When God brought us into a relationship with Himself, it was deeply personal—but it was never meant to be private. From the very beginning, God’s design was that our relationship with Him would be lived out in fellowship with other believers. The New Testament knows nothing of a Christianity without community.
In the Western world, we often treat faith as a personal decision followed by an optional choice about community. We think we can have a relationship with Jesus without a church, without other believers. But that’s a foreign concept in Scripture. Community is living out my relationship with God and in fellowship with other Jesus followers.
That includes mission. We carry out the Great Commission when we do it together. Groups aren’t a ministry strategy. They are the very ethos—the environment—God designed for us to live out our faith in relationship with Him and others.
When Groups Are Optional, the Church Suffers
When a church doesn’t emphasize groups, or treats them as optional, challenges arise.
First, there’s a huge back door. Sunday becomes an event people attend rather than a family they belong to. Groups transform that cycle. They make church a family where Sunday gatherings become part of the rhythm of life together.
Second, discipleship suffers. We end up creating attenders rather than disciples. That’s been one of the major flaws of the church growth movement. We’ve learned to fill buildings but haven’t always filled lives. Discipleship happens life-on-life, the way Jesus modeled it.
Third, when groups aren’t tied to the mission, engagement drops. People become spectators rather than participants. They come to watch instead of engaging and leveraging their lives for the sake of the mission.
Groups keep the back door closed, foster discipleship, and move believers from spectators to servants of the gospel.
Making Groups Is Who We Are, Not What We Do
Anytime we can take something in the church and make it who we are instead of what we do, it changes everything. That’s especially true for groups.
Major Ian Thomas says in The Indwelling Life of Christ, “The Christian life is nothing less than the life Jesus lived then, lived now by Him in you.” That means Christianity isn’t me living for Jesus. It’s Jesus living His life in and through me.
When you look at Jesus’ life, it was all about three relationships:
- His relationship with the Father
- His relationship with the disciples
- His relationship with people who didn’t know God
Every story in the Gospels fits into one of those three. His intimate relationship with the Father spilled into fellowship with His disciples and overflowed into compassion for the lost.
That’s what groups are about. Groups aren’t something I have to do to be a good Christian. They’re how Jesus lives His life through me. My relationship with the Father naturally overflows into fellowship with other believers and outward into relationships with people who don’t yet know God.
There are more than 40 “one another” commands in Scripture—love one another, serve one another, be hospitable to one another. None of them can be done in isolation. They all require relationship. Groups are where those “one anothers” come to life.
Keeping Groups Open and Outward-Focused
If groups reflect the life of Jesus, their culture will be welcoming just like Jesus. His heart was always for the kingdom to expand.
In Luke 4:43, when the crowds begged Him to stay, Jesus replied, “It is necessary for me to proclaim the good news about the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because I was sent for this purpose.” The heart of Jesus is always seeking and saving the lost—and that’s the heart we bring into our groups.
At Send Network, we teach a principle called “Think Multiplication.” The mission demands disciples and churches that multiply. One group or one church can’t reach a city or the nations by itself. Multiplication is the only way the gospel moves forward.
That means every group should regularly ask:
- Who is the next disciple?
- Who is the person not in our group who needs to come to Christ?
- Who is the next leader?
- Who is God raising up from within our group to launch another group?
- When will we start another group?
- When was the last time someone was baptized in our church because our group led them to Christ?
Jesus focused more on succession than success. He invested in leaders who would carry the movement forward. Every group should follow that pattern: raising up leaders, launching new groups, and reproducing the mission.
Groups can also adopt aspects of their church’s local and global mission. Each group can:
- Pray weekly for the next person to come to faith in Christ through their group
- Meet a monthly need connected to the church’s mission framework
- Plan a quarterly serve project in their city
- Take or support an annual mission trip
Keeping these questions and actions in front of people keeps the group’s heart beating with the heart of Jesus.
Mission Isn’t Something We Do—It’s Who Jesus Is
When I was asked to lead Send Network, one of the first things we did was clarify the values that drive everything we do. We built those around five principles:
- Seek first the kingdom
- Deepen devotion
- Stick together
- Think multiplication
- Engage your city
These aren’t just church planting values; they’re Christian living values. Every believer can leverage their job, skills, and passions where they live, work, and play for the mission of God. Mission isn’t what we do for Jesus; it’s who Jesus is in us.
Healthy Groups Require Healthy Leaders
For groups to live out the life of Jesus and live on mission, they need healthy leaders. And all leaders need consistent training and encouragement. Effective group leader training always involves three elements:
- Content: what we’re teaching and pouring into them
- Environments: the when and where of equipping them
- Coaches: the leaders who walk alongside them
When those pieces are in place, leadership development becomes relational. If a difficult conversation is needed, it happens in the context of shared life and investment, not as a cold correction. Training creates relational equity, and relational equity builds trust.
Through that process, leaders grow, new leaders are raised up, and groups stay healthy and mission driven.
When Groups Become Cliques
Sometimes, groups can become tight-knit and feel closed off to others. I’ve learned over time that it’s usually better to go around a stump rather than try to remove it. I don’t try to force change if something isn’t immoral or unbiblical. Instead, I keep casting vision, celebrating what God is doing in other groups, and letting momentum speak for itself.
When people see baptisms and hear the names of groups whose members led someone to Christ, they start wondering why their group isn’t the one being mentioned. Vision spreads faster through celebration rather than confrontation. What’s taught is often more caught than taught.
Creating On-Ramps for New Groups
At Hope Church Las Vegas, we found it helpful to run small groups in seasons—one in the spring and one in the fall, with breaks in between. At the end of each season, we’d host a mixer event to launch new groups.
For example, if we had 200 new people join the church that season, we’d invite them to a gathering with 10 new group leaders ready to meet them. Each leader’s goal was simple: meet new people, connect, and start a group. Every time we did this, 10–20 new groups would launch.
This approach gave newcomers a natural way to connect, and it created regular rhythms of new beginnings. If someone didn’t click with a group, the season’s end offered a graceful exit. And when new groups launched, everyone—new and old—felt like they were starting together, not joining something halfway through.
Groups are not a church program; they’re the way Jesus designed His people to live. Our faith was never meant to be private. It was always meant to be shared—lived out in community, shaped by discipleship, and multiplied on mission. When groups live this out, the church becomes more than a weekly event. It becomes a living, breathing family where people are discipled, leaders are raised, and the gospel advances to the ends of the earth.
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This article was adapted for the Webinar, “Leverage Your Life: How Groups Fuel Discipleship and Mission.” Learn more about Leverage Your Life and view the webinar here.