Scaling a business is clean compared to scaling a ministry. In business, consumer demand is the wind in the scaling sail. Get the product right, and consumer demand will fill the sail. The business grows locally because of increased demand, or the business can franchise itself to enter other markets.

That’s not to say that scaling is inevitable in a business. A business owner must want to scale. And a business owner has to juggle the job of running the business with the job of scaling. Of course that also means juggling the financing of the business with the financing of the scaling. Even in the most profitable business, bootstrapping is rare. Investors, venture capitalists, or a simple bank can provide the funds to manage the jump from a solo entrepreneur to a business that grows.

But how does scale happen in a ministry like Resilient Recovery Ministries?

Organically.

Consumer demand is not the only factor in a ministry. Christians do many worthwhile and necessary work that does not have a(n earthly) profit motive. Soup kitchens. Food banks. Marital counseling. Rental assistance. Refugee support. Natural disaster relief. Etc. These tasks are accomplished through Christian Charity, not profit.

So, Resilient Groups do not need to be adapted to survive in a free market economy. They can receive wind from charity, as well.

So far the groups that hold Resilient Meetings in other states have adopted the Resilient curriculum on their own. The wind in the sails appears to be a felt need to an internal decision on the part of the group facilitator to provide a Christ-centered recovery for his or her community. They find out about Resilient from personal connections to me, or from the website. The Resilient Recovery Group Workbook has some minimal instructions on the topic of running a group. Facilitators read these instructions. . . and away they go.

No one that I know of has taken a course from me on how to run a Resilient Recovery Sharing Group and implemented a group. Does this mean the course is unnecessary? Unhelpful?

From the Church.

Two groups (soon to be three) have begun to hold Resilient Recovery Groups as a result of attending CrossWalk Church. These groups first attended Resilient because of street signs. Once they began attending, they learned about Resilient and asked us to talk to their residents.

As compared to the other major peer-led support groups for substance-abuse recovery, Resilient is lagging behind in the scaling game.

Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous are powerhouses of scale. These organizations exist in all 50 states and there can be hundreds of meetings in a large city like Phoenix.

Celebrate Recovery is an off-shoot of the previous 12-step programs. It is distinctive because of its explicitly Christian content and its meeting structure, which includes a meal, worship, and breakout groups. This ministry has also scaled with exponential growth in recent decades.

I wonder what the scaling success rate of these groups is? I assume a proportion of groups fold. Leaders lose energy. Leaders relapse. The time and location were not ideal. Poorly led groups fall into gossip and pointless divisiveness. It has to happen. Businesses fold. Churches fold. Colleges fold. Nothing is an unmitigated engine of growth.

We are now 8 years into Resilient Ministry and growth is still confined to a small but enthusiastic group of facilitators.

I am now negotiating for what will be Phoenix’s first group that I do not run. We have people willing to run the groups and funds available for at least this group. I predict that demand for Resilient Groups will continue—especially in Rehabs and sober-living homes. How will we meet that demand?

Will we use an all-volunteer force of facilitators? Will we continue to provide a stipend to facilitators? If we provide a stipend, where will the fund come from? Donors? The homes themselves? What’s the model here?

Scaling. I’ll be interested to see what God has in mind for the next 5 years.

The world’s most amazing example of scale is that of the church. From total defeat and humiliation at the cross and some very ordinary disciples, a worldwide phenomenon has grown.