That's right, I'm just gonna go right out there and say I think church meetings suck. Meetings siphon the life out of me. Meetings draw out the energy out of a group of people who'd much rather be doing something fun together, and never seem to find the time to do it. Meetings "Hoover" every bit of free time a pastor, staff member, or lay church leader has to rest, enjoy a hobby, invest in the life of a friend, or allow a friend to invest in their life. Meetings completely drain me of energy so I can't get my own stuff done on time or sometimes at all.
To be fair, I don't hate all church meetings. Only the ones that could have been done through a "reply all" email exchange and meetings that get little to nothing truly accomplished as a result of the meeting.
To effectively battle sucky church meetings, I have found two tools that are very helpful, which I wanted to pass along to you today. I can guarantee that any small group leadership meeting you must have will be far more productive and will not suck if you employ both of them...
1. The 3 W's
Years ago, my ministry hired a business consultant who is also a Vineyard pastor in the San Diego area. Ron Ford said that all ministry meetings held at TOUCH Outreach (the ministry I oversee) should not end without 3 W's being nailed down for every single item on the agenda.
WHO will do WHAT by WHEN.
Folks, this was a huge revelation for me and my staff. Our greatest gripe was that we always had amazing ideas born out of synergy at meetings, and nothing became of them... because we never nailed down who would do what by when.
When we implemented this feature into each agenda item and agreed to meet again to discover who did what by when and what those results were, meetings became fun and no longer sucked. Whomever was facilitating the meeting wrote down who would do what by when and there was broad accountability to show up to the next meeting with the task completed successfully.
2. Topic and Time Strategy
Years ago, a mentor named Jim Egli (yet another Vineyard pastor!) taught me an organizational tool for time use that was so cool I must share it with you right now...
1. Begin the meeting by asking each person to share what they need to talk about at the meeting. Give them 1 minute to summarize it and hold them to it. As people state the topics, jot them down as the facilitator.
2. After everyone has spoken, look for overlap. Sometimes three people want to talk about various aspects of the same thing. Combine these with agreement from the meeting participants.
3. Look at your watch. Determine the total number of minutes left for your meeting and with your participants, decide how many minutes can be devoted to each topic. Write that down by each item.
4. Ask someone in the group to be the timekeeper and give you a 2 minute warning as the time deadline approaches for each item.
5. At 2 minute warning, nail down who will do what by when for whatever decisions you've made thus far, and quickly schedule another meeting to discuss it if it wasn't fully covered.
6. The more you do this, the faster things will be discussed and sometimes there's extra minutes. These can be given to other topics (rollover minutes) or given to everyone as a gift for highly productive participation.
The reason I share all this meeting stuff is that last night, the core team for my lifegroup met. We've been off for the month of August, and September's close so we wanted to make plans for the next six weeks. We meet once a month, by the way, and plan for a month and a half, which is a great overlap strategy... and I am not the leader of the group, just a core team member.
The meeting last night was excellent. Why? We nailed down what we were going to do with our Bible application time in upcoming meetings and who would do it. We determined that some members of our group could host an Alpha table in hopes of starting a new Lifegroup in January. The icing on the cake was when Dan, who is a core team member and not a formal leader or apprentice, said we needed to add 3-4 new core team members, delegate to them, and then multiply the group because it was too large.
I just sat there and smiled. This meeting didn't suck.
Discipleship and Small Groups. What a powerful combination!
I visited a church this weekend to do some training for them in the area of core team leadership (versus the old leader-apprentice model used so widely around the world).
One thing I found in this church that I was very pleased to see was a strong push for and a healthy subculture of one-on-one discipleship, much like one might find in the Navigators.
This church has discovered that if new believers aren't discipled one-on-one for the first 90 days, they'll fall away from the church and the commitment they made to God through Christ's work on the cross.
When I asked about day 91 and beyond, I was told, "That's why you're here. Small group life takes over there and we need to strengthen our small groups."
The visit to this church clarified a couple of things for me:
1. One-to-one discipleship is far superior to classroom methods or even small group discipleship. It sharpens the disciple maker as much as it does the person being discipled, and creates a leader of one.
2. Small groups have their unique benefits, but are not enough to disciple the members of the groups. They need the one-on-one relationships in addition to the small group friendships and ministry environment.
3. The combination of the two is seriously powerful. Doing either with great competence will yield some fruit for sure, but put them together and BAM!, it's kicked up a notch to a level that is truly dangerous to the enemy's strategy in the life of a believer.
I know I blog about discipleship all the time and you're probably sick and tired of me harping on it. However, I just have to keep blogging about it until the parts of the body of Christ—who have chosen to "do church" through small groups—value discipleship every bit as much as they value the small groups themselves.
One thing I found in this church that I was very pleased to see was a strong push for and a healthy subculture of one-on-one discipleship, much like one might find in the Navigators.
This church has discovered that if new believers aren't discipled one-on-one for the first 90 days, they'll fall away from the church and the commitment they made to God through Christ's work on the cross.
When I asked about day 91 and beyond, I was told, "That's why you're here. Small group life takes over there and we need to strengthen our small groups."
The visit to this church clarified a couple of things for me:
1. One-to-one discipleship is far superior to classroom methods or even small group discipleship. It sharpens the disciple maker as much as it does the person being discipled, and creates a leader of one.
2. Small groups have their unique benefits, but are not enough to disciple the members of the groups. They need the one-on-one relationships in addition to the small group friendships and ministry environment.
3. The combination of the two is seriously powerful. Doing either with great competence will yield some fruit for sure, but put them together and BAM!, it's kicked up a notch to a level that is truly dangerous to the enemy's strategy in the life of a believer.
I know I blog about discipleship all the time and you're probably sick and tired of me harping on it. However, I just have to keep blogging about it until the parts of the body of Christ—who have chosen to "do church" through small groups—value discipleship every bit as much as they value the small groups themselves.
10 Things Every Small Group Leader Should Know
1. Embrace God’s unconditional love. If you don’t “know that you know” and you’re at peace with your relationship with God and more importantly, his relationship with you, you will not be able to love others unconditionally. Petition him to show you how much he loves you and he will be happy to do it. He’s just that kind of Pappa!
2. Maintain a clear and compelling personal vision for your group as a whole as well as the individual members of your group. This will help you make decisions when things get fuzzy and remind you of why you are doing what you’re doing when things get tough (and they will!).
3. Small group leadership is more about friendship than any other single component. If you invest in the lives of your members and invite them to invest in you, you’ll impact people in ways they will never forget.
4. You are not supposed to carry the weight of your group. Excellent small group leaders involve others in planning and execution in every aspect of the biblical community… meetings, outreach events, social activities, ministry time in the group, ministry and servanthood outside the meeting, etc.
5. Focus on Christ in your midst to experience his presence, power, and purposes for your lives when you come together. During worship, invite each person to give up his or her personal agenda to receive ministry, offer ministry, do the talking, remain silent, etc. When we gather in his name and expect him to do powerful things in our midst in which we will follow, the meeting becomes transformational for those in attendance.
6. Be a disciple, (not just a convert). Converts know God saved them and expect to be spoon-fed regularly for sustenance. Disciples have taken personal responsibility for their spiritual maturity and feel themselves with prayer, digging into the Word, fasting, and reading books that help them become a better disciple and more importantly a disciple-maker.
7. Your mental model as a small group leader should be the same as a parent. Actively raise your members so they want to grow in maturity, move out of the house, start a family of their own, and give you a bunch of spiritual grand babies! Small group leadership all about developing a legacy… tell your group this is your end-goal in life with them. Rinse and repeat often because they’ll forget!
8. Focus on the 6 days and 22 hours between meetings. That’s where the real ministry and personal transformation occurs. Leaders always focus on the meeting because it’s where their position is viewed most publicly. However, if you invest in your members between meetings then everyone feels more comfortable in the meeting and they'll share openly.
9. Reaching people for Christ requires bi-directional servanthood and cross-pollination. For people to see you as a genuine friend, you must ask them to help you and serve you as well as serving them. Additionally, you must involve your unbelieving friends in the activities and lives of other members of your group to win them to Christ and actually disciple them. It takes a village to reach someone for Jesus and support them as they embrace Lordship!
10. You cannot do the next cool thing God wants to do with you until you give away what you’re currently doing. Who could you develop to take over your group so you can start another group, assume the role of a coach, take a staff position, or plant a church? This may seem scary right now, but that’s because you haven’t given away what you’re doing. As soon as you do, you’ll see your spiritual future (your next step) in a very exciting way. Trust me on this one!
2. Maintain a clear and compelling personal vision for your group as a whole as well as the individual members of your group. This will help you make decisions when things get fuzzy and remind you of why you are doing what you’re doing when things get tough (and they will!).
3. Small group leadership is more about friendship than any other single component. If you invest in the lives of your members and invite them to invest in you, you’ll impact people in ways they will never forget.
4. You are not supposed to carry the weight of your group. Excellent small group leaders involve others in planning and execution in every aspect of the biblical community… meetings, outreach events, social activities, ministry time in the group, ministry and servanthood outside the meeting, etc.
5. Focus on Christ in your midst to experience his presence, power, and purposes for your lives when you come together. During worship, invite each person to give up his or her personal agenda to receive ministry, offer ministry, do the talking, remain silent, etc. When we gather in his name and expect him to do powerful things in our midst in which we will follow, the meeting becomes transformational for those in attendance.
6. Be a disciple, (not just a convert). Converts know God saved them and expect to be spoon-fed regularly for sustenance. Disciples have taken personal responsibility for their spiritual maturity and feel themselves with prayer, digging into the Word, fasting, and reading books that help them become a better disciple and more importantly a disciple-maker.
7. Your mental model as a small group leader should be the same as a parent. Actively raise your members so they want to grow in maturity, move out of the house, start a family of their own, and give you a bunch of spiritual grand babies! Small group leadership all about developing a legacy… tell your group this is your end-goal in life with them. Rinse and repeat often because they’ll forget!
8. Focus on the 6 days and 22 hours between meetings. That’s where the real ministry and personal transformation occurs. Leaders always focus on the meeting because it’s where their position is viewed most publicly. However, if you invest in your members between meetings then everyone feels more comfortable in the meeting and they'll share openly.
9. Reaching people for Christ requires bi-directional servanthood and cross-pollination. For people to see you as a genuine friend, you must ask them to help you and serve you as well as serving them. Additionally, you must involve your unbelieving friends in the activities and lives of other members of your group to win them to Christ and actually disciple them. It takes a village to reach someone for Jesus and support them as they embrace Lordship!
10. You cannot do the next cool thing God wants to do with you until you give away what you’re currently doing. Who could you develop to take over your group so you can start another group, assume the role of a coach, take a staff position, or plant a church? This may seem scary right now, but that’s because you haven’t given away what you’re doing. As soon as you do, you’ll see your spiritual future (your next step) in a very exciting way. Trust me on this one!
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