A small group of children and a female leader sitting on the floor, engaged in a lesson. The blog post title "5 Steps to Transition Your Kidmin to Small Groups" is overlaid on the image.

What does your Sunday morning service look like? Do you have Sunday School and a Kids Service (Large Group)? Large group with a small group component? Just Large group?

Many churches fall into one of those three buckets. Since any successful children’s ministry needs to have some kind of discipleship element, we need to seriously consider how we do that. Discipleship can happen in anyone of these three buckets, but we have to ask what is the most effective. I believe we all grow better in groups where we can be open and honest about what’s going on in our lives. In groups we can explore how to apply what we’re learning to our lives. And that’s not just for adults. It’s for kids too.

Having walked two separate churches through the transition to small groups, I’ve learned what to look out for to make the transition the best.

Transitioning to small groups is not easy and can take months if not years. The problem is not the kids, but the teachers. Many of them teach because that’s where they’re gifted. It’s what they’ve always done. They want the kids to know the stories, context, and background, which are all good things. But they may not be as focused on building relationships, connecting, and helping the kids apply the biblical lessons to their everyday life.

Here are five steps to make the transition.

1. Look for connectors for your small groups, not teachers.

When looking for a Small Group Leader (SGL), you’re not really looking for a teacher. You’re looking for someone who can connect with the kids. You will handle the lesson and the theological heavy lifting in Large Group. The SGL's job is to get to know the kids and provide practical applications.

Even though leading a small group was never one of my strengths, I did it at first for two reasons:

I wanted to understand what I would be asking the other leaders to do.
Finding male leaders can be tough, so I filled the hole until I could find someone.

While leading the Boy’s Small Group, I had a new dad volunteer who initially started serving in the sound booth. During Small Group time he didn’t have much to do, so he would join his son in our group. As the group went on, I quickly noticed that he connected with the boys in natural conversation far better than I did. I realized I had a great potential Small Group Leader on my hands and started to train him to lead. It was a stretch at first, especially when it came to classroom management, but he was a natural and caught on quickly.

When looking for the right kind of Small Group Leader, find one who the kids can relate to, who has lots of empathy, and who genuinely cares about children. They’ll do far better in this role than someone who can only teach kids the proper order of the kings of Israel.

2. Invite the teachers to transition.

Sunday School teachers are typically some of the most dedicated volunteers that you have. They serve every week, giving their time and money to the same group of kids. It would be wrong to simply fire them because of the change. If you did that, you would also lose some of your best volunteers.

When I was making the change, I knew I could count on these people who deeply loved the kids. So, I invited all the teachers together and thanked them for their service and sacrifice.

Then I cast vision for the future. I talked about the value of connection and providing practical applications. We were moving beyond giving just the facts.

After that, I talked about what services would look like in the future. For example, at the church where we moved from one service to two, we had to shut down Sunday School. Instead, everyone would be together for Large Group and then break into their Small Groups at the end.

Your scenario might be different. What is important is that the current volunteers feel respected. Show them what the future looks like. Let them decide if they want to be a part of the changes. Many of the teachers were excited about the change and some were cautiously optimistic. Others graciously bowed out, which leads me to point number three.

3. Empower them to transition to another position or out completely.

Whenever you introduce change, there are some who won’t make the journey with you and that’s okay.

You have to hold people with an open hand.

Whenever a teacher said they didn’t want to be a Small Group Leader, I offered them other options. Most of them love to teach, so I offered them the opportunity to teach the main lesson or move to an administrative role.

If they didn’t want to do that, I thanked them for their service and helped them find a new place to serve. There were some tears and frustrations. But others were relieved. They were looking for a gracious way to bow out, and this was a great off ramp.

4. Introduce the new curriculum in Sunday School.

There’s an old science experiment where scientists dropped frogs into boiling hot water. Naturally, they got out as soon as possible. However, they put other frogs in room temperature water and gradually heated it to boiling. Those frogs died because the change was gradual. They didn’t notice.

This example may be a little morbid, but it’s an effective way to look at change. If a change is sudden and drastic, people will revolt. However, when it’s slow and gradual, people will be far more accepting because they will have had a chance to get used to it.

With this in mind, I first introduced my Small Group Leaders to the curriculum instead of suddenly changing the system.

When it was time to order new lessons, I gave them my small group material and asked them to teach that. At first, it included all the small group materials plus the Bible lesson. Then as the months passed, we added more things to the Large Group worship time. First, we did worship together, then the game, and then the Bible lesson.

Finally, we had fully transitioned from Sunday School to a Large Group/Small Group model. The leaders who stuck with me through the gradual change were excited about their new role

5. Start small and build the volunteer base.

At one church, we had one Sunday School service during the 9:00 a.m. hour and three other large group services that followed. I couldn’t introduce small groups in all four services at the same time. That would take an enormous amount of recruitment and training all at once.

So, I started small.

I started with the 9:00 a.m. service, because we had the most volunteers and Sunday School was already in place. Then I moved to 11:00 a.m. and then Saturday. Wednesday night service would have been next, but COVID changed my plans.

For each service, I recruited a few leaders and then split my large group accordingly. Most of those groups at the beginning weren’t small but rather medium groups. But we eventually got enough leaders to divide into the sizes we needed. If you’d like to see how I structure my small groups, you can read about that here.

Transitioning to small groups can be a long, daunting task, but I think it’s well worth the effort. It’s impossible for you to know every kid, but it is possible for every kid to be known. Having a strong small group culture supports the connection and relationship building that’s required.

This is a edited excerpt from my new book Next Level Kidmin, that releases on Tuesday, September 16! If you want more practical advice about small groups and so much more, then get your copy today.