Page 59 - Digital Church in a Lonely World

If they don’t go to a small group, then the model of “weekend service plus small group” falls over. I
recently spoke to a family who mapped out for me their weekly schedule. Between their kid’s school
commitments, sports, music lessons and work activities, they did not have a single night free. Every
hour was scheduled. And that’s not including time for the couple to work on their marriage, have
hobbies or just have fun. They were struggling to figure out how to make a traditional mid-week small
group happen.

Perhaps the balance between what has commonly been content delivery at weekend services and
community at small groups will start to shift. It may mean that small groups in the future are better at
delivering content through digital platforms (people can engage in content from their phones anytime
throughout the week), and the weekend services become better at facilitating community.

If small groups are essential for a church to have healthy community, the engagement rate—what
percentage of people attend one—becomes a very important measure.

If our principal model of church is not centered around community, we can’t expect auxiliary
components of our model to achieve it for us. The world has changed, and new generations are wired
differently. Large crowds need to be broken down into smaller groups, and how this is achieved needs to
be put through a filter of innovation and creativity.

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