Welcome to the Bible Leadership Podcast for our team topic to talk leaders about October 3rd and 2013. Our goal is to make a game tangible test on topics such as culture, leadership, succession, and navigating people forward. We hope you enjoy today's.
SPEAKER_03I'm one of our executive consultants on the team. And today I'm having a conversation with Adam Ehrlichman, who is the founder of an organization called Build Groups. He also recently, or somewhat recently, wrote a manual called Group Leader Training. And the subtitle, I think, is really interesting and so and paints a lot of, I guess, color to the bigger picture of what that is, but it is a biblical manual for small group leaders and teachers in the local church. So, Adam, I look forward to having this conversation with you. I would love, before we even just get started, for you to say, who are like, who are you? Where do you live? How did you found build groups? Where did that even come from? What does that mean? So I'll let you introduce yourself.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, thank you so much, Kristen. Really excited to uh be on here with y'all and share and a little bit about me. I'm uh and I always gotta lead with this, especially because I live in Texas. I was born in Pennsylvania, grew up there. I'm a Yankee living in the promised land of Texas. And so, you know, grew up with my youth there, uh, became a Christian at 19 at Liberty University, Lynchburg, Virginia, met my wife there, and uh, you know, was called to ministry 21. And so my wife, Anna, uh we've got three boys, Judah, Titus, and Deacon, 10, 8, and 6 years of age, uh, rough, tough, tumbling, high energy, wild, just sweet boys and uh a blessing. I love being their dad. It's it's fun. And so we're we're active and moving and going. And uh I've served in youth, young adult ministry, uh, adult groups and discipleship, uh, executive level ministry as well. And so that's a little bit about me, my background. I live in Dallas area, kind of East Dallas, uh Texas. And uh yeah, so that's that's just a little bit about me.
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SPEAKER_03So where did uh Build Groups come from?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so that wasn't something I sought to start or had this inclination or desire within me. Uh I had gone on staff at a church as a groups pastor, and I was like, man, what conference could I take my, you know, my lay group leaders to? And I'm in Dallas, right? This is like the Mecca of conferences for Christian converts.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_00And I was looking, I was like, man, there's nothing. There, there's nothing on the weekends. It's always Monday through Friday. The conference ends at 5 p.m. when everyone gets off work. So I said, well, let's just do our own thing. And we did our own sort of formatted conference, and I trained some of our leaders who were coaches of group leaders to lead breakout sessions. And we did that on a Saturday, it went really well. The next year we did it. Like a dozen other churches through word of mouth said, Hey, we want to come be a part of this. I said, Hey, come on, man, the more the merrier. And then the next year we said, All right, well, let's open this up and see. And then we had more than 50 other churches from around the country showing up to come to a little, uh, you know, small little rural town for this conference just north of Dallas. And uh, wow. So when that begins to happen and you have this conference, people go, oh, maybe this guy knows what he's talking about, you know, which isn't always true, but uh it has worked out. And so build groups started from there. It's been around for four years and uh helping consult churches and groups and discipleship ministries and other aspects as well. That's there's more that we do. But the bread and butter of what got it going started, uh really established and launched was consulting and helping churches and groups and discipleship ministries.
SPEAKER_03Okay. So then is that, I'm assuming, how the idea of group leader training then was birthed. Is that like how how did group leader training come to fruition?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that is such a great question. So I was writing it before I ever realized that I was writing it. There are so many great resources out there in the group's ministry world from, I mean, all different types of people. And so there's a lot of books that I read out there. I was like, man, this is good, this is good. And some were really good with best practice, some were really good like theologically, some were really good like at a heart level and you know, interpersonal relationships and you know, community building. And I said, man, I would really like a book that has all of those just jammed together, right? And and uh a training that had all that. And so we started doing our own training with our own leaders. And uh through doing that, I started writing this, not realizing I was writing it. And there was a distinct moment though, Kristen. Like I remember, like it was yesterday. I was sitting in my office, I jumped on a Zoom call with a church planter, and he was asking about groups. You know, I was just kind of coaching through some groups ministry stuff. And long story short, we get to the end. I'm telling about our training and what we do and you know, our group's ministry. It I mean, it doubled every year for six years. I mean, it was just amazing what God did. Uh and you know, at a sizable church. And and so um, he's like, Well, can you send me the training in writing? And I said, I don't have it in writing, it's in my head and my heart, and I got some bullet points that won't make a sense to you. And it was just a whole damper on the call, like it ended, and we hung up, and I looked, I like looked at the ceiling of my office. I was like, All right, Lord, you you want me to write a book. Um, and so, you know, that was more than six years ago now, and it took six years to write. It was the first book I began writing, but it was the fifth book I published, if that tells you anything. It was a labor of love, a field study of six years of over a thousand group leaders. We took through that and gathered data and responses, and so the whole you know, resource, it was really written out of a practitioner's mindset of what are group leaders actually facing at ground level.
SPEAKER_03Um, and then so that's really interesting. Yeah, that's really interesting because you just said six years, that's a very long time. And a lot of conversations, a a thousand over a thousand leaders is not a small number. So what were the what were the common denominators that came from all of that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there was a lot of things that I learned through that process. There were, you know, there's some micro data that I could probably share with you, like specific questions we have in the training that really opened up. And, you know, so I'll give you one as an example, but before I want to give you kind of a macro. One of the macro things that we learned was people were far more willing to lead a group if there was a clear pathway of how to start, be developed, and then a plan to deploy them, right? And that that's a large part of what I helped churches do is how do you discover, develop, and deploy new leaders and volunteers, right? And so if that was in place and there was a plan and they and you could communicate that clearly, they they were much more willing to do it, even though I had a guy, you know, I sat across the table from is like, man, would you go through our leader training? And he goes, uh, I'll go through it, but I'm never gonna be a leader. And, you know, today that guy, six years later, started a group, multiplied his group six times, and now coaches, you know, 10 different group leaders, right? Uh like so, and that that's that was one of the macro, but a micro was we would ask the question, like, what's one healthy quality of a group? Uh and so we go in a circle, everyone answers with one, you know, transparency, biblical, uh, authentic, caring, um, you know, and and and plenty of other answers, but there were four common responses that we'd never heard, and over like 1,500 different responses. And so some of those responses, uh, or of those four responses, it was very telling about what people thought groups were supposed to be and what they were supposed to do, and what outcomes they could expect from group. And what was very clear was that growth mindset was not at the forefront of most group leaders' mind. Uh so interesting. Yeah, yeah. It was more about uh support and care, and it it was less about progress, it was less about transformation, it was more about transparency. Hey, let's be open, let's be honest, let's be genuine, let's be authentic, but it stopped there. And so the the very uncommon answers that we did not hear were answers like uh one quality of a healthy group is repentance. Uh another healthy, you know, quality of a healthy group is that we correct one another, admonish um grace, that we have grace towards one another. Or uh the fourth one uh was growth or transformation. Those those were responses that we almost never heard, maybe one or two times. And so what that told us was hey, we have half of it right, right? Like transparency, acceptance, like you have to have that, but it can't stop there. Uh like it's it's it's not it's okay to not be okay, but it's not okay to stay there. We need to move forward, we need to progress. And so that that was some of the things that we learned through that uh season and and the six years of of putting that together.
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SPEAKER_03So you said something which makes me think of another question. Why is training group leaders so important to the future growth of the church and current health of the church?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. That that is, I don't know if you could have asked a better question, Kristen. That that's like, I love that question, right? So why groups matter, right? Why do they matter? A lot of churches, I think, view groups in an improper place and in error, they refer to them as hey, groups are gonna help us close the back door. Uh, close the back door of the church so people don't leave. We need to retain them. And in reality, groups aren't the back door, they're the elevator that takes your church to new heights you didn't know were possible. Groups are the tide that raise all ministry ships in your church. So if you want a stronger kids' ministry, you want a stronger student ministry, uh, any ministry you can think of, like groups is that tide that raises all of it up. Because if you have people who are in there uh intentionally being spiritually formed in the image of Christ, and and they're they're done with quality and intentional uh processes and training and development, and uh, you start to see that flow out into the other places because the people who are in there are parents, a lot of them. And those parents have kids and kids ministry, those parents have teenagers and student ministry. And so it just overflows in so many different ways, and it really affects and increases many other metrics. And that's that's what I've seen at multiple churches, and that's uh, you know, there's fruit that's come out of that into other ministry areas you just wouldn't otherwise see.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's really good. Okay, so for someone listening right now thinking, yeah, we might this, you are speaking to me right now. I my church is in a spot where we just we're not great with our groups. We're not in a great spot. They we kind of put half of our attention towards them. Some seasons were a little bit more focused than other seasons. Uh, we don't we don't have the resources, we don't have the staff devoted to it. Fill fill in the blank for whatever reason, you know, might fit for their context. So you have this resource, group leader training. So talk to us about how is that even supposed to be used, or what does that even look like for a church to adopt that and use that, practically walk us through group leader training?
SPEAKER_00Certainly, yeah. So there are churches who have a full, you know, adult group staff that use this resource, and and it's very beneficial for them. But what I had in mind a lot of through the process and putting this together was this resource being a tool that was turnkey for a staff or a church, even a solo pastor, a church planter that didn't have the full-time groups guy on staff. Right. Uh they didn't have that person to just lose sleep about it overnight and own that ministry. And so the way that this resource is designed to help and the way that we've modeled it, and I help other churches do this, is hey guys, let's let's not be reactive in groups ministry where we go, oh man, it's January, it's peak season. Uh, we need to find some leaders and start groups in two weeks, and then try to microwave that whole, you know, group leader training experience and launch them. And then we wonder why, well, why do we lose 60% of our groups going into the next semester? Uh and and so really what the hope is is through this training is that we we crockpot that process. We we slow it down, we're proactive, we uh really spread that out over instead of hey, let's jam this into two, three, four weeks and let's spread that over five months. Uh let's make this meaningful and let's justify a process where people when they go through, they they they see that we've invested time into it. Uh we've given them time to consider, to pray about it, to see if I mean, is this something God's called me to? Like uh I think the primary role of of a pastor in in ways, right, equipping the saints to do the work of ministry, Ephesians 4, 11, and 12. Uh, groups ministry is a vital place and I think a prime place to allow people to exercise their gifts and play that out. And so when you give someone a three, four, five months, and and that might be, hey, we're just gonna be once a month for two hours. Like we're not gonna burn you out before you ever start leading. Uh right. And and the you know, the staff person or the pastor probably enjoys that way more too, you know, spreading that out.
SPEAKER_03Right, right.
SPEAKER_00You get a front row seat to see them explore a call to possibly lead. And to step into a space that they may have never believed that they could. And they needed a little bit more, and I like how Robbie Galladi says this, they need a little bit more godfidence, right, in their life.
SPEAKER_02Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00To just believe, like, hey, God could use me in this way. And the life stories of transformation and people's lives that are touched through them saying yes, it's it's incredible.
SPEAKER_03Wow. Do you have an example or a story or two about actual real life churches that have adopted group leader training, sort of the success story? What, how is this transformed or changed or encouraged a church who has adopted this and in and and started applying some of these principles and this training within their church?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I can give you probably macro examples of just like metrics, right? That would say to that. And then there's you know, micro examples, obviously, too, of just stories of, you know, I think the quantity is important to measure, but also the quality of just immeasurable spiritual value that's being added, where you've got the single mother who's moving out of a home because she got saved a year ago. And through a group and a community she's belonged to, they've helped show her that uh, man, you want to be wedded, you don't want to be out of wedlock living with a man. And so taking that repentant next step to step out and having no one there on move out day, and then man, the group shows up, uh, you know, shows up, helps move, helps. I mean, not just advise you should do this, but walks through that one of the hardest moments of single mother's life. Right. And so, uh, so I mean, there's that example, there's so many examples. I remember I was sitting down at a um a fuzzy's taco and I was talking to a guy, and his group leader had told me, I think this guy would be an incredible group leader. I said, I agree. I'm gonna go get lunch, I'm gonna talk with him. And, you know, and so I I sit down, I said, Hey, you know, uh, your group leader thinks that you'd be a great future new group leader because of this, this, and this. And then he begins to choke in his taco and he's like, oh man, uh, you know, that makes me real uncomfortable that you just said that, right? And uh, but I know God wants me to get uncomfortable, so like I'm open to this. And and so he, I just I got a front row seat to watch the Holy Spirit like move and convict and make him uncomfortable to say yes to the calling God had put in his life that he wasn't aware of yet, right? And so you get to see people become more than what they realize that they could be. And to uh, I mean, another instance, like a dad who had just been disengaged, not involved in church, and joined a group, took two years to get him into a group. He gets into a group, he's going, and then like a month in, he's now leading family devotions with his family, you know, at dinner time. And like total 180. And that's the power of groups, right?
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_00Uh right, right. So that that's some of the micro, the macro level, the metric stuff you would see, right? With the way that we do groups, because groups are not just about fellowship and study. Uh groups are a prime place to mobilize people into action, into service, into sharing their faith. And that that's what Jesus did, right? He he uh a step of discipleship was moving his disciples into service. And so we train group leaders to do that. So in our resource, it's that's one of the five sessions is we train group leaders, how do you mobilize people to activate their gifts and begin using them? How do you, as a group, begin to share your faith? How do you guys, as a team or as a community, begin to be evangelistic and not just sit in a seat and learn your Bible for 10, 15, 20 years, but that you go actually live it out, right? So uh, but but yeah, those those are some of the examples of what we've seen come out of that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Wow. I agree with you. There's just something so powerful that happens when we get into intentional community, the way that God changes us, the way our hearts expand for God, for people, for the people in our context, you know, and then kind of on the periphery. There's just something very, very powerful about how God has wired us in the context of relationships, and relationships matter. And so I love that you are training churches and group leaders to walk toward intentional relationships and connection, really. And it made me think of a question while you were talking. What, in your opinion, do you think is the biggest barrier or hesitancy for churches who were a little bit on the fence of going all in with groups? And, you know, for whatever reason. But what do you think prevents churches from really taking that step toward building this healthy framework of small groups within their church?
SPEAKER_00Trust. It comes down to trust. Uh, you go back to the Proz Reformation, even Martin Luther, he had a vision to equip home group leaders. And because of the movement and the potential of losing the influence he needed to move the Protestant Reformation forward, he's he cut that. He's uh, we're not going to risk it. You know, that could get us some bad publicity. Uh, you know, and so for churches today, like, and just for context, like I work with churches who have hybrid models on campus groups, off campus groups. Um, you know, mid-sized groups, small groups, and and so, you know, whether that's a Sunday school or that's, you know, life group, whatever you want to call them, uh I work with all of those. And so what I see most often, whether it's on or off campus, but especially for off-campus, because there's a higher higher level of trust that's required, uh, it really comes down to trust. Are we willing to release people to live out their calling and to live out the gifting God has woven into them and put into them to let that are we willing to take the time, one, to help cultivate and develop those things to get into a place where they can be trustworthy? And so, like with group leader training in our five-month process, we do five sessions over five months. Is is but you know, churches can do whatever timeline they want with the five sessions in uh the workbook. Um what we say is if we invest a lot on the front end, we can have a lot of trust on the back end. And that also really increased our retention rate of the amount of group leaders that came back the next season. We hit what we would only have about 2% loss or you know, churn, if you will, of our group leaders from semester to semester to semester. And and and that's significant for the longevity and the health of a group's ministry that builds a culture, which you know, it's good to have strategy, but as said many times, culture eats strategy for breakfast. Uh, yep. If you have people in this for the long haul, that that's huge. And so for pastors and for staff, and and I'll be uh and I empathize with elders and staff. There have been instances of different churches where it wasn't totally thought out and a lot of freedom was given to groups, and you get some messes, man. I mean, and and so that's it's important to have an intentional investment on the front end to prevent a mess on the back end. Um, but I would say this is they are dangerous. Groups are very dangerous. They can be to forces of darkness, to Satan, to sin. And at the end of the day, if you're willing to have an intentional investment process up front and and begin to be proactive, it's worth the risk. I mean, the reward is so, so high. And I could just sit and tell people for hours why it is worth it. So yeah, that that's what I see as a as a roadblock. And and there's plenty of ways to uh get past that and into just, I mean, all that God intended for this to be, just the beauty of it.
SPEAKER_03Have you um seen churches that were maybe sitting in that seat that were hesitant? And there was that one thing that sort of tipped them over the edge of, okay, we'll just take a step toward giving this a shot and then real, and then seeing that sort of open up the floodgates to a world that they never even thought possible. I mean, have you I'm assuming that you've experienced that working with churches? Is that sort of a fair assumption?
SPEAKER_00100%. Yeah, that that's fair. And I and I I'll take it as a compliment. Thank you. So um, you know, so generally I, you know, when when I go to work with a church or we consult them, uh, you know, the the expectation is we're gonna increase your volunteer base or your group leader base by 30 to 50 percent. And we say that because that's that's what Oh, that's a good percentage. Oh, it's I mean, it's life-changing for most churches. It it is a game changer. Uh, whether you're you know, a kids minister, kids director, or a group's pastor, uh director. I mean, you you go, man, that hey, how would it change your world if you added 30, 50 percent more volunteers or leaders? And and that's what we do again and again and again through this process where we help them discover, develop, and deploy potential new volunteers and leaders, and we help them custom build that for their context in their church. And, you know, we've got the resources obviously that that you know undergird and help a lot of that too. So um, you know, to answer that question, uh, we we see that it it can make a significant impact. It can make a big difference of moving that needle and then go, well, if you're telling me this is what my world could be, uh, then yes, let's take those steps. And and and you just start to see uh a total mentality shift. You see a paradigm break in a good way into a new place that they get to begin ministering, not out of desperation of, hey, come join this, come jump on this ministry ship that is sinking and on fire. Because we don't have enough yes, we don't have enough people. We we need more people. Say it from the stage again, please, Pastor. Put in the announcement. Uh instead, it's we operate from a full bench of so many people who are ready to jump in, ready to, and they enjoy it far more. They love to do the ministry far more, these leaders and volunteers, because they're not desperate and they're not uh in a scarcity mindset. They're not at a scarcity of slots being filled to service in. And so uh yeah, when when you paint some of that picture and people start to see that happening, uh it changes a lot in a good way.
SPEAKER_03Gosh, I bet. Well, group leader training is such a needed resource. So thank you, number one, for writing it. Thank you for having this conversation. And before we wrap up, how can people connect with you? What if someone is listening and they want to learn more about build groups? What if someone is listening and they think, gosh, yes, group leader training is what we need. How do they get it?
SPEAKER_00Yes. So it is available on Amazon. And as of just this month, we now have bulk order options on our website. So buildgroups.net. Uh, you can go there, buildgroups.net, email, you can email me, Adam, at buildgroups.net, and we can you know get y'all hooked up, get you all those resources. We we do up to uh 50% discount for bulk orders off of the list price that you you'll see there. And um uh yeah, so I mean, and if in a consulting side of things or whatever, if it's not just the resource, uh my cell phone numbers 434-444-6376. And some people say I'm crazy to do this, but I just did that. So we're good. But uh buildgroups.net, get it on Amazon, go to our website, email Adam at buildgroups.net, or you can shoot me a text message. So yeah.
SPEAKER_03Perfect. Bold move giving out your phone phone number. Bold move.
SPEAKER_00We'll see how that goes.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. You can you can report back later and let us know about that. But thank you for having this conversation. I really appreciate it. I think it's valuable and helpful. So thank you for taking time.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, Kristen. Thanks for having me on. Uh I love talking about I could we could just I could go on forever. And so uh thanks for just giving me a little bit of time to share my heart, my love, and passion uh of just wanting to see the church do and cultivate more of this. Thanks.
SPEAKER_02Thanks for listening to the Vanderblomen Leadership Podcast. At Vanderblumen, we help organizations build their best teams through hiring, succession, culture, compensation, and diversity solutions. Visit our website, Vanderblumen.com to learn more and subscribe to our Vanderblumen Leadership Podcast, wherever you listen to podcasts, to keep up with our latest episodes. Thanks for listening.