How a sticky church concept will help the Bridge.

The basic thesis of Osborne’s book is that if a higher percentage of our church is in a small group of some sort, the people attending and invited to the church will be better connected and better cared for.

He compares a sticky church as a church with the exit slammed shut. He believes most churches are front door-oriented, replete with big events drawing in lots of newcomers or tire-kickers. The problem with that model is that there is disconnect between what we market as the identity of our body and what those newcomers actually experience.

Essentially, those churches present a dog-and-pony show followed the next week by the second string, attendees who don’t invite others or take personal responsibility for their neighbor.

They are merely there to be entertained.

The Bridge has always been a front door-oriented church. We’ve had thousands of people come through our doors over the years and never got connected and eventually, they left. Our current model is clearly not working.

The Bridge started the sermon based small-group model that North Coast has successfully had in place for decades. They did benefit however, by launching the small-group model early in their history before they grew large. Essentially, they added that personality to their DNA and then replicated/mandated that exponentially.

Because the small-groups are sermon based, thousands of people in that church are speaking a common language and considering the same spiritual applications.

Clearly this will benefit The Bridge tremendously but we have several, current barriers to this. We have Sunday school, a dated model that competes directly with small groups. We also have competing bible studies/book studies for men and women. Essentially, we undermine the desire to close the back door because we have supported these competing models to growth.

Essentially, if we are to adapt this small-group model, we have to slowly break the segregated Sunday school/bible study model we currently have.