Group Strategy
Christ’s Church of the Valley—Peoria, Ariz.
One church that is seeing God move in powerful ways is Christ’s Church of the Valley in the greater Phoenix area. They come in at No. 91 on the Fastest-Growing list and No. 8 on the Largest list. Founded in 1982, they have grown to more than 21,000 attendees each weekend meeting across the Phoenix metro area on five different campuses.
As a church, they appear to be the definition of success, at least according to many. In spite of that, however, they recently underwent a pretty significant change in their group strategy. They formerly used a fairly typical approach with people grouped together by affinity. Additionally, they would have a variety of ministries meeting throughout the week on their campus. While these ministry avenues generated a lot of people and activity, the leadership was not sure they were helping the church actually accomplish its mission to “win, train and send.”
Ashley Wooldridge, executive pastor at Christ’s Church of the Valley, describes their former group gatherings as one “holy huddle” after another. He explains that on the way to meet with their affinity-based small group, “we would drive out of our neighborhoods, right past all the neighbors who did not know Jesus and did not go to church.” This lack of missional intentionality led the church leadership to reconsider their strategy. They arrived at a place where they were frustrated by their lack of missional effectiveness. “We are tired of saying that we want to reach our neighborhoods and change our culture yet not strategically doing something about it,” he says.
They completely shut down their affinity-based small group strategy and instead launched a groups ministry based on neighborhoods. Every person in the church is encouraged to engage in a group that meets in their basic geographic area.
Wooldridge tells us they are so committed to this strategy that all groups which exist today meet in neighborhoods where the people live. What is more, they eliminated all other large groups that used to meet on their campus. Groups like women’s ministry, men’s ministry and singles’ ministry no longer take place in lieu of everyone meeting in their neighborhood.
This combination of simplification and strategic discipleship has served to promote relational discipleship as people now live in proximity to those with whom they are growing in Christ. It helps promote mission, as they can easily invite nonbelievers in their community to meet with their group, which is also in their community.
Wooldridge goes on to highlight that this has changed their approach to mission. He says, “We found that it is a lot easier for a Christian to go overseas to Africa for a week, beat their chest, come back feeling really good that they did something great, and then drive into their neighborhoods, while all the people we know [living] around us are not going to heaven with us.”
This change in strategy has unleashed the people in their church to grow as disciples, and to serve their community on mission. Wooldridge notes that they still send people around the world on mission, but this strategic change has exponentially increased their influence in their immediate area.
My observation is that they enabled their large church to become “smaller” and more approachable by multiplying through this neighborhood approach. Their intentional strategy has freed them up to serve people more effectively, allowing the Great Commission to go out and disciples to be made.
Real Life Church—Valencia, Calif.
Another church that is strategically positioning itself to better disciple the people entrusted to them is Real Life Church of Valencia, Calif. (No. 41 on the Fastest-Growing list and No. 93 on the Largest list).
Real Life Church is working to see people’s lives transformed. While Christ’s Church of the Valley uses a streamlined, neighborhood strategy, Real Life Church is using a different method, focused on a variety of discipleship options to help their people grow to be like Jesus.
Executive Director of Ministry Brennan Conklin explains that their discipleship group strategy is divided into four segments. They offer Life Groups, Celebrate Recovery, Care Communities and affinity groups as a means for people to be discipled. Life Groups are companions to their weekend worship experiences and meet in homes, with most people attending one in their basic geographic area.
Celebrate Recovery has become a major part of their groups strategy. Inviting people in who have any number of hurts, habits and hang-ups, they are seeing large numbers of people gather on their campus each week.
Care Communities are based off various topics and provide discipleship opportunities for people who have had their life turned upside down and are struggling with issues such as cancer, divorce, financial struggle, etc.
Finally, affinity groups gather around specific affinities such as men’s ministry or women’s ministry. This multifaceted ministry allows them to offer opportunities to people wherever they are, and whatever stage they are in. Conklin says that while they offer many opportunities on their campus, they have a strategic push to offer many of these discipleship opportunities off-campus for missional reasons. “We don’t want to see these kinds of discipleship paths be taken away from the neighborhood because of all of the people [there],” he says.
While their four discipleship pathways are intentional, they are also highly relational and exist to serve people. In fact, Conklin describes their pathways as a means to help people assume more responsibility for their own discipleship. “Through these options, you are helping people take ownership of their following of Jesus,” he adds.
This effort to strategically enable the congregation to own their discipleship progress is an encouraging sign.