengagement and the loss of souls and the vision and et cetera, et cetera.

Then we're beginning to create a culture of accompaniment. So number three, you have to have structures for accompaniment. Again, no pastor or even a very, very talented lay leader, full-time employed by the parish can coordinate. The multiplicity of small groups necessary to provide a a context for all the people who want and need a place like that To grow, you're gonna need multiple mentors.

And without getting too nerdy, I think you might even need a one to three or a one [00:08:00] to five ratio of individuals who know how to facilitate a small group themselves. But in addition to facilitating a group, they help encourage other facilitators, other group leaders, what do they do? They have conversations, just simple conversations now and then maybe once a month.

How's your group going? How's God at work in the lives of the participants? How might God be inviting you to help accompany those participants? Are there any invitations that you need to make to help people take their next step in faith to grow deeper, maybe even to lead their own group? Those, those, uh, mentors, we'll call them those individuals who maybe they're leading a group of their own, but they're helping a group coordinator, an evangelization coordinator.

They're helping those individuals support the group leaders, the missionary disciples that are facilitating, like it's their job. To help facilitate the growth in the leaders and to [00:09:00] encourage them. 'cause again, nobody's an island under themselves. We all need encouragement. We all need to grow and develop in our skills of accompaniment.

Finally, part of this whole structure thing is a small group movement can't stand by itself. It needs to be a larger. Clear path of discipleship. It needs to be part of that larger context where there are other things in the parish that are fostering a conversion, helping answer people's questions.

Helping proclaim the gospel clearly and giving people an opportunity to make a decision and entrust themselves to the Lord. There probably should be other offerings to help form people in faith, very particular offerings around prayer or a particular particularly challenging moral issue. There need to be other things that help people grow and mature on mission.

Although learning how to lead a small group and gathering people together and making those invitations can be a fantastic way to do that. There are other elements. That might be really helpful [00:10:00] to, to that facilitator growing as a missionary disciple and all of that can't be on the small group movement.

Those are parts of a larger, clear path to discipleship. So I would encourage you if any of this is hidden home and you'd like to learn more, check out. We're gonna link it in the show notes here. Check out the workshop. Uh, by my friend Michael Hall. Uh, he did a workshop here for us, talking about growing a healthy small group movement.

Uh, Michael uh, works for Catholic Christian Outreach of Canada, at least he did for the time. Now he works for, uh, the Diocese of Ottawa in Canada. Uh, Michael really is an expert in small group movements, uh, in the art of accompaniment. He wrote the book, like literally a book called Intentional Accompaniment.

Uh, and if you wanna check out a workshop that he gave on small groups, I encourage you to go to the show notes and check it out there. Alright, let me pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you and we praise you for the good you are doing to stir up a desire for connection [00:11:00] to know the content of the faith to serve and gather together.

Lord have mercy on us as we desire to create little oasis, little islands of faith, uh, within our larger parish communities to create communities of communities. We ask, Lord for your help, for your strength, we ask that you would, uh, bless those who desire to create small group movements within their, within their parish communities, and those that are desiring to step out in faith and to lead a small group of their own.

Amen. What are your thoughts? I would love to hear, uh, what resonated with you? Thoughts, questions, comments? You can respond back at the chat@quip.archomaha.org. That's quip do arch omaha.org. Thanks everybody. Thanks for listening to the Quip Cast. We hope this episode has inspired you to live your faith and equip you to be fruitful in your mission.[00:12:00] 

Stay connected with us by going to equip dot arch omaha.org. God bless and see you next time.