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The Small Group Oversight Structure lets you define the layers of pastoral responsibility sitting above your small groups — Group Leaders, Coaches, Zone Pastors, or whatever levels your church uses. Once defined, each level is linked to the people in it and to the groups or leaders they oversee, giving you a complete picture of who is responsible for whom.
Go to Church Admin → Small Groups → Small group structure.
Why oversight structure matters
Moses couldn’t look after the whole of Israel on his own, so Jethro advised him to organise the people into thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens. The same principle applies in churches. A small church with five groups might just need group leaders. A larger church might need group leaders, coaches who oversee five or six leaders each, and zone pastors who oversee several coaches. Church Admin supports as many levels as you need.
The aim is that leaders get looked after too — not just the people in the groups, but the leaders themselves, who need someone checking in on them and supporting them in their role.
Step 1 — Define your oversight levels
Go to Church Admin → Small Groups → Small group structure. Type the name of your first level — for example Zone Pastor — and save. Add each level in turn. As you add more levels they appear in a list below the form.
Drag and drop the levels to put them in the right order — the most senior level should be at the top. The order here controls how the hierarchy is displayed throughout the plugin.
Step 2 — Populate each level
Go to Church Admin → Small Groups → Oversight list. For each level, assign the people responsible and define what they oversee.
For example at Zone Pastor level, John Smith might oversee the East zone and Jane Smith the West zone. At Coach level, each coach is linked to the five or six group leaders they support. Each person at an oversight level is selected from the directory, so they need to be in the directory before you can assign them here.
Step 3 — Link groups to their oversight
When adding or editing a small group at Church Admin → Small Groups → Add a group, each group can be placed under the care of the next level of oversight. Selecting a coach or zone pastor from the dropdown connects the group into the hierarchy so the full structure is visible from the top down.
How the oversight links to ministries
Each oversight level in Church Admin is backed by a Ministry. Church Admin creates a Small Group Leaders ministry automatically on first install. When you add oversight levels, corresponding ministries are created or linked so that people at each level appear in the right Ministry — which also gives them their own Ministry Chat room and means they can be rostered in the schedule for relevant jobs.
Viewing the full structure
Once all levels are populated and groups are linked, Church Admin → Small Groups → Oversight list gives a complete top-down view of your small group structure — from senior oversight through to individual groups and their members. This is useful for leadership team reviews, identifying gaps in coverage, and planning new groups.
Related tutorials
- Small groups overview
- Oversight list
- Add a group
- Ministries, small groups and classes
- Adding and editing a household