2021 Small Group Network Year In Review

2021 Review by James Browning

The Small Group Network was blessed in some amazing ways in 2021. Primarily through the work of the Holy Spirit in bringing amazing people and friends to the network!

We had a great year on social media. Our facebook group went from 4000 amazing, awesome small group point people, to over 11,000. Our facebook page climbed to over 100,000! Thanks for making it a party!

The SmallGroupNetwork.com site also saw it’s biggest year of growth ever. Here are the top articles from 2021:

We had our best year ever for our podcast. Our top episodes included:

  1. Nick Lenzi’s “Don’t Be The Hero” discussion on the books Storybrand and Hero Maker

  2. Inside Saddleback’s “Who’s Replacing Rick Warren?” Good question!

  3. Carolyn Taketa’s “Creating Community.” Carolyn talks with Bill Willits about North Point’s strategy when it comes to small groups.

  4. We tried something new this year with a limited series on “How To Be A Small Group Leader” It wound up being our biggest day and biggest month ever.

  5. Bill Search’s “4 Steps of Spiritual Leadership” goes into what he defines as leadership ascendency.

  6. Sneaking in under the radar was “Small Group Stories.” This was a uniquely formatted episode that featured an interview with the leaders of Love God Greatly, but interspersed throughout the episode were various women sharing stories of how their small groups impacted their lives. It was a great reminder of why we do what we do. It also had one of our best single day performances ever, and just in time since it was our last podcast of the year.

  7. Probably the most popular book of the year was The Other Half of the Church. Nick Lenzi covered this book in his podcast for a standout episode.

  8. The most controversial episode was Inside Saddleback: Is Sermon-Based Curriculum Hazardous to your small group’s health?

  9. If The Other Half of the Church was the most popular book, then Ted Lasso might have been the most popular tv show. Which would explain the popularity of Nick Lenzi’s “Being Ted Lasso with your Small Groups.”

  10. The digital discussion didn’t slow down this year which is why Carolyn’s Discussion on “Digital Disciple Making” was such a great and helpful episode.

Author

  • James Browning

    James Browning is the Pastor of Small Group Network Development and a staff member at Saddleback Church. He has over a decade of experience in marketing and digital evangelism.

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Daniel Thomas

Connections Director

423-534-9321

daniel@smallgroupnetwork.com

Daniel serves as Executive Pastor at Community Church of Mountain City, TN.  Daniel and his family are on a mission to establish roots within their community, fight for peace and serve well.  He serves as our Connections Director in laying the groundwork for Circles. He loves great coffee and traveling with his wife Tia and two children, Deklan and Aden

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