Kelley is the teacher for an active singles group at Beechwood Church. She is excited about how much good ministry the group is able to do. However, she worries about the hectic schedules that many members lead. On most Sundays, the group looked different, depending upon who was able to attend. Very few members could attend regularly, due to work, family or other schedule demands. Kelley understood the unpredictable attendance patterns, since she was also busier than she wanted to be.

However, since it was difficult to get more than a portion of the group together at any one time, Kelley had to use mailouts and phone calls to set up and coordinate events and activities for the group. She didn't mind creating mailouts, but they took time to create, to mail and to arrive. She also didn't mind making phone calls, but it was tough to catch everyone, and it could take a lot of time.

Kelley also knew that the more a group member was absent, the more likely they were to drift away from the group.

Kelley wished there was a way to keep the group better connected -- a way that would be fast, easy and would include everyone, no matter how hectic their schedule. Then, she heard about Caleb's Cafe from a friend.

She created a new group for Beechwood Singles, and sent invitation emails from within the new group site. Creating the group and sending the invitations took less than 10 minutes. Kelley upgraded her group to the Silver level, because she wanted extra storage space, a few more Easy Pages, and especially the Bible study materials.

After a few days, most of the group had joined. Kelley called the remaining members and encouraged them to go ahead and join the group site. A few were having trouble joining (spam filters kept catching the invitation emails), but the support team at Caleb's Cafe responded quickly and helped join them to the correct group.

Then, Kelley began posting to the new site. First, she posted a welcome message, and explained how she hoped the service would help the group stay in touch. She emphasized that it was "their" private site, so it was okay for anyone in the group to post prayer requests, comments, announcements, or even jokes!

Just to break the ice, she posted a funny joke she'd recently received in an email, and of course, the system auto-emailed it to the entire group. She also asked them to share jokes. As members shared jokes, they discovered how easy it was to use the system, and got a sense of how the auto-emailing of messages worked.

Next, she went to the photo area, created a new label for "ski trip" and posted several photos from the group's recent ski trip. She also posted a message letting the group know that the photos were there. One photo was particularly funny, and she invited the group to make up captions for it (any group member can edit captions on photos - imagine the possibilities!).

Kelley then created two Easy Pages. On one, she posted the group's upcoming event and activity schedule, and on the other, she posted basic information about the Beechwood Singles group. She made both Easy Pages "public" so anyone on the internet could access them, even though their Caleb's Cafe site remained safely private.

Because Beechwood Singles rotated teaching roles, Kelley enjoyed how easy the included Bible study made their preparation. No matter whose week it was to teach, they could access the Bible study materials right there in their Caleb's Cafe group. They even had several choices of topic from which to choose.

Kelley used one of the group's meeting times to offer a walk-through of their site, helping the members better understand how it worked, and what they could do with it.

She also used it to handle some tasks much more easily and quickly than before. For example, Kelley had asked Jimmy to have t-shirts designed and made for their upcoming mission trip. Jimmy needed sizes from group members, so he posted in the group's "files" area a PDF that showed the shirt's logo, and then created a new message called "Don't make me guess your t-shirt size!". In the message, he encouraged group members to look at the file he'd uploaded, and then asked that they reply to his message with their t-shirt size. Within hours, most of the group members had responded (it was easy... all they had to do was click "reply" in their email program, enter their shirt size, and hit "send"). All the messages were collected and organized by the system, making it easy for Jimmy to get the information he needed.

Three weeks into using their new site, one of the members had a crisis. Jack, one of their members, got word that his sister had been in a terrible car accident. Because she was a single mom, and Jack was the nearest relative, he would need to look after the children and help with medical decisions. Jack made a quick call to Sarah, another Beechwood group member, and let her know of the crisis. Sarah knew that most of the rest of the group was at work, but that they checked their email regularly. So she posted an urgent message to the group's site. Within minutes, everyone in the group had an email. Many were writing comments too... "how can we help?", "what can we do?" Even Cal and Helen, who both had Blackberrys, got involved, even though they were both out of town. They sent responses to the email messages they received, knowing that their comments would be added to the site.

Using the central communication that the site provided, the group quickly organized meals for Jack and his sister's family, and coordinated getting help around Jack's house (since he couldn't be home much). From feeding the dog to mowing his lawn, the group was able to minister to Jack and his sister and her family quickly, and with a minimum of time wasted on communications.

This is a sample (and fictional) story of how one group might use Caleb’s Cafe group site. We hope it has helped you begin imagining how a group site can help your ministry grow and strengthen.