SmALL Groups: Excuse the cutesiness of this concept, but hopefully it helps you retain the principle. The power behind an effective small group is in the ALL -- which means everyone participates.

Far too many church small groups I've seen tend toward small and uneven participation in two areas:

1. They tend to be led by people who assume most of the responsibility for getting the food, hosting the home, prepping the study, and overall managing of the schedule. When starting a small group, one of the most important things to make sure of from the get-go is that one person isn't doing all the hosting, teaching, and calling. The leader's job, if you're reflecting an Ephesians 4 model of ministry, is to equip others to do works of service, not to do them all yourself. Sometimes taking the reins is easier than delegating, but the bottom line is that you need people to invest their time and energy for them to have a sense of ownership.

Try to come up with specific titles and tasks for everyone in the group, or make up as many roles as you have people, to increase buy-in. You'd be amazed how many people feel that little nudge to attend group simply because it's their responsibility to bring the brownies, or because they did the reminder calls, or because it's their turn to serve as icebreaker facilitator.

2. The second area has to do with the amount of air time people use talking. There tend to be two types of people: high com aps (meaning, high communication apprehension) and low com aps (meaning -- you guessed it -- low communication apprehension). The former tend to be somewhat self-conscious, don't feel a strong need to share consistently, and/or limit what they say on a regular basis. The latter have little fear in talking, feel they have a lot to say quite often, and seem to be oblivious to the amount of air time they're consuming.

Equal sharing and counting the number of times or minutes a person has talked are not essential, but a leader needs to have a strong sense of participation. Generally, in a group of 10 people, two or three people will harvest 50% of the air time. This usually isn't healthy.

First, make sure that one of those two or three people isn't you. Then, figure out who the low comp aps are (it's not hard) and try to even out group participation by doing one or more of the following:

• Call on people who have been quiet. "John, what do you think about this principle?" Engage those less likely to jump in on their own.

• Limit the feedback to your talkers to such non-verbal cues as eye contact, nodding affirmations, and general good listening skills, in the hope that they'll pick up the hints.

• Verbally establish good conversation guidelines up front: "Just a reminder that everyone's input is valued, so please be sure to share and if you're tempted to share too much, pull back and let others participate."

• Talk to the air hogs offline, requesting "their assistance" in helping others share by either limiting the number of times they talk or at least asking them to be selective with how often they do. Some feelings may be bruised, but chances are that this person's lack of social sensitivity is what causes him or her to talk too much to start with, so go for it.

• Periodically, talk to the group about "how we're doing." This is referred to as metacommunication, meaning communicating about... how we're communicating. A healthy group can do this openly. A group that is new or less healthy may need to raise the issue when the person with the greatest challenge in this area is not present. However, every individual is important, and the health of the group trumps individual rights when it comes to productive small groups.

By focusing on the ALL in smALL, you're far more apt to experience the joy we all seek when we seek to become a part of a small group.

Alan Nelson is executive editor of Rev! magazine.