Sticky Church (Larry Osborne)

"Sticky Church" is one of Larry Osborne's follow up books after "The Unity Factor". We also read this with the group at church and since many already lead small groups or will be leading small groups discussion was very lively!

As the title suggests Osborne wants his church (and others) to be "sticky", implying that people will not "drift out the back door and off to another church". But when he started off by saying

Everything we do is aimed at helping the Christians we already have grow stronger in Christ. – pg 20

I think he goes too far. If "everything" is aimed at Christians then what about evangelism and "going into all the world"? After this I think he gets back on track though.

He addresses some of the same topics as "Why We Love The Church" and "Pagan Christianity":

Some go so far as to call a return to house churches as the only way to return to New Testament Christianity. Their rationale goes something like this: If it was good enough for the New Testament apostles, it ought to be good enough for us. If they changed the world with small, mostly house churches, we can too. But their argument carries a fatal flaw. It’s the assumption that New Testament churches remained small and met in homes as a ministry strategy... The truth is, they had no other choice. Without automobiles or mass transit, everything in their culture was small and neighbourhood based. It wasn’t a better option. It was the only option. – pg 45

Then he suggests that the topics discussed in our small groups should be the topic of the previous Sunday mornings sermon.

The simplest and best tool I’ve ever seen for connecting people to one another and engaging them with the Bible for the long haul is a sermon-based small group. – pg 46

We started doing this at Philpott in the spring and will be doing it in the fall as well and the response has been great! As a result the following situation is avoided.

I grew up in a church where we studied one passage or topic in the Sunday sermon, another in Sunday school, still another on Sunday night, and something entirely different on Wednesday night. Frankly, I never had much of a clue as to what we were studying – something related to the Bible, I suppose. The teaching was far to disjointed to create any sense of focus. – pg 62

Near the end of the book he makes a couple good suggestions on how to set up church small groups:

The ideal size for a group of married couples is usually 12 to 14 people. For singles, 8 to 12 can be ideal... Most married couples have a me-too partner, someone who almost always agrees with whatever their mate says (at least in public). – pg 77

We’ve found that the small groups that have the greatest life-on-life impact and stay together the longest are always those in which the friendships are deepest. That’s why we tell people to choose a group primarily according to who else is in it rather than where or when it meets.- pg 78

It was a practical book which I'd recommend to any small group leader.