I have always found summer to be an interesting component of group life. Some of our groups experience a dip in attendance while others continue to thrive. I have heard all sorts of advice from other small group pastors and breakout sessions at conferences but I am of the opinion that the group leader can make the best decision for his or her group. They know their summer schedules, vacation times, children’s activities, church events, etc.

I’ve always been a part of churches that have had very volunteer intensive summers.  Summer is some of the best opportunities for outreach events for kids and teens, and these events often need the volunteers that attend our groups! Not only will church events impact our groups but so will summer vacation. I have often found that my own group experiences about a 50% drop in attendance during the summer.

Some leaders may decide that it’s best to just break for the summer and meet once per month for a social to stay in touch. What I have found that typically works for my own leadership style (and summer schedule) is to meet every other week (2x month) over the summer, instead of  meeting weekly.

In general I think scaling back for the summer is helpful.   When it comes to group ministry I like to generate a buzz for a big fall launch with new curriculum, or sometimes an all church alignment campaign. I find that people are looking for something new when school starts to create a routine and stabilize after their hectic vacations. Hopefully your summer is refreshing and your group stays in touch.

For other articles and tips on leading groups visit:

When trying to figure out where to take your small group (bible study or whatever you want to call it) one of the best things you can do is figure out where you are. There are four major relationship areas to consider:

1. God – Your personal relationship with God and your group’s relationship with God.
2. Each other – The depth of your relationships with your group members and their relationships with each other.
3. Leadership – The number of future leaders your group is producing and you are personally investing in.
4. Evangelism – The relationships your group has with unchurched people and the passion they tap into to connect those people to God.

Evaluation Questions

God:

• How often do you pray for your group each week?
• Do you and your group members discuss personal time spent with God?
• How much time do you spend in prayer and bible study each day?
• Does your group spend time talking about prayers that God has answered?

Each other

• How many times does your group meet in an average month?
• How many parties, socials, or fun group activities has your group had in the past 3 months?
• How many times have you invited someone from your group over for a meal in the past two months?
• Do you ever participate in church activities as a group by going together?
• How often do you communicate with group members by phone, email, cards, or letters to encourage them?

Leadership:

• Does your group have an assistant-leader or an apprentice?
• How many of your group members expect to lead a group sometime in the future?
• How many people in your group participate by leading different components of the meeting? (For example: prayer time, ice breaker, bible reading, etc.)
• How often does your group pray about developing new group leaders?
• Who in your group would you like to see become a leader?

Evangelism:

• How often does your group pray for people far from God?
• How many parties or gatherings have you had, not spiritual in nature, that your group members could invite their non-Christian friends to.
• When a visitor attends your group for the first time, how often do you follow up with a phone call, card, or an invite to breakfast or lunch?
• Does your group have a goal to grow or start another group?

These questions help me figure out if I am on target with leading my group. Hopefully, you find them useful. You may even want to bring them to your next meeting and discuss them as a group!

For other great articles on small groups visit Small Group Help by clicking here.

If you can be near a PC on February 18th you wont want to miss this event.  It is not often that you can participate in something like this with group leaders around the country and the best part is that its FREE.

Greg Bowman (co-author of Coaching Life-Changing Small Group Leaders), Lyman Coleman (the father of the small group movement as we know it today and founder of Serendipity House Resources), Bill Donahue (small groups pastor at Willow Creek Community Church and author of multiple small group books including Leading Life Changing Small Groups and Building a Church of Small Groups), Carl George (church consultant and author of Prepare Your Church for the Future and The Coming Church Revolution), Eddie Mosley(church consultant and small group pastor at Lifepoint Church, Smyrna, TN), Randall Neighbour (President of TOUCH Ministries and author of multiple small group books including The Naked Truth About Small Groups), Bill Search (Small Group Pastor at Southeast Christian Church, Louisville, KY and author of Simple Small Groups), Reid Smith (Community Pastor at Christ Fellowship, Palm Beach, Florida and Founder of 2orMore), and Rick Howerton (Author of Destination Community:  Small Group Ministry Manual, and LifeWay Small Group Specialist), will make up  the panel.

You will be able to interact with other church leaders as the event is taking place as well as presenting questions to the panel for consideration.

Join three generations of small group minds for an unprecedented experience. To find out more and to register for this free event, just CLICK HERE.

Bill Donahue in his book, Walking the Small Group Tightrope: Meeting the Challenges Every Group Faces, explains this tension well,

“Suggesting open groups is where tension begins, because the need for openness assumes the existence of one end of the continuum – a willingness to welcome new members into the group. If groups don’t maintain some sense of availability to those who are unconnected, a church must keep creating new groups to give new folks a place in community. But few churches have enough incoming leaders or the ability to rapidly develop enough new leaders to keep creating groups.This balancing act of openness and intimacy is something I can identify with well. I think it is a tension felt not just in small group ministry, but life in general. I am excited about what God is doing in the groups at our church. Often when I meet people, especially at baptism services, (by then you know they are pretty much committed to the church) I will ask them two questions:

At the other end of the continuum is intimacy. Deep, lasting, meaningful relationships require time and intent. Spiritual transformation and relational intimacy both require time. Groups require safety to pursue conflict resolution and create true community. It is the accumulation of experiences together – praying, talking, and serving together – that provides the foundation for healthy small group ministry.

When openness and intimacy collide, intimacy usually wins. People will search far and wide for vibrant relational connections and, when they find them, will guard them like a federal prison. Who can blame them? In a transient society filled with vocational nomads, people long for deep connections. They’ll put up walls around their community rather than keep that community open and risk losing what they have worked so hard for.”

I make an intentional effort to meet new people at our church each and every week.  After I introduce myself I’ll ask three questions…

How did you end up at our church?
What do you like best about the church?
Now that you are here, what keeps you here?

The greatest part about asking those questions is the answer to the thrid one. More than half the time (if they’ve been attending for a while) they say it is their small group. I think the key to getting more answers like that one is encouraging other leaders to vigorously focus on both (openness and intimacy)! There needs to be seasons of openness and seasons of intimacy, but neglecting one causes stagnation.

When I encounter resistance in my group I ask this question, “Don’t you want others to feel what you feel? Don’t you want them to have what you have here?”

I also look to Hebrews 10:23-25 for encouragement.

23Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. 24And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. 25Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

From this group of verses I believe we can find four questions that guide us in moving members of our groups to both intimacy and openness at the same time.

1. (From verse 23) How can I show my group that I hold unswervingly to the hope I profess?
2. (From verse 24) How can I spur my group members on toward love and good deeds?
3. (From verse 25) How can I encourage my group members to attend regularly? (Isn’t it nice to know the early church had attendance issues too?)
4. (From verse 25) How can I encourage my group members to understand the urgency? Because, someday (and we don’t know when) God will bring this all to an end.

The first three questions help us as leaders to guide our group inward. They bring our relationships with each other toward intimacy. The last question helps us guide the group toward reaching out. Knowing that the souls of others hang in the balance we can encourage our group members to invite others on this journey into biblical community.

The hard part about this issue of openness vs. intimacy is that there is no “turn-key” answer. Small group ministry does not work like Mc Donald’s. You can’t apply the exact same rules across the country or from church to church. Or even group to group! Plus, this topic will never go away, it will always be there and hopefully we can learn to wrestle with it well and navigate this tension in a healthy way that encourages openness and intimacy at the same time.

For other articles and small group ministry tips visit:

• -Senior or Lead Pastor
• -Executive Pastor
• -Small Groups Pastor, Adult Education or Ministries Director
• -Staff and volunteers in ministries that utilize groups for men, women, singles, children, and youth
• -Leadership Board Members, Elders, Deacons, or other strategic stakeholders
• -Small Group Coaches, current and potentially strategic volunteer leaders

If this is something you might be interested here is the scoop:

December 10 & 11, 2009

Ebenezers Coffeehouse (National Community Church)
Washington, DC

Leading a single small group is a challenge, but running “point” on a church full of small groups can expose a whole new set of obstacles and opportunities. Discipleship, spiritual formation, missional outreach, and Biblical literacy happen best in small groups, and small groups happen best where organic growth is supported by strategic vision and purpose. If you are responsible for leading group life in your church, we can help!

Strategic Small Group Ministry Leadership is a one-and-one-half-day intensive workshop where you can learn from and interrelate with experts and peers. Insightful teaching and interactive group exercises lead you through a spectrum of strategic issues that affect the small group environments your church provides.

At this workshop you’ll learn how to implement:

• -Clear Ministry Objectives
• -Effective Point Leadership
• -Successful Coaching Structures
• -Ongoing Leader Development
• -An Open-Group Mindset
• -A Broad Bandwidth of Groups
• -Assimilation that Works

Format

Six interactive 90-minute sessions cover a broad range of training topics and exercises. You’ll work with your peers on the specific obstacles you face, and collaborate on practical next steps to address your unique challenges. The workshop faculty will be available to help facilitate your discussion.

Faculty

Russ Robinson is the former Executive Director of Ministries and Small Groups at
Willow Creek Community Church near Chicago. He is a practicing attorney and has a
great passion for the church, small groups, and ministries. Russ is nationally known as a
consultant, speaker, and the co-author of Seven Deadly Sins of Small Group Ministry
and Walking the Small Group Tightrope. More…

Dave Treat is a former Division Leader and Area Pastor at
Willow Creek Community Church. He became Director of Innovation for the
Willow Creek Association’s Group Life movement in 2006, managing content and experience
design for the Group Life Conference, the Group Life blog and Group Life TV. Dave trains and
speaks internationally and is the Chief Innovation Officer of thinkingsmall.net. More…

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

In our small groups or classes, it is always a challenge to keep the bible fresh as a leader or teacher.  At the Group Life Conference Bill Donahue shared a few different methods to help us do a better job at keeping the Bible fresh:

Guidelines to engage the text:

1. Study the bible for yourself, not by yourself – Acts 2:42 Devote yourself to the teaching
2. Never engage the text without encountering the author – you don’t need a backstage pass to encounter God in your study
3. Read the Bible for transformation, not just information – don’t just seek to know about something, seek to know something. Then we can use knowledge to provoke compassion instead of wielding power.

We Commit Biblical Malpractice…

• When we skim over the familiar
• When we trivialize something in the scripture
• When we take it out of context
• When the Bible is used for personal gain or agenda
• When it is more important to be right instead of righteous
• When we misuse the Bible it is Textual Abuse

Some Approaches to keep the Bible Fresh:

• Read and Reflect
  • Prepare your heart – some do this with silence, music, try to listen to God
  • Try using a spiritual reading or poetry
• Listen to the text
  • Ephesians 2:4-5 ⁴But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, ⁵made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
  • Pause, reflect, read in different speeds, stressing different words. Slow, fast, soft, loud.
  • Ask what people hear
  • Ask people in the group to reflect and journal privately in the group meeting
• Engage and Examine
  • Acts 17:11 Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.
  • Ask Questions like, “What does it say?” or “What does that mean?” or “What do you think is happening?”
  • Help your group bring some intellectual rigor to the meeting without being too academic.
• Observe and Obey
  • Is there a great truth coming from this text?
  • Ask and answer the question, “So what?”
  • Can you force this as a discipline in your group by trying ask, “How did you live this out last week?”
  • Once you’ve observed the truth you’ve got to ask, “How do we live?”
  • This approach moves us into the world

 Mix up your group to try all of these approaches so you keep your group fresh.

Create A Facebook Group

What’s great about facebook is that it is growing exponentially right now.  It is something that many people are already using in their daily routine to reconnect with old friends and stay connecting in current relationships.  If we can take advantage of social tools that people are already using in daily life, it only makes sense that we will have more success.  What’s great about creating a facbook group is it allows people to communicate to the entire group quickly, share photos from group activities, and even have discussions about what was shared at group that night.  Another convenient thing the facebook group can be utilized for is keeping a continuous prayer list.

Create A Group Twitter Profile

If you use twitter already you understand the networking value in a text message.  Since you may not want to bother all of your followers on twitter with details from your small group, I would suggest creating a separate twitter profile for your group.  Then have all your group members set up a twitter account.  Depending on their web skills you may have to help them with this task during a group meeting, but don’t forget to set them up as mobile users and to set your group profile “device updates.” This way when you update the twitter status it will hit their mobile phone as a text message.  Why is this helpful for a small group?  Here is a quick list of reasons:

• -Reminders to prepare or do homework from group that night
• -Last minute change of meeting location
• -Cancelation of your group due to weather or unforeseen circumstances
• -Messages of encouragement through the week
• -Reminder of daily bible reading that will be discussed on group night
• -Prayer requests through the week
• -Have some fun

Try Tokbox or Skype

What we thought was science fiction 20 or more years ago is reality today.  I can have a real-time conversation over the web with my brother in Hawaii and actually see him, hear him, and hold a great conversation on my computer in the comfort of my home.  Skype and other online video tools are allowing people to maintain long distance relationships like never before.  How can this enhance group life?  If you have a group member that has to travel out of town, but they don’t want to miss out on a great discussion, set up a laptop in the room and let them participate using the web!!! Or with other great tools like Tokbox, you can actually hold your entire group on the web, plus see and hear every person at the same time.  Sharing life experiences, reading the bible, asking engaging questions, and praying together can all be done via video conferencing online.  I must admit that I do prefer an “in person” group experience but these things can be done on the web and actually lead to a worthwhile experience.  If you’ve not tried something like this yet I’d encourage you to give it chance and have some fun with some friends as an experiment. 

If you’ve found some other forms of social media useful please share in the comments below.

And if you would like to connect with me using social media you can find my points of contact by CLICKING HERE

For more great info on small groups you’ll want to check out my blog at Small Group Help – http://www.smallgrouphelp.com/Blog/

What if you could give every small group leader in your church laser focused small group training from some best experts in Group Life?  The Willow Creek Association is handling the Group Life Conference in a brand new – one day format.  Plus you can host it in your own church. As we prepare to kick off our next season of small groups at CCV, I look forward to our leaders hearing from some great group experts like Bill Donahue, Russ Robinson, and Heather Zempel.

If you are interested in hosting the event at your church you can click here to get more info.

If you are interested in leading a group at CCV click here and contact Terri Stone.

The Small Group Exchange is a great free resource for leaders to access articles, video training, and exchange ideas all around the topic of group ministry. They recently published one of my articles on their website – check it out by clicking here.