Let’s say someone new came to a Sunday Gathering. The speaker made an announcement along the lines of, “We believe the church isn’t a once a week service, it’s a group of people who daily live out the gospel in their community. The way we do this at Midtown is through LifeGroups. So sign up for a LifeGroup!” The person accepted the challenge, signed up for a group, and is now placed in yours! So what’s next?
As followers of Jesus, we want to warmly welcome new people into our family because Jesus first welcomed us into His. Truth is, our LifeGroups are different from what most people expect and so it’s helpful to explain how our groups work so they can have appropriate expectations.
Here are a few pointers on how to be welcoming and inviting to your new LifeGroup member:
Create a welcome committee as a Core Group role.
The group leader can then forward new member information to the welcome committee. By doing this, we empower others in your group and frees the LifeGroup Leader up to oversee other areas of responsibility in the group.
Appropriately make the first contact:
Under 35, try text
Over 35, call or email
Have a script prepared
Plan a one-on-one meet and greet.
One great way to welcome someone into your life (and LifeGroup) is to go out and grab lunch with them sometime during the week of their first LifeGroup. You can meet with them before their first meeting to highlight what your group does and what their expectations are for a LifeGroup, or after the first LifeGroup meeting once they’ve had a chance to meet you. Either way, the main point is to make them feel welcome and get to know them personally.
Tell your story.
How did you come to know Jesus? How did you find out about Midtown? What was your initial experience coming around a LifeGroup?
Get to know them.
What are their interests?
Do they have previous church experience?
What do they expect from LifeGroup and how interested are they in LifeGroup?
Do they have any leadership potential?
What is their spiritual maturity? Are they a Christian?
Pray for them.
For the first interaction with the group, consider the best initial setting: rhythm, gathering, or group time.
We recommend our LifeGroups having three “places” to hangout each week. And don’t worry; it’s not as much time commitment as you think.
The first hangout time is your weekly group meeting. The second is at a Sunday gathering. The third is a regular “rhythm” that your LifeGroup has to invite others to. This can be a weekly lunch, happy hour, or a farmer's market. We call this your “Third Place”, and it’s a great and easy way invite people into your LifeGroup without inviting them to your weekly meeting, which can be intimidating.
For the newest member of your group, your Third Place can be a low pressure, fun place where they can just hang out and get to know everyone a little bit better.
Narrate everything by explaining what is happening, why it is happening, and how they can benefit from what we are doing. In particular, consider generational gaps and potential areas of confusion.
It “may” be difficult for some people to talk about themselves amongst ten people they don’t know. To offset this, make sure you narrate throughout the night why you do what you do with every component - Catch Up on Life, Review the Mission, Scripture and Sermon Discussion and Engage the Heart. If you need help narrating, simply read out loud word-for-word the explanation at the top of each section. Along with this, make sure you and the rest of the LifeGroup give new people the gift of going second by being first to confess sin and share what God’s been teaching you. You may even consider telling first time guests that they have the freedom not to share if they’d rather just be a fly on the wall and observe.
Follow up with the new member after the initial hang out.
Communicate with Groups Team if they have landed, ghosted, or left.