Small Groups Pastor

Our search for a Pastor of Small Groups and Discipleship is going good.  Our search team of 3 staff members and 3 elders has narrowed the list down from 133 candidates to 10 at this point.  Lots of prayer needed for wisdom and discernment.

I really have been CONVICTED lately that as a church we must strengthen our ability to connect people relationally into small groups and help them grow spiritually through these groups.  This connection process is happening now but we need to take it to another level to more effectively fulfill the Bible's mandate on us to make disciples and "feed the sheep" entrusted to our care.  As a leader, I have struggled with how to do this until I read Paul's letters to a young pastor (I & II Timothy).  In II Timothy 2:2 Paul says to establish reliable teachers (plural).  He was telling Pastor Timothy that his church needed leader-teachers to effectively lead, grow, and shepherd the church.  The pattern was Paul (apostle) to Timothy (pastor) to other leader-teachers established in the local church.  Isn't this the pattern:  from God (through His Word & Spirit) to the Pastor to small group leaders?  However, as I looked at our church, I realized we were not structured as a staff and church body to do this beyond about 1000 people. 

This is when I became CONVINCED that we needed a Groups Pastor to live, breath fire, eat, sleep, and champion small groups, spiritual growth, and leader-teacher development in our church.  Several Elders were already feeling the same way ... that our small group growth has not kept up with our overall church growth and that producing church goers and achieving church growth is not the end goal -- developing followers of Christ who bring glory to God is!! (John 15:8).