Sticky churches are ultimately held together by strong webs of relationships. That’s why a healthy and highly attended small group ministry can slam the back door shut. But alignment is essential. Without it, things will bump along. People will burn out. With it, things will hum along and people will stick around for a long, long time.

More than a few have gone to one of these conferences and seen the food court, the huge crowds, and lots of new Christians, and said, “That’s what I want and need.” But in the next breath, I’d hear them criticize the lack of participatory worship, the absence of verse-by-verse expository preaching, and a host of other things. In other words, if

just because a church does small groups well doesn’t mean they’re doing something that will work in your church.

The best way to make sure a model is transferable to your situation is to ask yourself whether you would go to that church if you lived in that town.

“Who already does what we want to do well—and does it in a church we would go to if we lived in the area?”

Who Can We Speed Model?

Its downside is that it often puts people into leadership before they’re ready.

The upside of the apprenticeship model is that it gets lots of people into the game quickly.

They saw me as a good worker. They figured that as long as there was a well-trained produce manager nearby, I could learn on the job, without doing too much damage along the way. They were right.