Building a Life-Changing Small Group Ministry rounds out the “Groups that Grow” trilogy with a volume aimed at designing, implementing, and assessing small group ministries in the local church. As the former Director of Ministries and Small Groups for Willow Creek, Russ Robinson has the experience to back up what he’s talking about—at least in certain contexts.

This book is aimed at mega-churches, something only explicitly acknowledged once prior to three detailed pages of assimilation flowcharts. “We understand that a church the size of Willow is rare. . . . [but] we hope it offers some significant insights regardless of the size of your congregation” (128–9). Unfortunately, hope isn’t enough. There are many important things to be gleaned from this book that can be applied to smaller churches, but the reader is left alone with the challenging work of contextualization. Zondervan should have marketed this as a manual for large churches.

The strength of this book lies in its comprehensiveness. Every conceivable detail of small group ministry structure is included. In this way, the book can function as a sort of checklist. While the recommended structure may not suit small churches, small church leaders reading this will be forced to think through each element, even if some are discarded as irrelevant.

There is one critical problem with the entire “Groups that Grow” trilogy that was especially evident here—a lack of theological reflection. The first chapter on “Ministry Clarity” makes this clear. While the authors affirm that “[t]heology matters. The Bible matters,” they present Bible and theology as a way to support their own vision. Listen to how they describe the role of “theological vision and biblical values” (28):

It keeps the bar high when compromise sets in. (28)

It keeps your passion high when you need fresh inspiration. (29)

It keeps the sense of need high in order to ‘sell’ the problem. (30)

These three quotes are not buried in the text: they are the main headings set in bold. Apparently the role of scripture is something that you lean on when things start going wrong. Compromise? Hit ‘em with the Bible. Lack of passion? Theology. Lack of urgency? Scripture will sell the need. Perhaps the most obvious lack of theological awareness comes when the authors list 16 passages of scripture as foundational community passages with the instruction to “see appendix 1 for detailed description” (27 emphasis mine). When you turn to appendix 1 for the detailed description all you find is a brief paragraph on each passage.

Once the first chapter is over, the Bible and theology that “matters” is set aside for the proper work of designing systems and structures—all without explicit theological reflection. I would love to see the authors sit down at a table with pastors from churches of all sizes and practical theologians to rework this material. The potential is immense! Until then, the reader is left exclusively with the burden of contextualization and theological reflection.

Donahue, Bill and Russ Robinson. Building a Life-Changing Small Group Ministry. Zondervan, 2012.