One of the most common question that I get from new leaders is: “What is the right size for a group?”. I always answer with – that depends. What kind of a group do you want to have? I believe that you can have a successful, life-giving group with anywhere from 2-100 people in it.
There is even a movement now to get rid of the word “group” and ask people to just gather 2-3 of your friends and grow together over the next few months. That can work. We call those mentoring groups.
I do think that if you have more than 10 single people or more than 8 couples in a room, the amount of discussion is going to be limited to a few. (Couples tend to come as a set. There will usually (not always) be one that speaks for the other one.) I would encourage those groups to continue to grow, but allow time for splitting into smaller groups for discussion.
The smaller the group, the better chance for life-on-life discipleship. The larger the group, the better chance to impact the community missionaly. Our largest group at Cross Point has over 150 people in it. They start meetings together and then break down into 15 smaller groups for discussion and prayer. Almost every week, they are serving the community somewhere. There is power in numbers when it comes to missions.
I would encourage every small group system to be designed for groups of all sizes. When it comes to groups, there is no “one size fits all”.
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