Rooted is different. When Mariners Church began to report the outcomes of Rooted participants as 90 percent continuing in on-going small groups, 84 percent increasing their giving, and 73 percent increasing their serving, it sounded almost too good to be true. What's more Rooted is high commitment, advanced preparation, and daily homework. This was counterintuitive to those who have lowered the bar and launched easy-to-use church-wide campaigns. Something was certainly unique about Rooted.
Rooted, or Mizzizi in Swahili, is based on a discipleship method developed by Pastor Muriithi Wanjua at Mavuno Church in Nairobi, Kenya. It is a non-Western approach to discipleship, yet it is not new.
Convinced God was using Mizzizi to disciple people in all stages of their faith, Kenton began to work with Pastor Muriithi to adapt the experience to Western culture. Mariners Church translated and designed it for use in the West without taking away the impact of the non-Western approach.
Rooted is a 10-week experiential study with three large group sessions, 10 small group meetings, 45 daily devotionals, and three experiences. The focus rests on three themes: Connecting with God, Connecting with the Church, and Connecting with Your Purpose. "People don't grow in classrooms. People grow in experiences. They grow in relationship with each other. To motivate them, we have to put them in high risk environments. This is what we found in Rooted," Kenton reported.
While Rooted is a Bible study, it is experiential in nature, meaning that the Bible, the relationships with others, and experiences work together to transform lives. The groups utilize "The Seven Rhythms of Rooted" which include Daily Devotion, Prayer, Freedom from Strongholds, Serving the Community, Sacrificial Generosity, Sharing Your Story, and Celebration.
The three large group gatherings include a Vision Night, a Money Talk, and a Celebration all led by the senior pastor. The Celebration typically includes a meal, worship, individuals declaring their faith, water baptism, and a commissioning.
The 10 small group meetings focus on the topics: Who is God?, How does God Speak to Us?, Where is God in the Midst of Suffering?, There is an Enemy, How Can I Make the Most of My Life (2 meetings), Why and How Should I Tell Others?, and Why is the Church Important? The topics are further explored in five daily devotionals per week, which are essential to the impact on the individual.
The three experiences are a prayer experience, a serve experience, and breaking strongholds.The two-hour prayer experience in the third week of Rooted is the watershed moment for most Rooted participants. Those who participate in the guided prayer session based on their The Lord's Prayer, The Armor of God (Ephesians 6), or another Scripture passage, will continue on to finish the rest of Rooted and receive the full benefit. On average, 10 percent of participants drop out prior to the prayer experience. "The end goal of the prayer experience is to help them hear God's voice in their lives," according to Matt Olthoff, Network Development Pastor for the Rooted Network.
The serve experience gives each group the opportunity to serve the poor in their communities. The focus, however, is not based on the act of service. Rather, the participants are encouraged to listen to God's voice while they are in the process of serving the poor. "You want to encourage everyone to experience God while they are serving, then debrief these experiences afterward. The debrief involves crystallizing next steps based on what God spoke to them," said Olthoff.
Breaking strongholds in week five starts with a discussion on spiritual warfare, then the group is divided by gender into two groups. "Strongholds are areas of sin in our lives where our flesh and Satan work together to create destructive patterns that are sometimes hard to see. We have the authority and power of the Holy Spirit to break free from these influences." If group members feel they have a stronghold, they confess the pattern of sin in their lives and choose to replace it with a new character quality they want to adopt. This is the beginning of a process that the Holy Spirit works in the life of the individuals. In some cases, group members may be referred for professional counseling.
These three experiences are both powerful and profound in the growth of the group members. Rooted focuses beyond the information the Bible provides on discipleship, but moves group members toward living out what God directs them to do.
How Do Churches Use Rooted?
While church-wide campaigns have helped to connect entire congregations into groups for a six-week experience by offering video-based curriculum so anyone can start a group, Rooted is the opposite. Rooted can only be led by a trained facilitator. In order to recruit facilitators, most churches will offer pilot groups first for their pastors, staff, and church leaders, then a second round of pilot groups for other influential leaders in their church. After two rounds of 10-week pilots, in most cases the church is ready to launch Rooted with their entire congregation.
Rooted is not meant to serve as one of many options. For Mariners Church, initially offering Rooted as one more option to its large menu of options proved to greatly lessen the impact. Today, Rooted is offered as the entry point for every other level of involvement in the church. If someone wants to join a small group, they do Rooted first. If someone wants to serve, they go through Rooted. If someone wants to become a church member, they do Rooted first. This goes for every other ministry in the church without exception.
Part of the significance of the pilot groups with pastors and church leaders is to determine the church's level of buy-in to Rooted. If the pastors feel strongly about Rooted, they will present it was the front door to everything else in the church. If the pastors don't feel that strongly, then Rooted will more than likely not produce the result seen at other churches.
Once groups are formed and Rooted is underway, the facilitators meet for weekly training and coaching. Since Rooted often touches deep issues in people's lives, it's important for the facilitators to have the support of a coach every time they lead a Rooted group. In every Rooted session they will find new challenges and new issues among the group members. They may have never faced these things before, so support is essential.
Though high in commitment, Rooted provides results across the board. "Rooted has a way of impacting the unchurched, the dechurched, and the over-churched at the same time," according to Drew Sherman, Senior Pastor, Compass Christian Church, Colleyville, TX.
To access an on-demand webinar about Rooted: CLICK HERE.
This post by Allen White first appeared on smallgroups.com.
Is your church already beyond church-wide campaigns? Before you start demonizing campaigns, first, you need to consider some solid reasons to launch campaigns in your church. Your progress will determine whether you need a church-wide campaign or not.
First, if your church is rapidly growing, you will constantly need campaigns just to keep up. While the weekend service is a great attractor, groups are the place where you keep people and disciple them. Campaigns are the best way to recruit new leaders and get a lot of your people connected into groups very quickly. If you're growing, then keep campaigns going.
Second, if your congregation faces continual turnover, campaigns are necessary. If your church is near a military base or in a college town or full of Millennials, your members are regularly deployed, graduating, or getting married and moving to the suburbs.
Manna Church, Fayetteville, NC sits next to Fort Bragg. They regularly lose 1,000 people every year who are either deployed or reassigned. Campaigns have helped them connect the regular influx of new members. Manna has "deployed" their groups all over the world. Then, they got really smart and started campuses near military bases across the U.S. Different bases, but the same church!
The primary purpose of church-wide campaigns is leader recruitment.
Most of your people don't see themselves as leaders. A six-week campaign gives them the opportunity to test-drive a group and show them they were the leaders they never knew they were.
Through my book, courses, and coaching groups, pastors learn how to launch and maximize church-wide campaigns. These are churches who have never done campaigns or who have just started. After 16 years of campaigns, we know a lot more about how to keep groups going once the six weeks is over. We can definitely begin with the end in mind. In fact, I encourage pastors to develop their coaching structure before they recruit a single leader or start a group. That's one key to lasting groups.
Once most of your people are connected into groups, you can certainly use campaigns with relevant topics to reach your community. You can also use campaigns occasionally to launch a new initiative in your church or just reinvigorate your groups. But, the continual use of campaigns will eventually produce a diminishing return.
Is it Time for Your Church to Move Beyond Campaigns?
Church-wide campaigns are great sprints toward connecting a lot of people in a hurry. But, disciple-making is a marathon, not a sprint. The ultimate goal of groups is to make disciples. Disciples are not the end result of a process. Disciples are crafted [Read more here]. Eventually, you want your video-based-curriculum-dependent newbies to be able to rightly divide the Word of Truth and facilitate a discussion leading toward on-going life change. You can't grow disciples in fits and starts. As Eugene Peterson once titled a book, it's A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society.
Where is your church? Do you need to recruit a bunch of new leaders and launch groups? Have you been doing campaigns for years? Are you seeing your groups going the right way? How well are you making disciples?
Campaigns can help you or hurt you. Just like hot sauce, you've got to know how much to use and when. Otherwise, you'll numb your taste buds for campaigns. Is it time to start a church-wide campaign? Or, is it time to stop?