Citylight Church in Omaha, Nebraska, Prioritizes Missional City Groups Since Launching

Dillon Smith, a Gen-Z team member at CareyNieuwhof.com who lives in Omaha, Nebraska, writes that churches often hope to keep most people who attend the first week of a new small group wave through week 10. He says groups often launch with about 20 people and are considered successful if they still have around eight by the end of the semester.

Smith says these experiences led him to grow cynical about small group ministries. He admits he briefly considered whether small groups were simply a poor idea and whether people should instead be placed in serving groups. He writes that he nearly accepted that view, but that one problem with his theory led him to look more closely at a church that works differently.

That church is Citylight in Omaha. Smith says he has never regularly attended, but has watched it grow from the outside. He reports that since it launched nine years ago, it has grown from a small group praying in a living room into a family of 13 churches, with thousands of weekly attendees. He also says it is reaching a large number of young people.

Smith describes hearing from many young Christians about how much they value their City Groups, and he says he has heard many stories of people he knows coming to Jesus in those groups. He writes that these observations prompted his question: in a period when many churches are losing people, especially young adults, to atheism, agnosticism, or identifying as “none,” how is Citylight seeing such success?

Before answering, Smith lists several things he says Citylight does not do. He says it does not put on a flashy show every weekend and that its acoustic, relaxed style could be copied by a church with almost any budget. He also says it does not water down the gospel, and that in his experience of talking with members and staff over eight years, the church is more intense than most on doctrine and theology. He notes that some volunteers were the first people to explain to him what Calvinism, Arminianism, and TULIP meant, even though he was not attending there at the time.

Smith also says Citylight does not grow exclusively through transfer growth. As far as he can tell, its level of transfer growth is similar to that of the average growing church in the city. He adds that much of the transfer growth he has seen has resulted in people becoming more engaged and healthy followers of Jesus, and he notes that not all transfer growth is negative, since a person may move from a toxic church to a healthier one.

Smith credits Citylight with strong preaching, a healthy culture, a capable team, and real devotion to serving Jesus, and he says the church fully acknowledges that God deserves the glory for its growth. He writes, however, that the final 20 percent that sets it apart is how its missional City Groups have been prioritized and organized since the church launched (Colossians 3:23).

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