Steps to Re-launch Your Small Group

If your group has graduated (see Steps to Graduate), and you are ready to re-launch your group with those members that are continuing on with the group, here are the steps you can take to do this.

1. Pick a pre-launch date to have a Neighborhood Ice Cream Social to invite interested folks from Crossroads that live in your neck of the woods to come meet one another and to also find out about your new small group. Folks coming to this will get to meet some neighbors and will also get a chance to hear about your small group opportunity. Some will attend to just meet folks. Others will attend to possibly join your small group.

2. At the social, find out who is interested in joining your new group (folks fill out an interest card). After the social, send a list of attendees to folks so they know who came and can stay in contact if they feel led to do so (i.e. you now know who some of your Crossroads neighbors are!).

3. You pick a re-launch date and notify all folks who expressed an interest in joining your small group. You then start your group back up with all folks that are interested!

4. Normally you would go ahead and pick a short Bible study yourself for the group to start with for about 6 weeks and then after the first "start up study" you'd get the group's input on the next study (like you'd normally do in a group). A good "start-up" study would be one of core DVD based “Discover” curriculums such as "Doing Life Together" or "Experiencing Life Together" which is the same format but has different Bible studies and speakers.

5. If you sense your group is ready to re-launch, identify key target dates for the group to do this. Your small group coach or the small group pastor (John Frye, Frye@Crossroads.org) will help you with doing. Your coach/John will take care of inviting all the Crossroads folks in your area to your social (you specify types of folks to invite) and then will also act as the “MC” at your social (you don’t have to do this…the MC will handle the entire agenda). You role is to simply host the social. The MC takes care of the rest!

6. After the social, you pick a first meeting start date, notify interested folks (asking them to RSVP), and then re-launch!

Here are sample target dates of what this might look like if you re-launched your small group (represents typical duration of “how long this takes”):

1. Your group has its special graduation meeting sometime before 9/29

2. You have an ice cream social and re-launch your group on the following dates:

a. Option 1: Social on Oct 6 or 7, Re-launch week of Oct 23.

b. Option 2: Social on Oct 20 or 21, Re-launch week of Nov 6

Ready to re-launch? Contact your small group coach or John Frye (Frye@Crossroads.org) the small groups pastor today!