Exit Interviews

Rationale.

Our church is a family; God’s family. We are united by our faith in Christ, ruled by his word and express this in loving service of each other. Its an astonishing God - given blessing to be part of a church. We want to believe this, live this and communicate this to each other.

This affects how we treat people when they leave us. God calls on us to be united in love for one another. We want to call on people to bear with each other, and forgive those that they have a grievance against. Our desire is that they will choose to stay and keep living for Jesus with us.

However, the sad reality is that people will choose to leave us. Sometimes, this is because they are moving away for work or family reasons. Other times, they are expressing dissatisfaction with our church (leaders) or with individuals within the church.

We still want to care for them after they have left us. Often this is simply exhorting them to push on with Jesus by joining a new church. We also want to see what lessons we can learn from their departure.

Process.

We need to know who we expect to be part of our church. We must a clear idea of what membership involves; that people are committed to living for Jesus in unity with his people, that they are committed to doing this with our church, and they are committed to respecting and submitting to the leadership of church. We also need to have a clear idea of who has chosen to join us and do this with us. We know who we are pastoring and our goals for them.

Usually, people don’t decide to leave us overnight. They have previously expressed a desire to move away. Or it been a long gradual process of withdrawing from church community.

There are usually three signs of the later. They’ve stepped back from being involved in a ministry team. They have been sporadic in their attendance at small group. They will often be more irregular at church, but this can be harder to spot in the Sunday crowd. However, this is usually revealed their kids declining attendance, which we must track for child safety reasons.

This means our small group leaders are often the first to recognise or hear that someone is leaving us. They notice the decline in attendance. Or the person outlines their personal plans as part of group discussions.

We want these leaders to be the first to pastor their members; to discuss these reasons with the person, pray with them, and if necessary challenge them. They will also need to inform staff of what is happening. This gives the staff the opportunity to have a follow up conversation, especially where its complex or emotionally charged.

Method.

Our aim is to encourage these people to continue with Christ. These conversations may follow the following pattern.

1. What is happening? ‘I haven’t seen you at church recently. Is everything ok?’

2. Gently ask why they are leaving. Keep asking questions to clarify. Remember that if sin is involved, people are often unwilling to be completely honest or forthcoming. So seek permission to ask them personal questions. As part of this, ask:

• how can they see they have grown in Christ at our church?

• explore what they feel church could have done differently.

• what would they like to pass onto the church leaders?

• how they think this move will help them kick on as Christians?

• what church are they planning to join?

• how can we support them as they make this move?

3. Assess these reasons. We need to recognise that we will make mistakes as a church. At the same time, a person’s anger or dissatisfaction with us doesn’t automatically mean that we need to change or could or should have things differently.

(a) if we are seeking to send them on to serve Jesus’ kingdom, then ask how we can continue to support them

(b) if we feel they aren’t leaving for good reasons (we are losing them), then we want to gently encourage them to stay and confront these underlying issues. In these cases, we need to recognise that these conversations will be awkward or challenging. For example, they might be leaving in order to

• avoid repenting of sin

• avoid dealing with difficult or bad relationships

• avoid hearing unwelcome teaching

• stop being a Christian

4. Pray with them.

Small Group Toolbox - Ep 1 Where's your heart at with small group this year?

Transcript:

Hey there and welcome to the small group toolbox podcast that I'm starting. This is the first episode and great to have you here. I'm hoping you're listening because you're interested in becoming a better small group leader or learning about small group leading. Today in this first episode, I want to just talk about having a positive attitude as we head into small group leading. After I'm recording this, it's summer, it's Christmas, we're at a bit of break. You can see the Nativity set behind me.

if you're watching on the video. And it's a time of thinking about what's coming up. Now for some of you, you might be really positive about this. Perhaps you're starting group leading for the first time and you're thinking, yeah, can't wait to get into it. Really pumped, really looking forward to small group leading. Other people, whether it's first time or not, you may be a little negative, like a little pessimistic, like, oh, now how's it gonna be? Is it gonna be difficult? Am I up for this? Can I do it? All those kind of questions.

and you might not be feeling so great about heading into it. And this is a really normal thing for small group leaders, a really common, so nothing to worry about having emotions, either positive or negative, going into small group leading. But things to do, I think, is to bring the gospel into your thinking and feelings about the ministry ahead, about small group leading. Bring some Bible truths to bear on wherever you're at. Now I've been going through this a little bit. I've been thinking about,

Okay, small groups coming up. There's a few uncertainties, bit of ambiguity. I'm not so sure about some people maybe not rejoining my group this year. So I've got a mixture of things. So what I've done is just spent a little bit time on a Bible verse that I love and I've been thinking a bit through in this last year and that is Philippians 1.18. And this is where Paul's talking about his ministry, what it's like in jail and what his hopes and thoughts are. But he says, talking about preaching the gospel, he says, one verse 18, but what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached and because of this, I rejoice.

Now, I just love that I find helpful things in there. What I see there is that Paul, he finds his joy in the proclamation of Christ. That's what it says. Christ is preaching because of this I rejoice. I find that challenging. Where's my joy? Where do I find joy? Not necessarily in the preaching of Christ. I think there's some change that needs to happen in me. But imagine that finding my joy in the preaching of Christ. What would that mean for small group leading? Well, that means that, no matter how small group goes this year,

If Christ is preached, then that's a reason for joy. And sure, I might not be the best small group leaders, I've got weaknesses, there's things I'm worried about, but Christ is preached.

I will find my joy there. And what does that mean? Well, that means I'm going to go in there. I'm to make sure that we talk about Jesus each week at Small Group. And I can do that. I can open the Bible. I can point to the sections that show us Jesus, the Old Testament, New Testament connections. The Bible states will help me with that. I can, you we can think and talk about Jesus every week in Small Group. That's something I can do. And that means that's great. Like I can rejoice in that. Like Paul does. He fills in with great joy to see that Christ is preached.

So that helps me think more positively and optimistically about going in a group this year. And I think that's something you can do as well. You could be from this verse or it could be another verse that is from your regular Bible reading. So as you do your regular Bible reading over the summer, you're looking for verses that will help encourage you and think biblically about small group leading. Or it just could be some favourite verses from your Christian life.

How do those verses encourage you, help you bring optimism and confidence going into small group bleeding? Could be about like, the sovereignty of God, that God is in control. Could be in the power of Jesus, could be in the Holy Spirit at work, could be in the community of God's people, the body of Christ. All those kind of things can help bring positivity and hope and optimism into your small group leading. And it's probably worth saying that if you are already optimistic, the Bible can again help you be grounded as you head into small group ministry. So, you you need to watch out perhaps maybe your confidence in small group leading is that you are going to be the best small group leader ever. You're going to not make any of the mistakes that your previous small group leaders have made. You're going to get it right all the time and things are going to be wonderful. Maybe you just need to sort of temper that a little bit from your reading of scripture, that the power of a healthy small group ministry is not in us, but is in Christ. And you can see here from the Philippians verse that I've looked at, that the power here, rejoice not that he's great at ministry, but that is Christ is preached. And so it can help you to remember that even if things don't go so well, or if you'll know that if Christ is preached, there'll be a healthy gospel small group ministry. So yeah, even if you're super positive, just is a good Bible stuff there to help shape and correct your approach to small group this year.

So I think these are good things to be thinking about. As I think about some conversation I've been having around church, a couple of people were not heaps, were a little nervous about what would happen with the small group, a little worried about conflict or neediness among group members. And what I said is, yeah, you've just got to go in really positive. You've got to think this is going to be a great year. It's going to be a best year ever for group leading and to have that confidence undergirded by some great cross-border truers.

So what is it for you? What are you thinking about there with a small group? What's your attitude? Positive, negative, a mix of everything? What Bible truths, what doctrine truths can you bring into your thinking and your feelings to help get off to a great start as you look forward to group leading this year? That's all I wanted to say for now, but yeah, hope that's helpful and I'll look forward to seeing you next podcast.

Growth Group Infographic

See the Growth Group Infographic below.