What percentage of your church’s worship service attendance typically attend an ongoing Bible study group? And what does group participation look like in an average church?
The data from the 2024 State of Groups study by Lifeway Research provides some interesting, and perhaps alarming, information.
Because ongoing Bible study groups are the environments in which people build long-term friendships with fellow congregants, study the Bible, pray and serve together, it’s important for group participation to be a solid percentage of worship attendance.
According to the State of Groups research, 67 percent of church leaders say half or less of adults in worship attend ongoing Bible study groups. For the average church with groups, 44 percent of worship attendees are also group participants. This could indicate some problems and opportunities in group ministries.
What’s a healthy percentage of group attendance relative to worship attendance? The gap should be somewhere around 30 percent. If a church’s gap is much lower than that, it could indicate the group ministry is “closed” rather than open to new people joining existing groups.
While some church leaders are proud of a small gap, the downside is the group ministry may not be as outwardly focused as it should be. It may be serving the congregation’s needs but not attracting new people. Churches with a gap of 25 percent to 30 percent of worship attendance have sufficient prospects to fuel group ministry.
What’s keeping adults from participating in ongoing groups?
There always will be a gap between worship and group attendance. But what causes adults to say “no” to weekly opportunities to connect to an adult group? There are at least six reasons adults are hesitant to make group life a priority.
1. Adults feel time-compressed.
Some adults believe they can get all they need spiritually and relationally by attending the worship service, so attending a group is not a tremendous need they feel. Some adults like to “do church in an hour,” so attending a worship service allows them to be efficient with their time. It’s a poor choice, though, to avoid attending a group.
2. Biblical hospitality may have been absent previously.
Most groups are not as friendly as they think they are. While they may be friendly toward one another, guests often experience something different. It’s not uncommon for a guest to enter a group for the first time and find it difficult to make conversation with group members.
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It’s not that the group members are trying to be rude. They just aren’t sensitive to the awkwardness guests feel, so they carry on conversations with the people they know. This often leaves guests on the outside looking in. And when that happens, they vote with their feet and don’t make attending a group a priority.
3. Previous Bible study experiences were not engaging.
A pastor friend of mine in Texas once told me a visiting family refused to return to his church after their initial visit. They attended the church’s Bible study hour then the worship service. Because the adult group leader read verbatim from the leader guide, he didn’t draw people into active learning.
“It was so boring,” the husband and wife told the pastor.
The lack of engagement and excellence in the Bible study caused a family to decide to keep looking for a church home even before they experienced the church’s worship service.
4. They may not be familiar with their options.
Most churches list available Bible study groups on their website, and they likely have a brochure available at a guest information booth. These are certainly needed, but these are both passive ways to get information into the hands of guests.
In addition to these practices, it may be wise to send guests information about their group options via email or text messaging. Churches also may place a brochure about their group options in a gift bag, encouraging guests to take one home and choose a group to attend.
5. The pastor may not talk enough about group participation.
It could be your church isn’t saying enough about its discipleship pathway and the role groups play in it. There should be a regular cadence of invitations from the pulpit for guests—and chronically absent members—to be encouraged to get involved in an adult group.
If it’s important to the pastor, it’s important to the church. A pastoral emphasis on groups and encouragement to attend can go a long way in creating motion, moving people “out of rows and into circles.”
6. Invitations to attend a group aren’t being extended.
It’s one thing to extend an invitation from the pulpit to attend groups, and it’s something else entirely when congregants take ownership and do the inviting. The number one reason people attend a Bible study group is because of the invitation of a group leader or a member of the group.
Mind the gap
The British have an expression: “Mind the gap.” It’s announced at train stations throughout the United Kingdom. This refers to the gap between the train and the platform. They don’t want people’s heels getting caught in the gap, which would cause people to fall, twist an ankle or possibly do a faceplant.
Minding the gap is something churches of all sizes would benefit from—minding the gap between worship and group attendance.
With a few minor changes, churches can close the gap by calling attention to the church’s group ministry, explaining group options, encouraging attendance and making easy on-ramps for guests.
Ken Braddy is Lifeway’s director of Sunday school and regularly blogs at kenbraddy.com. This article first appeared on LifewayResearch.com and was republished by permission.
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