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Groups that Thrive: 8 Surprising Discoveries About Life-Giving Small Groups Paperback – April 13, 2018

by Joel Comiskey (Author), Jim Egli (Author)

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Why are some small groups dynamic, attractive, and breathe the life of Christ? Why do other groups stagnate and close? In this ground-breaking book, Joel Comiskey and Jim Egli describe eight surprises about thriving small groups from their research of 4800 small group participants on four continents. The authors expose common small group assumptions and offer practical advice to group members and leaders to help their groups thrive. The book covers topics such as small group participation, the influence of food, worship, and how thriving small groups effectively reach others for Jesus Christ. Read this book if you want your group to grow healthier and thrive with new life.

Print length

192 pages
Language

English
Publication date

April 13, 2018
Dimensions

5.5 x 0.44 x 8.5 inches
ISBN-10

1935789902
ISBN-13

978-1935789901
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Joel Comiskey is the founder and president of the Joel Comiskey Group, a resource and training ministry for the worldwide cell church movement. Actively engaged with the Church around the world, Joel has facilitated workshops on six continents. A prolific writer, he has authored numerous books and articles, many of which are available through his website. Joel also provides church and cell leaders with helpful free resources. In addition to facilitating workshops and creating resources, he serves as a coach to cell church leaders and as an adjunct professor at Simpson University and B.H. Carroll Theological Institute. Joel served as pastor in the USA (1984-89) and as a missionary in South America (1990-2001), where he was involved in pastoral ministry, church planting, and seminary teaching. After returning from Ecuador, he planted a church in the USA (2001-2008) and is now primarily involved in coaching pastors. In addition to his undergraduate qualifications, Joel holds an M.A. in professional studies and an M.Div. and Ph.D. in intercultural studies from Fuller Theological Seminary. He received the Donald McGavran Church Growth Award in recognition of his outstanding service as a missionary and contributor to the Church Growth Movement through diligent research and analysis of the contemporary cell church phenomenon. In addition to his focus on the cell church, Joel is also passionate about leadership, discipleship, missiology, and teaching others to write for publication. To find out more about Joel, his ministry, and his resources, visit his website and blog at http: //www.joelcomiskeygroup.com/. Joel is married to Celyce and they have three daughters. They live in Moreno Valley, California.

Jm Egli is the Leadership Pastor at the Vineyard Church (Urbana, IL). This is a church with five campuses in East Central Illinois. Jim's assignment is to multiply the number of leaders, small groups, and churches here, near and far away. i Since 1992 the central focus of Jim's ministry has been small group ministry. For eight years of that time my full-time job was writing training and consulting with churches helping them to establish vibrant small group ministries. In his quest to help churches with small groups Jim completed a Ph.D. in Organizational Communication from Regent University researching what differentiates growing small groups from stagnant ones and why some churches small groups ministry thrive while others struggle. He wrote a book called Small Groups, Big Impact, which might be the most researched and practical book ever written for small group leaders.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ CCS Publishing (April 13, 2018)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 192 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1935789902
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1935789901
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8.1 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.44 x 8.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,245,964 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,599 in Evangelism
- #3,473 in Christian Discipleship (Books)
- #3,877 in Christian Pastoral Resources (Books)

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Joel Comiskey
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Joel Comiskey is the founder and president of the Joel Comiskey Group, a resource, and training ministry for the worldwide small group-based movement (often called "cell church"). Actively engaged with the Church around the world, Joel has facilitated workshops on six continents. A prolific writer, he has authored numerous books and articles, many of which are available through his website (joelcomiskeygroup.com).
Joel also provides church and cell leaders with helpful free resources. In addition to facilitating workshops and creating resources, he serves as a coach to cell church leaders and as an adjunct professor at Indiana Wesleyan University, Simpson University, and B.H. Carroll Theological Institute. Joel served as a pastor in the USA (1984-89) and as a missionary in South America (1990-2001), where he was involved in pastoral ministry, church planting, and seminary teaching. After returning from Ecuador, he planted a church in the USA (2001-2008) and is now primarily involved in coaching pastors.
In addition to his undergraduate qualifications, Joel holds an M.A. in professional studies and an M.Div. and Ph.D. in intercultural studies from Fuller Theological Seminary. He received the Donald McGavran Church Growth Award in recognition of his outstanding service as a missionary and contributor to the Church Growth Movement through diligent research and analysis of the contemporary cell church phenomenon.
In addition to his focus on the cell church, Joel is also passionate about leadership, discipleship, missiology, and teaching others to write for publication. To find out more about Joel, his ministry, and his resources, visit his website and blog at https://joelcomiskeygroup.com/. Joel is married to Celyce and they have three daughters. They live in Moreno Valley, California.
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Jim Egli
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Jim Egli is a discipleship and small group enthusiast, researcher, and writer. He has done extensive quantitative research on what makes small groups healthy and growing and what makes churches' small group ministries grow, surveying over 6,000 small group leaders in hundreds of churches in dozens of countries. Jim has a Ph.D. in Organizational Communication from Regent University. He currently serves as the Curriculum Coordinator for New Generations, a ministry that partners with God to ignite disciple making movements around the world.
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I not need improvised this guide facilte found right pahts

Reviewed in the United States on July 3, 2018

Very good, thanks

Read this book at the risk of having your assumptions about small group ministry manhandled.

Reviewed in the United States on April 16, 2018

Groups That Thrive
CCS publishing (April 15, 2018)
Moreno Valley, CA
ISBN-10: 1935789902
ISBN-13: 978-1935789901

Read this book at the risk of having your assumptions about small group ministry manhandled. Two outstanding small group strategists, Joel Comiskey and Jim Egli, have joined forces to produce an intriguing book, based on careful research full of engaging stories.

I had the privilege of reading an advance review copy of this book. I loved it!

One of my favorite stories is about Lorgia Haro. Shy and hesitant Lorgia accomplished a lot because she trusted in God’s power, “Within the space of seven years, her group multiplied twelve times and over seventy people received Christ.” (P.64)
For me, the biggest of the eight surprises, promised in the subtitle, was the research results that demonstrated that groups actually excel in sharing more deeply with each other when visitors are present and when outreach is a consistent part of the group’s activities.
It turns out that a group doesn’t have to decide between outreach or intimacy. We can have  both. A group will grow  more intimate as it reaches out, “As newcomers join, they will add new life and vision to the group. Their stories will enlighten the rest and keep the group from becoming dull, boring, and routine.” (p. 103)
For my money Chapter 7 is, all by itself, worth the price of the book.
Groups That Thrive should be in the hands of every small group pastor, coach and leader.

J. Michael Corley

2 people found this helpful

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W. Terry Whalin

These Small Group Discoveries Will Boost Your Group

Reviewed in the United States on May 1, 2018

Joel Comiskey is an expert in small groups and how they function. He has taken this expertise and poured it into GROUPS THAT THRIVE. In the opening pages, he compares small groups to a rain forest, then writes, “Just like that Costa Rican rain forest, groups that thrive don’t happen by chance or simply because people want their groups to flourish. Thriving communities require a supernatural mix of prayer and Spirit-led anointing that makes a way for everyone to participate, for the healing presence of God, and for vibrant life that blesses others. This book explores how your group can thrive.” (Page 14)

I love the research and thought in this book. “The task of describing a thriving small group motivated Jim Egli and me to study the differences between a so-s0, run-of-the-mill meeting and a life-giving group that is ore than a religious meeting. We surveyed 1,800 small group members and leaders from around the world. This data was added to Jim’s previous investigation of over 3,000 small group leaders.” (Page 16).

This book emphasizes eight key principles. The entire book is designed with interesting subheads and pull-out quotes to make this well-written book easy to use and read. I highly recommend GROUPS THAT THRIVE.

W. Terry Whalin is an editor and the author of more than 60 books including his latest Billy Graham: A Biography of America's Greatest Evangelist

Helpful

Randall G. Neighbour

New and important insights for the small group world

Reviewed in the United States on April 16, 2018

In this latest title by Joel Comiskey, he does an effective job of sharing principles taught in the cell church model for two decades. The book is based on Dr. Jim Egli's statistically accurate research on small group health, which I have been following for many years. If you've read any of Dr. Egli's work or gone through his excellent workshop called Upward, Inward, Outward, Forward, you'll see a lot of familiar content here. (As I read through the pre-release version I was given I was pleased to see some of the seminar content in this book. It makes a very good companion piece for any church who decides to host the seminar as a pre-seminar book to read or a follow-up book to work through afterwards.)

If you've only read small group texts (vs. cell group resources), you may indeed be surprised by a few things shared. For example, the statistical correlation between increased member-to-member intimacy levels and the group being open to new people. Andy Stanley wrote about how his church's groups are closed to insure intimacy between members could flourish... well, the statistical analysis doesn't prove this out. In fact, it's quite the opposite. Read this book to learn why.

One thing brought out in the book that I'm most pleased to see covered in-depth is the area of relational evangelism by group members. Training for relational evangelism is woefully missing in the American church today. Small group ministry will remain a pump of a program that always needs priming and a lot of maintenance and repair if the church isn't growing primarily through relational evangelism (and the relational discipleship that follows). If you read this book--and I hope you do--focus on this area of your small group ministry and see if it's lacking and work on it first. Trust me, when your small group members start reaching friends for Jesus, they will take your discipleship pathway materials and devour them immediately to get ahead of their new believers... and you'll be organically training new group leaders when a member is discipling a friend they brought to Christ.

One thing mentioned in the last chapter that I felt needed a lot more emphasis is the centrality of Christ in the small group. When small group members gather in Christ's name and for his sake and let go of all other personal, group, or church agendas, powerful things will happen. And when God's power is flowing through one small group member to another member or a visitor, that's transformational! And when small group members are being powerfully used by God, they get excited enough to invite friends to join and they want to lead a group of their own. While this book just touches on this over-arching principle, you should make sure your groups meet with an expectation that Christ is in their midst and powerful things will happen if they invite his Spirit to move.

In summary, I think you'll enjoy reading this book, especially if you're from the small group world where groups are typically seasonal and are used to support the pulpit ministry. The book does an excellent job of describing healthy, growing small groups as a lot more than than a supportive program.

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Amazon Customer

Keys to the spiritual life and success of Small Groups. I strongly recommend it! Pastor David Munizzi ,Catalyst Community Church

Reviewed in the United States on May 8, 2018

Deeply informative and amazingly inspirational! I loved the detailed and biblically sound approach used in every chapter making a powerful handbook for Groups that Thrive!
If you have worked with small groups for any significant time you can easily recognize the wealth of wisdom and applicable principles provided that distinguish groups that are spiritually alive! I particularly was instructed by the need for groups to be owned by the members not just the leaders. Additionally, Joel and Jim verify the importance of cultivating the presence of Christ by respecting and inviting the Holy Spirit to be preeminent in the meetings! The idea of quick fixes and simple formulas is replaced by statistically proven results that are key in the life of small groups from any walk of life. (Pg. 153) Opened my eyes that, sincere and hungry hearts unashamedly going after Jesus and willing to persist with these time tested principles can't help but thrive and multiply!

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