RE:Grouping

Top 10 Ways to Regroup Your Stalling Group

By David Drury

 

Have you reached a point where you’re wondering if your group has stalled out?  Have some of your members fallen off the face of the earth?  Have you cancelled meetings or events because it doesn’t look like enough are coming?  These are all signs that you need to do a “regrouping” of your small group.  Regrouping is a matter of putting some start-up energy into a group that’s already started.  By doing just two or three of the below top ten ideas you can re-energize yourself and re-launch your stalling group.

 

10 - Throw a group party!  Nothing helps people re-group like having fun together.  Maybe everyone just needs to be reminded why they like the people in your group.  A party can do this. 

 

9 - Invite several new people into the group.  By inviting people in and telling the other group members you did a new energy is released in the group.  You start to plan for “who might actually come this week” instead of thinking “I wonder who will skip this week.”  Get the group praying about filling the open chair and their hearts will be more aligned to see who fills it each meeting and who they might bring to fill it themselves.

 

8 - Send out a schedule of upcoming group meeting dates and events.  Sometimes some simple organization helps people get back on track.  It gives you as the leader accountability to make it happen, and then everyone knows what to expect coming up.  They may have just simply stopped making the effort to know the schedule, sadly.  So sending it out is a prompt to them to get back in the saddle.

 

7 - Get 2 or 3 other people to take on a responsibility for the group.  If you asked JoAnne to be in charge of the refreshments and Bill is going to lead the study and Linda is in charge of the prayer time then you should at least be able to count on JoAnne, Bill and Linda to be there and be engaged.  Delegate!

 

6 - Do more than just meet together—do a task or service project.  Sometimes the group is just burned out on meetings.  Doing something active will help people reconnect doing something different, and some in the group will enjoy doing this way more than anything else you do as a group.

 

5 - Change the study—maybe the study you’re doing just stinks.  Drop it.  Do you think the author is going to come to your house and argue with you about stopping mid-stream.  If members of the group aren’t clicking with something, don’t hesitate to send out the “we’re not beating the dead horse anymore” e-mail to the group.

 

4 - Change the location.  If your group has been meeting in the same house every time them perhaps a stall season is the time to start rotating, or to change to a different host for a change of scenery.

 

3 - Change the leader.  Seriously, have you thought about it?  Maybe your group is stalling because of you.  Don’t get down on yourself.  Recruit someone else from the group to give new energy to leading it and take a back seat for a season.  Or better yet, send yourself out to start a new group!  And if your group has been doing rotating leadership and it’s stalling, consider leading all the lessons for one study, give everyone a break and give the group a leadership “punch in the arm” yourself.

 

2 - Let people go.  Sometimes people are just ready to leave the group.  Maybe everyone is!  Groups have a natural life-cycle that can run it’s course.  It’s important to have “re-up” times as a group so people that feel they should leave can do so without bringing it up themselves, and so everyone else that stays can really feel like they’re deciding to do the group, not just going through the motions.  You’ll likely be surprised at how many will continue and how they’ll step back up if you say, “well, it’s time for us to allow members to either leave or sign back up for the group.”

 

1 - Go with the flow – let a stall season happen, or even plan to stall at certain times.  Groups need a reprieve from time to time.  Do you always meet through the holidays and always stall out then?  Maybe think about no meetings and just group parties for that 6 weeks.  Does your group meet all summer but half the group is always missing because of vacations?  Think about doing a monthly fun get-together or service projects instead and just go with the flow.  Sometimes we as leaders get too up tight about the plan.

 

So, whether you’re changing something or starting something new the group can latch on to, don’t give up on your stalling group.  And don’t give up when your group stalls in the future.  All groups have stalling seasons.  Now you know some ways to regroup it when it does.

 

 

© 2005 by David Drury