How often should a small group meet? When planning a small group this can be a very critical question and determine who can attend, and the what the flavor of your small will be. This needs to be a frequency that promotes fellowship, and more importantly something you – yourself can stay committed to.

Ideally, a small group will meet as frequently as possible. In a perfect world, every day. This is because the single most important ingredient to deep relationships is time.

How often should a small group meet? A small group should meet at least once every other week. If possible it’s ideal to meet once a week.

The more time you spend together the deeper your friendships, authenticity, trust, and support will be for one another. Unfortunately, the truth is we all have responsibilities and we need to take care of and life doesn’t give us this allowance. In place of this, small groups should meet at least every other week, and as frequently as once a week throughout the small group season. Below are several important factors to consider when deciding.

Start with a Vision

Sometimes when starting the small group you might have fear if enough people will join, if they will stay committed and if they will enjoy being a part of your group. Fear can lead to making compromises about the small group like the material, length of prayer time, and even how frequent you meet. Make sure, as a leader, you have a vision for your small group before setting these expectations.

If your vision is to have a group of friends that you have a deep trusting relationship with, to the point they feel like family you’ll want to meet together more frequently. Weeks go by fast and at this meeting frequency, everyone feels like they ‘just’ saw each other. You remember your last discussions, you remember what people were focused on, what was important to them, and you remember their prayer requests. When you remember someone’s prayer request you can lead into your conversation with them asking how things are going. This makes people feel important and that you care about them.


If you’re a new small group there is going to be an acclimation period where everyone is showing up, but people haven’t revealed who they truly are yet. They will tend to stick to surfacey discussions and avoid conversations that show their opinion on things. Meeting more frequently helps push through this time at a greater pace and allows you all to get to that ‘comfort’ phase quicker when everyone is showing more of who they truly are.

Less Frequent

There are factors that might cause you to meet less frequently as twice a month or every other week. This can be influenced by the stage of life the audience of your small group is in. I’ve found that singles can have the most availability (if small groups are a priority). Newly married have one of the best availabilities as they keep each other accountable for the commitment of small groups. Married with children have the most difficult availability. Married with older children have a medium availability due to other commitments they have with their children at an older age. Empty nesters have good availability and appreciate the fellowship.

Children

Of all these factors, the biggest is children. Most often this situation is for married couples groups but can happen in a singles small group too. If you are not providing childcare it can reduce the burden to small group attendees by meeting less frequently so that they don’t need to find and afford childcare more often.

One way to support married people with children coming more frequently if you’re not providing childcare is to meet as couples every other week, and then compliment that schedule by meeting once as men once a month, and once as just women once a month. This only requires childcare twice a month but allows the small to meet every week.

{insert calendar image of every other week with men and women’s’ time}

In addition to the childcare benefits, this acts as a catalyst to have men grow together. I say men, but this can apply to women too) Often women are more social in small groups and this can lead to women growing in relationships faster than the men. Men tend to be more reserved and spread relationship building over longer periods of time. Having a mens‘ only time does amazing things when men have the opportunity talk more, and also share issues that they might not have discussed if there were other women there (other than their wife).

Sometimes people think meeting less often will encourage better attendance, but the opposite is actually true. The fewer people meet together, the less loyal they are and in turn, the less they feel accountable to stay committed. I’ve found groups that have a less frequent schedule are more likely to have greater missed attendance than small groups that meet more frequent.

Personal story:

We lead a small group one year that met every other week. To be honest, it was a situation where there was a need within the church for small groups, and the pastors and leaders really were supporting and promoting small groups. As the church campaign kicked off, during the small group offseason heading towards the onboarding season, I had just wrapped up a small group and was still tired from leading. I was actually considering NOT leading this upcoming season and taking the season off to recuperate. My decision was made until the pastor talked to me. With that glowing Christ like smile, he asked me if I’d be leading again, and my desire to please him and the Lord said ‘yes’. Wait,… what did I say? Well, I was committed now. I thought a great way to reduce the leadership burden on me, and still fulfill my commitment to the pastor and the church was to meet every other week. This was a mistake for several reasons. The biggest one was I didn’t go before the Lord on this decision first. The second was this every other week schedule backfired on me and I feel like my leadership responsibilities throughout the season were more demanding than the previous season. I account much of these due to the frequency, and the consequences of it. Like dealing with people who weren’t showing up. Trying hard to catalyst the conversations to meaningful discussions, and getting people to pray out loud together. It might have been due to the people in the group that season, but I truly believe it was largely due to meeting every other week.

Jesus wants us to meet together. The Bible is clear about the importance of fellowship and the body of the church.

Hebrews 10:25 – “Not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”

Matthew 18:20 – “ For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”


The more you meet and the more you spend time together, the closer you will become as authenticate and trusted friends. But we all have lives, careers, kids, and all the other activities that life brings with it. So take time to consider how often your small group should meet and set a clear expectation of its frequency and ask for people to commit to that schedule. If they can’t either consider changing the frequency for everyone or ask the people who can’t commit to look into other small groups that will support them. Once a week is a great pace for small groups to meet as it creates enough frequency that individuals grow close together very quickly and build a strong fellowship that supports and encourages everyone.


What day of the week should we meet?

There is no perfect day. Consider the church schedule and try to pick a day that has less going on. As a leader, it’s hard to ask everyone what day works. It’s better to pick the day and then let people know. It’s almost impossible to find a day and time that works for everyone. I recommend talking to one or two other people that you know want to be in your group and picking a day. Then invite others to join you. If they can’t make it work that day, encourage them to check out other small groups.

What time should small group start at?

Most people find it works better to meet in the evening. Between 6:00 pm and 7:00 pm are popular times to start. This starting time allows ample time to have social time and discussions and still finish up before it’s too late. When small group gets too late, people start getting tired or distracted about the stress this will cause them for the next morning.