North Point Community Church prides itself on its small group culture. In Andy Stanley’s words:

The small-group program is not an appendage; it is not a program we tacked onto an existing structure. The small group is part of our lifestyle. We think groups. We organize everything with groups in mind, and everything points to group life. In many ways, group life drives what we do—and do not do—as an organization. (13)

Creating Community is a very simple description of how North Point does small groups. Stanley along with Bill Willits (who did the bulk of the writing) explain why community is important, the need to clarify what you hope to accomplish in small groups, the type of strategy required to reach that goal, an emphasis on the need for stream-lined simplicity, and some of the challenging realities involved with creating this type of ministry. North Point small groups are closed groups (they keep the same group together for a certain amount of time to increase intimacy) and their goal is multiplication within twelve to twenty-four months.

Each chapter is closes with some good discussion questions—this would be an ideal book for a church leadership team to use in order to draft or revamp their own small group strategy. The downfall of this book (as with so many mega-church resources) is that an urban large church setting is assumed. That’s not to say that small churches cannot benefit from this resource—small church pastors will just have to do the work of contextualizing the information.

Stanley, Andy and Bill Willits. Creating Community: 5 Keys to Building a Small Group Culture. Multnomah Books, 2004.