To pinpoint the ratio between your small group sign-ups and small group show-ups, all you really need is an attendance average once a semester.

The best approach is to ask all group leaders to answer two questions near the middle of the semester. These questions will help you gauge the health of your small group system and plan for your next semester.

Question #1: How many people signed up for your group who never showed up?

This ratio of sign-ups to show-ups is crucial for projecting how many groups you’ll need in your next semester. It also lets you know how well you filled your groups. The goal is to keep this ratio low, but almost every group will have some percentage of people who sign up but never show up. If the gap gets too wide, you may want to examine how people may be falling through the cracks in your fill process. If the gap gets too small, you may want to question if you are doing enough to recruit nominal attenders to join groups. It’s actually a sign of a healthy system if you have some people who sign up but don’t show up each semester. It shows you’ve piqued the interest of the less committed and made it very easy to sign up.

This ratio will also let you know when you need to close a group. For example, if your goal is to have ten to fifteen active members in each group and the ratio between sign-ups and show-ups is twenty percent, you will probably want to close a group when it hits twenty to twenty-two people (since four will probably never show up and one or two will drop out early on) so that each group will start with fifteen to sixteen. Remember, it’s always better for a group to be slightly over-attended than under-attended.

Question #2: On a good night, how many people show up for your group?

This is a useful question. The response should be based on a group’s good night rather than a week-to-week attendance average, which will fluctuate due to weather, miscommunication, vacations, etc. The number you get will tell you how many people in your church are actually involved in groups, giving you a sense of the health of your overall system. In a strong system, this number will closely mirror adult attendance at the worship services.

In fact, here’s a challenge: make it a goal for your weekly group attendance to match your weekly adult worship service attendance. 

– Nelson Searcy and Kerrick Thomas, with Jennifer Dykes Henson

The above excerpt is from pgs. 280-282 of Activate: An Entirely New Approach to Small Groups.

Drawing from the startling success of small groups at The Journey Church, Nelson Searcy and Kerrick Thomas debunk the myths, set the record straight, and show how church leaders can implement a healthy small group ministry that gets the maximum number of people involved and solves many of the important problems facing churches of all sizes. These practical strategies will produce life-changing results.

P.S. – Click here to grab your copy from Amazon today!

Your partner in ministry,

Nelson

© Nelson Searcy. All Rights Reserved.

About Nelson Searcy

Nelson Searcy is an experienced church growth strategist, pastor, church planter and coach, consulting with churches around the world. As founder of Church Leader Insights and the Renegade Pastors Network, he has personally trained more than 3,500 church leaders in over 45 denominations through live events, seminars and monthly coaching. Nelson is also the Founding and Lead Pastor of The Journey Church, with locations across New York City and in Boca Raton, FL. Nelson and his church routinely appear on lists such as “The 50 Most Influential Churches” and “The 25 Most Innovative Leaders.” He is the author of over 100 church growth resources and 18+ books, including The Renegade Pastor: Abandoning Average in Your Life, Ministry and The Difference Maker: Using Your Everyday Life for Eternal Impact, and At the Cross with the People Who Were There. He and his wife, Kelley, have one son, Alexander.