Grow People Before Crowds

When I first started at my current ministry all of my past experiences ministry involved me teaching or coming up with crazy ideas for events or worship leading.   Like most people in a new position, I leaned into my strengths. For me this meant building a ministry around solid teaching, great worship, and can't miss events.

Since those were my strengths, we were very successful.  Attendance for all of our classes quickly grew. The three best attended events I have thrown were all in my first six months at my current position.  

There was just one problem, while I attracted crowds, I didn't have anything to plug the guests into.  They came for the show and only stuck around so long as I kept up the hijinks.   When I offered small groups, no one signed up.

I was great at attracting people but not at growing people.

Over the years I have lost that ability to draw a crowd, but our discipleship ministry is going very strong.  We have just s many teenagers in small groups as attend our gatherings.  Our summer ministry opportunities have great attendance.

Now that I have a strong discipleship ministry, I could learn a lot from my former self. Combining a drive to reach people with a solid discipleship infrastructure, creates a very powerful system.