Ya know, people have changed in the last forty years. In 1970, people learned by reading books and they read a lot of books too. Then in the late 70s cable TV was introduced. I remember watching HBO with my dad the first day we had it installed in 1977. It was a Saturday and we watched three movies in a row that first day. My mom came in after the second movie started and said, "This is not good." During the third movie she put a load of clothes in front of me and said, "at least fold these while you stare at the TV for another two hours." Two couch potatoes were born that day, by the way.
The Internet moved into the public space when AOL offered a cheap dial-up service in 1983 that gave people access to other people via chat rooms (early social networking as it's called now), news, information, weather, and so forth. What a can of worms that opened, huh?
Text messaging via cell phones has been around since the late 90s, but really took off in 2002. That's another can of worms entirely.
Today, people don't read books, or more accurately, don't fully read books, regardless of length. On great occasion, someone will call our ministry offices and say, "I just finished reading _________ and I have a few questions about it..." I'm always surprised, so I ask them to clarify the statement with, "Did you read the whole thing from cover to cover? If so, that's really cool!"
Lord knows I don't read books from cover to cover any longer unless I'm planning to publish the book through TOUCH. Then I read it three or four times to edit the text and give the author feedback. But other than this work-related reading and editing I must do, I don't enjoy reading. Even fiction.
Now I share all this to illustrate something really, really important. If you want to train small group leaders or disciple members, you had better not hand them a book, even a wonderful TOUCH publication and say, "read this and let's talk about the content next week." Why? It just won't happen.
You're probably going to have to buy the person a cup of overpriced coffee in a shop somewhere, ask them to turn off or put away their smart phone so they aren't inclined to tweet or text someone or post something to their facebook page, and ask them to converse with you eye to eye about the topics found in a book you're reading. And I'm not talking about teenagers here. I'm referring to people just like me, a 49 year old man!
Are books dead? Not quite. What has slowly died is our willingness to remain unplugged from computers and TVs for more than a few minutes at a time to read a printed book, which actually takes hours of time. Woah. HOURS of solitude reading a book? Are you nuts?
As a writer and publisher, I'm researching how to deliver training for group leaders and discipleship for group members in new, exciting ways for people who just refuse to sit down, unplug, and read a book to learn something.
Showing posts with label leader training. Show all posts
Showing posts with label leader training. Show all posts
Relational Evangelism, Rebooting for 2011
[I wrote a blog entry a few years ago for 2009 with a similar title, so I thought I'd recycle it since it's still a great concern for me and most every pastor I visit with in my consulting practice.]
Would you like your group members to be reaching friends for Christ through relational evangelism and discipling them as a part of group life between meetings?
Then prototype something this next year that you "roll out" in 2012...
Decide right now that you will not promote or appoint a group member to a place of leadership in 2012 if he or she has not personally led someone to Christ and spiritually mentored the person.
This is not rocket science. Groups that reach people for Christ are led by a godly man or woman who leads people to Christ and is passionate about personal evangelism.
I know what you're thinking. Sheesh! I will have ZERO new leaders if I made this a requirement!
So true. That's why you need to figure out how to develop those kinds of leaders in 2011 with the goal of making it one of your most basic requirements for group leadership in 2012.
If you accept this challenge, I believe it will change everything for you as a pastor of a smaller church or the small groups/cell groups pastor of a larger church. It will force you to do two things right away:
1. You will overhaul your member discipleship process (not just your leader training content) to include practical, experience-based training for evangelism.
2. You will quickly see that your role will change drastically when you are overtly spending time with next year's leaders and praying with them for their lost friends, meeting those lost friends whenever possible, and thinking evangelism first and foremost to see some movement in this area of group life.
What grade would you give yourself in this kind of leadership development for 2010? How can you raise it a grade level or two in 2011 so that 2012 and beyond can be the most powerful years of ministry you've ever experienced?
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Would you like your group members to be reaching friends for Christ through relational evangelism and discipling them as a part of group life between meetings?
Then prototype something this next year that you "roll out" in 2012...
Decide right now that you will not promote or appoint a group member to a place of leadership in 2012 if he or she has not personally led someone to Christ and spiritually mentored the person.
This is not rocket science. Groups that reach people for Christ are led by a godly man or woman who leads people to Christ and is passionate about personal evangelism.
I know what you're thinking. Sheesh! I will have ZERO new leaders if I made this a requirement!
So true. That's why you need to figure out how to develop those kinds of leaders in 2011 with the goal of making it one of your most basic requirements for group leadership in 2012.
If you accept this challenge, I believe it will change everything for you as a pastor of a smaller church or the small groups/cell groups pastor of a larger church. It will force you to do two things right away:
1. You will overhaul your member discipleship process (not just your leader training content) to include practical, experience-based training for evangelism.
2. You will quickly see that your role will change drastically when you are overtly spending time with next year's leaders and praying with them for their lost friends, meeting those lost friends whenever possible, and thinking evangelism first and foremost to see some movement in this area of group life.
What grade would you give yourself in this kind of leadership development for 2010? How can you raise it a grade level or two in 2011 so that 2012 and beyond can be the most powerful years of ministry you've ever experienced?
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Noun vs. Verb Leaders. Which kind do you have?
Saturday, I enjoyed listening to one of my mentors, Bill Beckham. Every time he speaks to a group, the Lord has given him yet another creative way to explain just how different a transition to holistic small groups is compared to the implementation of another traditional and supportive church program. Bill showed a powerpoint slide that was titled "Noun vs. Verb Leaders" and went on to say that the people a pastor raises up to lead groups must understand their role is a DOING role, not a BEING role so often found in church life.
Reminds me of a church I visited many years ago. The deacons served communion once a month and griped about this and that ad nauseum in deacon's meetings with a little decision making thrown in for good measure, but did nothing to serve the body. These men defined their leadership role with a noun, not a verb.
So what kind of small group or cell group leaders do you have? Noun or Verb leaders?
Reminds me of a church I visited many years ago. The deacons served communion once a month and griped about this and that ad nauseum in deacon's meetings with a little decision making thrown in for good measure, but did nothing to serve the body. These men defined their leadership role with a noun, not a verb.
So what kind of small group or cell group leaders do you have? Noun or Verb leaders?
Cell group multiplication myths and misstatements - Here's the truth!
I've read and heard some jaw-dropping statements about how and why a cell group multiplies. Some pastors have used these statements as weapons of mass destruction in their churches when launching cell groups or attempting a transition to cells. Opponents of the model have hand-selected these dogmatic statements and used them to discount the model and the movement, characterizing it as controlling or inflexible and focused on the cell structure instead of the reason for the structure, all of which is quite far from the truth. Yet when one knows the operational realities within cell churches around the world, the following inaccurate or partially true statement simply hold no water:
"Cell groups must multiply in six months or less"
Some cell groups in some churches may have multiplied in six months or less, but you will probably not find this to be the norm in successful cell-based churches. Push the pastor and he'll admit, "We do have groups that have been together longer than one year." Rational expectations for sending out people from one group to plant a new group is 9-18 months. When groups multiply, it's because the sending and leaving members of the group are highly missional individuals who feel an urgency to do so, even though it may cause some temporary relational discomfort. In other words, they're compelled to start new groups by the Spirit of God, not a pastor or coach mandating, "your group dynamics are suffering—you people (pointing to half the group) must meet elsewhere in X weeks as a new group."
"Cell groups multiply by half the group leaving to form a new group"
Once again, some pastors may write or say this is what their groups do on a routine basis, but you will not find this to be the norm if you were to study their church by interviewing group leaders and members. The truth is far less like a mandated divorce and far more like growing up and moving out of the house. Three or four people from a group who have reached friends for Christ are ready to start a new group and frankly, it would be less time consuming to be on their own... so they do it with the blessing of the leadership of the church. This is far less painful than splitting the group in two or forcing the members of a group to choose whether to stay or go because the group has grown too large or been together for too long of a period.
"It's the cell leader's job to raise up someone and train them to lead a new group"
This is a half-truth that would put far too much pressure on the group leader and is simply not true at face value. The coach over the group befriends potential leaders from within his or her groups and encourages them to lead out. The coach also works with the group leader, helping them back off to give the potential leaders room to grow by serving and facilitating meetings. The pastors on staff train the future leaders. The existing leader does his or her part to impart vision for future leadership by giving responsibility to members of the group and encourages them to learn by doing. However, he or she is not solely responsible for finding, developing, training, and releasing a new leader so the group can multiply. Cell group leadership development is a team-based activity. In other words, it takes a village to raise a cell leader.
If you want to learn more about how healthy group multiply, when they multiply, and why they multiply, I highly recommend this book. It also contains other illuminating discussions about other myths surrounding a decentralized strategy for church life organized around holistic small groups or cell groups.
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"Cell groups must multiply in six months or less"
Some cell groups in some churches may have multiplied in six months or less, but you will probably not find this to be the norm in successful cell-based churches. Push the pastor and he'll admit, "We do have groups that have been together longer than one year." Rational expectations for sending out people from one group to plant a new group is 9-18 months. When groups multiply, it's because the sending and leaving members of the group are highly missional individuals who feel an urgency to do so, even though it may cause some temporary relational discomfort. In other words, they're compelled to start new groups by the Spirit of God, not a pastor or coach mandating, "your group dynamics are suffering—you people (pointing to half the group) must meet elsewhere in X weeks as a new group."
"Cell groups multiply by half the group leaving to form a new group"
Once again, some pastors may write or say this is what their groups do on a routine basis, but you will not find this to be the norm if you were to study their church by interviewing group leaders and members. The truth is far less like a mandated divorce and far more like growing up and moving out of the house. Three or four people from a group who have reached friends for Christ are ready to start a new group and frankly, it would be less time consuming to be on their own... so they do it with the blessing of the leadership of the church. This is far less painful than splitting the group in two or forcing the members of a group to choose whether to stay or go because the group has grown too large or been together for too long of a period.
"It's the cell leader's job to raise up someone and train them to lead a new group"
This is a half-truth that would put far too much pressure on the group leader and is simply not true at face value. The coach over the group befriends potential leaders from within his or her groups and encourages them to lead out. The coach also works with the group leader, helping them back off to give the potential leaders room to grow by serving and facilitating meetings. The pastors on staff train the future leaders. The existing leader does his or her part to impart vision for future leadership by giving responsibility to members of the group and encourages them to learn by doing. However, he or she is not solely responsible for finding, developing, training, and releasing a new leader so the group can multiply. Cell group leadership development is a team-based activity. In other words, it takes a village to raise a cell leader.
If you want to learn more about how healthy group multiply, when they multiply, and why they multiply, I highly recommend this book. It also contains other illuminating discussions about other myths surrounding a decentralized strategy for church life organized around holistic small groups or cell groups.
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Group Multiplication. Goal or Result?
The more I think about it, the less enamored I am by the definitions of a healthy group that contain verbiage about group multiplication. Sure, groups need to remain small for intimacy and so the group can be a team to reach the lost. But telling a group of people who are passionately missional (to the point of great personal sacrifice) that they should form a group, become deep friends, then separate from one another in a year or less is just counterproductive!
You'll get so much push back that group life will never get off the ground and take off a life of its own. Describing a highly relational holistic small group ministry in terms of biological cell multiplication is just awful if you want my honest opinion. I avoid it like the plague and so should you.
I keep reminding churches with whom I consult to envision potential group leaders with a familial approach to group life. Groups are comprised of spiritual children, young people, and fathers and mothers. The goal for everyone is to pursue spiritual growth and personal transformation, and show others the way to the cross. When the spiritual young men and women reach friends for Christ and disciple them, they're ready to move out of the group and start a spiritual family of their own.
Has the group multiplied? Yes! One group has birthed one or more groups, and they'll probably do the same if they are supported properly and they maintained the same missional life focuses.
Yet the way the vision for healthy small group ministry is shared remains highly relational and functional. It's a family where the kids grow up and move out of the house to start families of their own.
I recommend instilling a passion to generate a spiritual legacy of passionate leadership instead of multiplying groups. You'll gain far more leaders this way.
If you tell everyone a home-run for their small group is splitting up inside a calendar year, don't expect much enthusiasm from anyone except the divorce lawyers in your congregation.
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You'll get so much push back that group life will never get off the ground and take off a life of its own. Describing a highly relational holistic small group ministry in terms of biological cell multiplication is just awful if you want my honest opinion. I avoid it like the plague and so should you.
I keep reminding churches with whom I consult to envision potential group leaders with a familial approach to group life. Groups are comprised of spiritual children, young people, and fathers and mothers. The goal for everyone is to pursue spiritual growth and personal transformation, and show others the way to the cross. When the spiritual young men and women reach friends for Christ and disciple them, they're ready to move out of the group and start a spiritual family of their own.
Has the group multiplied? Yes! One group has birthed one or more groups, and they'll probably do the same if they are supported properly and they maintained the same missional life focuses.
Yet the way the vision for healthy small group ministry is shared remains highly relational and functional. It's a family where the kids grow up and move out of the house to start families of their own.
I recommend instilling a passion to generate a spiritual legacy of passionate leadership instead of multiplying groups. You'll gain far more leaders this way.
If you tell everyone a home-run for their small group is splitting up inside a calendar year, don't expect much enthusiasm from anyone except the divorce lawyers in your congregation.
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Reading comprehension. Have you regressed?
Half of all Americans are functionally illiterate, meaning they can read restaurant menus, signs, billboards, and Facebook posts made by friends, but they are currently not able to learn much by reading a book... so they do not read whole books.
In fact, a LOT of educated Americans don't read books according to recent polls. 58% of American college grads never read another book after they complete their education.
Most of this stems from the internet delivering 500 word articles and Youtube videos, combined with one other statistic that is simply alarming: The average American watches 4 hours of television every day!
I must admit that I watch far too much television myself and while I read all day, every day in my role at TOUCH Outreach, I don't read for pleasure in the evenings and weekends.
Now here's another fact that's even more alarming than the ones I shared above:
If you don't continue to read at the same pace and depth as you did when you were in school, you will slowly regress to an 8th grade reading level, which is what it takes to read a restaurant menu and function in society.
Holy cow that's just scary on so many levels, and it reveals something important for ministry leaders:
If you want your people to read a book, you must be willing to walk them through the content a few pages per week with lots of interaction and verbal processing.
Expecting people to read a book you hand them to enhance their ministry as a small group leader is probably a waste of your time and the church's money. The book will gather dust for the most part ... or if they're resourceful like me, it will be added to the "sell yours here - new and used listings" on amazon.com within a week of receipt!
Fully grasping all this as a small groups pastor should make your head spin. The way you've trained leaders and discipled people in the past must be completely revisited.
Books are still quite relevant, and like me, you should urge your friends to turn off the TV at least one evening a week to sit and read for an hour or two, just to stimulate the part of the brain that isn't working when a person watches a show.
In fact, a LOT of educated Americans don't read books according to recent polls. 58% of American college grads never read another book after they complete their education.
Most of this stems from the internet delivering 500 word articles and Youtube videos, combined with one other statistic that is simply alarming: The average American watches 4 hours of television every day!
I must admit that I watch far too much television myself and while I read all day, every day in my role at TOUCH Outreach, I don't read for pleasure in the evenings and weekends.
Now here's another fact that's even more alarming than the ones I shared above:
If you don't continue to read at the same pace and depth as you did when you were in school, you will slowly regress to an 8th grade reading level, which is what it takes to read a restaurant menu and function in society.
Holy cow that's just scary on so many levels, and it reveals something important for ministry leaders:
If you want your people to read a book, you must be willing to walk them through the content a few pages per week with lots of interaction and verbal processing.
Expecting people to read a book you hand them to enhance their ministry as a small group leader is probably a waste of your time and the church's money. The book will gather dust for the most part ... or if they're resourceful like me, it will be added to the "sell yours here - new and used listings" on amazon.com within a week of receipt!
Fully grasping all this as a small groups pastor should make your head spin. The way you've trained leaders and discipled people in the past must be completely revisited.
Books are still quite relevant, and like me, you should urge your friends to turn off the TV at least one evening a week to sit and read for an hour or two, just to stimulate the part of the brain that isn't working when a person watches a show.
Where should the leadership bar be set?
This was one of the hotly debated questions at the Lifeway Small Group Summit in which I participated a few weeks ago. Recently, Michael Mack blogged about this very same issue and I thought I'd pile on a bit to elaborate on what I shared during the web-broadcasted event. I made a couple of statements that evidently created a firestorm of discussion, but there was not enough time for me to unpack my initial statement.
It seems that every Summit panel speaker aside from me thought that small group leadership should be a "crawling" position, not one for a "walker" or a "runner" (to use Saddleback's terminology).
I define a potential small group leader as a person who:
• has surrendered his or her life to God and living sacrificially (and tithing their time, talents, and income).
• feels a passionate, missional call to pastor others, helping them grow spiritually and mature in Christ.
• walking free of habitual sin and maintains an accountable relationship with a close friend.
• is actively relating to both Christians and pre-Christians between church meetings, sharing his or her faith regularly.
• has participated fully in small group life beyond attending meetings (spearheading an outreach event, discipling a new believer, serving others without being asked, etc.).
• is devoted to living by and learning from God's Word daily.
To the best of my estimation, this is a person who is somewhere between walking and running. Not crawling.
Raising the bar for leadership requires raising the bar for ongoing group membership.
Now don't read more into this than you should. Anyone who wants to join a group in an established small group ministry should be welcomed with open arms. However, once they consider themselves a member of a group, they should be led down a pathway to spiritual maturity and productivity, not a pathway that reinforces consumerism.
Consider this: if a church does not provide a discipleship pathway for their small group members, they will be forced to lower the bar for small group leadership. And that level would be what one of the Summit participants stated (as a side comment) that was considered tongue-in-cheek, but oh so revealing: "If they have a pulse we'll make them a group leader!"
Just to clarify, I must add that going to Sunday services and attending a small group meeting midweek doth not a disciple make. It does makes for a very involved consumer Christian though, of which the American church has consistently produced.
One of the panel speakers defended the "crawlers as new group leaders" sentiment with the illustration of Jesus walking up to teenage fishermen and calling them to follow him as His disciples.
I found this example to be the very one I was about to use, but interpreted completely differently. Jesus did indeed call out "crawlers" to follow him, but not to lead. He called them to follow, walk with Christ, learn from Him, minister to others, and mimic his relational ministry to others. They were not sent out to preach and teach and make disciples of their own until three full years later, when they were obviously walkers or runners in Jesus' opinion.
While I don't mandate a three year discipleship and leader training process, I do feel that the bar for leadership can and should be raised far higher than having a pulse or owning a DVD player. Raising the bar will not scare off potential leaders if the person has been relationally discipled in addition to attending small group meetings and weekend services. He or she will say, "I've learned a lot and I'm ready to move out of the house and have a spiritual family of my own." (Once again, thank you Mike Mack for this brilliant illustration of healthy leadership development and group multiplication!)
So there you have it. If a church has no discipleship pathway to spiritual maturity for the small group members, they have no choice. They must invite most anyone with a modicum of interest in hosting a group to take on the pseudo-role of small group leader and call it something far less than it should be.
Folks, it's time to raise the bar for membership with actual life-on-life discipleship. When the bar has been raised for membership, a solid leadership bar won't be scary or seem unattainable for the members of the groups because they'll see it as the next natural step, not a huge leap of faith and time and responsibility.
Christian Swartz got it right
I re-discovered a really powerful quote on page 32 of Natural Church Development by Christian Swarz...
“Holistic small groups are the natural place for Christians to learn to serve others—both inside and outside the group—with their spiritual gifts. The planned multiplication of small groups is made possible through the continual development of leaders as a by-product of the normal group life. The meaning of the term ‘discipleship’ becomes practical in the context of holistic small groups: the transfer of life, not rote learning of abstract concepts.”
A number of things jumped out at me after I read it a couple of times:
HSG's are a natural place to learn to serve others with spiritual gifts. So often, church members take a class on spiritual gifts and it's based on personal observation and areas of interest or comfort. Practicing those gifts and refining their use to be powerful for God is not easily done after the class is concluded.
Multiplication is made possible through the continual development of leaders as a by-product of normal group life. Wow. Just read that a couple of times and let it seep into your heart, not just your mind! Normal HSG life should produce leaders, not followers. This undoubtedly requires that every member look in the mirror and see a minister, not a member of a group.
Discipleship is the transfer of life, not the rote learning of abstract concepts. Couldn't have stated it better myself! Life transfer requires one-on-one mentoring and members taking personal responsibility for other members. The leader of a group cannot disciple everyone, and it cannot be done just in the meetings.
Lifeway is sponsoring a free webinar Summit next month in Nashville and bringing me in as well as a number of other voices from the small group world. Please pray that I will be able to communicate the content of Swarz's paragraph above powerfully. There's so much consumer-based small group "ministry" in America going on that most can't even get their head around what the priesthood of all believers looks like any more, let alone lead a church into it through their small group ministry!
Top Ten Mistakes Small Group Leaders Make
[I wrote this article nine years ago. I came across it this evening and thought it would be a great blog entry as most folks haven't read all the back issues of Cell Group Journal. If you like it, feel free to copy and paste it in an email for your leaders, and feel free to change it to work better for your leaders!]
Let me begin with a confession. I am the most qualified person to write this article. I am guilty of every mistake covered here. If you don’t believe me, ask my wife! She doesn’t like to say bad things about me but will be brutally honest if necessary. The mistakes I have made through the years help me see gaps in my spiritual walk and skills as a leader. Instead of trampling my self-esteem with guilt, I use mistakes as learning experiences. If I don’t repeat them, I have learned something more valuable than any training class can offer. I see my primary task as a leader to help my group reach the lost and raise up leaders, expanding the works of God’s people. When this doesn’t happen consistently, I know I’m making mistakes that will kill my group. This may sound overly dramatic to you, but it’s painfully true. Small groups die all the time and it’s usually due to one or more of the reasons discussed below.
A few weeks ago, I asked five hundred small group leaders three questions. What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made as a small group leader? How did you correct the problem or avoid making it a second time? What have you learned from the experience, or how has it changed your leadership style? Those who answered were very honest, and it took guts. Everyone likes to toot their own horn, but few will reveal their failures. Up front I’d like to thank those leaders who made this article possible. You are a blessing to the body of Christ! As you read these common mistakes submitted by real small group leaders, you will probably see areas in which your ministry needs improvement. This list is by no means complete, but it touches on key issues that will make or break your ministry as a small group leader.
“I operated passively without goals.”
Leaders who “follow their nose” never gain any ground in reaching the lost or developing leaders. They wander aimlessly without a plan of action to storm the gates of Hell and set captives free. As I visit with successful small group leaders around the world, they all have common goals of reaching X number of people for Christ by a certain date and raising up enough leaders to pastor the new believers in new groups. This drives the leader to invest time with his members, unsaved friends and relatives attached to the group. The responsibility of meeting the goal is not completely shouldered by the leader, but he or she owns the goal and sets the example for the rest of the group.
These leaders are also accountable to their church leadership. Each week, they eagerly meet with their pastor or coach to find ways to meet or exceed the stated goal. If you want to succeed as a leader, set realistic growth goals. Submit your goals to your leadership so you can be held accountable. Then get to work meeting those goals, removing all obstacles that get in your way. Remember, run as to win the prize.
“I released an untrained apprentice.”
Years ago, I watched a small group leader multiply his group and give half his members to his apprentice. As the weeks passed, I watched the new leader struggle as she lost member after member. They didn’t feel loved by her, and she didn’t know how to love them with servanthood. The leader’s mistake stemmed from not giving the responsibility of the original group to her months before the multiplication date. Although she facilitated the meeting a dozen times, she had very little servanthood experience. What she lacked was the daily interaction between a leader and members that refines the leader and builds a new team. If you’re not transferring an increasing amount of leadership responsibility to your apprentice, you’re setting them up for defeat. You’ll also wound group members you dearly love when they multiply off with this new leader. Give your apprentice the reigns of leadership a little at a time over the course of six months, and then back off and let them be the “senior leader.” Your role then will be one of a consultant, and if you’ve trained them well, you will experience some rest as they lead the members.
The best way to view your apprentice is to see and treat them like a real small group leader. Challenge them to serve the group members between meetings. Help them set up ministry visits to pray for members in their homes and join them. Spend an hour a week or more on your knees in prayer with them for the needs of the group, and you will release strong leaders. So little leadership development has to do with facilitating meetings. It's all about developing a servant's heart for others.
“I was leading as if I was the senior pastor.”
The role of the small group leader is often mistaken to be more than should be. If you’re making this mistake, the indicators are clear. You are worn out because you have mistakenly taken on the whole load of pastoral care for each member. Your pastoral staff doesn’t know what’s going on with your members because they only hear about problems when it’s too late to be supportive. You’re riddled with guilt because you work a full-time job or raise a house full of kids and you just can’t be a full-time minister. Did that about cover how you feel right now? The best way to correct this mistake is to clearly understand your role. You are a faithful undershepherd, caring for someone else’s sheep. If they get sick or are attacked by wolves in the field, you help them to the best of your ability and get help. The sheep entrusted to you do not belong to you, so you are obligated to find the senior shepherd (your pastor) or the ranch hand (your coach) who is there to help.
This news should set you free! Your role is to encourage, minister to and love your members unconditionally. You’re a vital part of the care-giving system of your church, but not the whole system!
If you’ve been acting like the senior pastor, the best way to correct the problem is to ask your group and your pastoral staff to forgive you. Ask them to hold you accountable for a balanced ministry and take some of the load you’re leaving behind. Small group leadership should be a joy, not a burden.
“I pastored the wrong people.”
There are four kinds of Christians with whom you will come into contact in your small group: 1) your group members, 2) somebody else’s group members, 3) church friends who refuse to join your group and 4) other church’s members who show up at your meetings. The last three will not build your group and make it strong if you shepherd them. When a group member from another group approaches me with a complaint about their group or leader, I do not take ownership of the problem. Assisting a runaway is an offense punishable by law! I promptly see them home and I don’t let them wander off. If the issue can’t be worked it out in the group in which they are a member, he or she should visit with the coach or pastor above the group, not with other group leaders in the church.
When my church friends want the benefits of group life — counseling, ministry and support, just to name a few — but are unwilling to join a group, I am unable to give them much of my time either. If they want a deeper relationship with me, I invite them to join my group! This way, we can minister to one another and they can catch the vision for living in community. While I don’t come off as “high and mighty,” I do tell them what they’re missing by resisting the invitation to join a biblical community. It’s the best place to be in my Book (Acts 2 to be specific).
The same thing applies for believers who want to join my small group and maintain a church membership elsewhere. If they want the benefits of biblical community my group offers, they should be giving my church (and my group members) 110% of their time and energy. This includes attending our weekend services, daily involvement in my group member’s lives, reaching people for Christ the group has befriended, and discipling members or being discipled by a member of the group. The bottom line is that a person cannot have two simultaneous spiritual authorities. He or she will run back to the first church to evade conflict and will not easily accept a challenge when it's given.
“I made community the highest goal of my group.”
This mistake is tough. It seems so right when you’re doing it! When the group fizzles, no one understands why. Small groups that focus on community, fellowship and intimacy as the ultimate goal rarely see new believers in the group. God gave us community for a reason that transcends the “little corner of heaven” created in group life. If your group does not harness the power of biblical community to build the kingdom with new believers and new leaders, it will slowly die. The best way to avoid this mistake is to pray for the lost in every small group meeting.
Also, schedule a time to meet and hang out with your member’s lost friends and family. Make a personal goal to help your members help these loved ones find Christ and join your loving community. If you’re stuck in the community phase of group life, you must show your members this is what the victorious Christian life is all about! When your members catch a fire for reaching the lost, they will finally understand why community is so important and why it was created.
“I took shortcuts with equipping, discipleship and accountability”
Pairing up members for accountability or sponsorship is a pain. The members don’t really understand it and resist the self-discipline it demands. You may have even said to yourself, “Our church’s equipping pathway is comprehensive, but my members seem to be doing O.K. without it.”
Has this kind of thinking entered your mind? This mistake will come back to bite you, and it has huge gnarly teeth. One day you’ll think “why is my ministry as a small group leader so strained and going nowhere all at the same time?” Please, learn from the failure of others here! If you don’t pair up your people for accountability, guess who gets to meet each member to encourage them to grow spiritually before work each work morning? YOU. If your members don't get discipled through the use of your equipping track and a mentor or accountability partner, guess who will baby sit a bunch of immature believers through the never-ending small group cycle? You guessed it! YOU. But the results are really more impactual than your personal state of exhaustion.
Jesus modeled discipleship for us as He developed and released his twelve. They left and did all kinds of cool miracles because of His work with them. No equipping books way back then, you say? Yes, you’re right. It was much harder without printed materials. You have it easy in the age of information in which we live!
Get busy pairing people up to work through your church's discipleship process or set your alarm for 5:00 a.m. There are no short cuts in discipleship and if you take them, your alarm clock and a death-warmed-over look in the mirror will remind you every morning.
“My sole focus was the weekly small group meetings.”
If you fail to create a seven-day-a-week relationship with your group members, your group will not grow because people aren't interested in another meeting. They want deep friendships where there’s impromptu meals, baseball games, prayer, ministry time and relaxing. Watching TV, surfing the net, or sitting at the kitchen table and watching a pot of coffee disappear will dynamically change group life. Your members will tell their friends how much fun group life is — as opposed to a good small group meeting — and your group will flourish.
If your group only sees each other at the weekly meeting and at the Sunday services, you’re not doing it right and it’s not a genuine “small group.”
If you’re making this mistake, don’t worry; it’s easy to fix. For example, invite a single person from your group over for dinner and tell them to bring over a load of laundry. When you fold laundry together, they’ll know you are interested in true Christian intimacy, not an attendance roster.
What you must do is to reserve time to be with your group members between meetings. If you don’t have the time to do this, make the time. Let go of things that are non-essential. Your golf game can suffer, your kids may not be in as many after school activities, and your new “open-door policy” at home will make for less private time, but this is your ministry and it deserves more than leftovers! Remember: group life must be a high priority in your life for it to work. God has called you to it and He wants to use your group to win souls and raise up leaders. It takes a sizeable time investment, but it’s worth it.
“I appointed myself as the Holy Man (or Holy Woman).”
Answering all the Bible questions and maintaining dominant spiritual authority will make you a very lonely person! No one will join you in leadership because they don’t measure up. People won’t get close to you because you can’t just be that special friend in a time of need . . . you have to fix the problem. It’s also stepping on God’s toes. If you’re making this mistake, ask your group members for forgiveness in your next meeting. Tell them you love them and you need help with a pride issue. That’s the root of this problem.
The way to avoid this mistake is to prayerfully ask yourself “How can God be glorified through someone else right now?” He will be faithful to show you how the whole body builds itself up by every supporting ligament. Even baby Christians can minister to others very effectively. The Holy Spirit operates at full strength in all who believe and give it away freely.
“I operated out of a vocational paradigm.”
If you see small group leadership as a job at the church, you’ll hate the position. Your role is one of a calling. A hired hand quits when the going gets tough. A called man or woman just sees the obstacles as new ways God will reveal His power. See the difference?
The way to avoid or recover from this mistake is to simply read the last mistake below. Drink at the well often, and you will never be thirsty. Prayer is the key here, and this will birth a calling in you, empowering you to do great things for God.
“I had no prayer life.”
The biggest mistake small group leaders make is to cut off the lifeline to God’s power and wisdom. It comes from above and it solves all the problems a leader faces. Jesus modeled a life of prayer for us. As I reflect on His integral part of the Trinity, I see why Jesus prayed so much while on earth. He was recently separated from His Father and the Holy Spirit and missed His family!
God created us in His image, and our spiritual nature thirsts for community with Him through prayer. If you don’t pray much, don’t expect much power in your ministry! Pray alone, with group members, family, friends, children, neighbors, co-workers, your boss, and total strangers when you feel led by the Spirit to do so. Prayer is powerful and the more you pray, the better your ministry will be!
There are only two kinds of mistakes...
Good mistakes are the ones you learn from; bad mistakes are the ones that you repeat or ignore. God has given you a unique opportunity to shake up Satan’s kingdom with the power of community. Your group was designed by God to storm the gates of Hell and set captives free. Don’t be afraid to make changes today in your ministry to see revival in your small group!
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Let me begin with a confession. I am the most qualified person to write this article. I am guilty of every mistake covered here. If you don’t believe me, ask my wife! She doesn’t like to say bad things about me but will be brutally honest if necessary. The mistakes I have made through the years help me see gaps in my spiritual walk and skills as a leader. Instead of trampling my self-esteem with guilt, I use mistakes as learning experiences. If I don’t repeat them, I have learned something more valuable than any training class can offer. I see my primary task as a leader to help my group reach the lost and raise up leaders, expanding the works of God’s people. When this doesn’t happen consistently, I know I’m making mistakes that will kill my group. This may sound overly dramatic to you, but it’s painfully true. Small groups die all the time and it’s usually due to one or more of the reasons discussed below.
A few weeks ago, I asked five hundred small group leaders three questions. What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made as a small group leader? How did you correct the problem or avoid making it a second time? What have you learned from the experience, or how has it changed your leadership style? Those who answered were very honest, and it took guts. Everyone likes to toot their own horn, but few will reveal their failures. Up front I’d like to thank those leaders who made this article possible. You are a blessing to the body of Christ! As you read these common mistakes submitted by real small group leaders, you will probably see areas in which your ministry needs improvement. This list is by no means complete, but it touches on key issues that will make or break your ministry as a small group leader.
“I operated passively without goals.”
Leaders who “follow their nose” never gain any ground in reaching the lost or developing leaders. They wander aimlessly without a plan of action to storm the gates of Hell and set captives free. As I visit with successful small group leaders around the world, they all have common goals of reaching X number of people for Christ by a certain date and raising up enough leaders to pastor the new believers in new groups. This drives the leader to invest time with his members, unsaved friends and relatives attached to the group. The responsibility of meeting the goal is not completely shouldered by the leader, but he or she owns the goal and sets the example for the rest of the group.
These leaders are also accountable to their church leadership. Each week, they eagerly meet with their pastor or coach to find ways to meet or exceed the stated goal. If you want to succeed as a leader, set realistic growth goals. Submit your goals to your leadership so you can be held accountable. Then get to work meeting those goals, removing all obstacles that get in your way. Remember, run as to win the prize.
“I released an untrained apprentice.”
Years ago, I watched a small group leader multiply his group and give half his members to his apprentice. As the weeks passed, I watched the new leader struggle as she lost member after member. They didn’t feel loved by her, and she didn’t know how to love them with servanthood. The leader’s mistake stemmed from not giving the responsibility of the original group to her months before the multiplication date. Although she facilitated the meeting a dozen times, she had very little servanthood experience. What she lacked was the daily interaction between a leader and members that refines the leader and builds a new team. If you’re not transferring an increasing amount of leadership responsibility to your apprentice, you’re setting them up for defeat. You’ll also wound group members you dearly love when they multiply off with this new leader. Give your apprentice the reigns of leadership a little at a time over the course of six months, and then back off and let them be the “senior leader.” Your role then will be one of a consultant, and if you’ve trained them well, you will experience some rest as they lead the members.
The best way to view your apprentice is to see and treat them like a real small group leader. Challenge them to serve the group members between meetings. Help them set up ministry visits to pray for members in their homes and join them. Spend an hour a week or more on your knees in prayer with them for the needs of the group, and you will release strong leaders. So little leadership development has to do with facilitating meetings. It's all about developing a servant's heart for others.
“I was leading as if I was the senior pastor.”
The role of the small group leader is often mistaken to be more than should be. If you’re making this mistake, the indicators are clear. You are worn out because you have mistakenly taken on the whole load of pastoral care for each member. Your pastoral staff doesn’t know what’s going on with your members because they only hear about problems when it’s too late to be supportive. You’re riddled with guilt because you work a full-time job or raise a house full of kids and you just can’t be a full-time minister. Did that about cover how you feel right now? The best way to correct this mistake is to clearly understand your role. You are a faithful undershepherd, caring for someone else’s sheep. If they get sick or are attacked by wolves in the field, you help them to the best of your ability and get help. The sheep entrusted to you do not belong to you, so you are obligated to find the senior shepherd (your pastor) or the ranch hand (your coach) who is there to help.
This news should set you free! Your role is to encourage, minister to and love your members unconditionally. You’re a vital part of the care-giving system of your church, but not the whole system!
If you’ve been acting like the senior pastor, the best way to correct the problem is to ask your group and your pastoral staff to forgive you. Ask them to hold you accountable for a balanced ministry and take some of the load you’re leaving behind. Small group leadership should be a joy, not a burden.
“I pastored the wrong people.”
There are four kinds of Christians with whom you will come into contact in your small group: 1) your group members, 2) somebody else’s group members, 3) church friends who refuse to join your group and 4) other church’s members who show up at your meetings. The last three will not build your group and make it strong if you shepherd them. When a group member from another group approaches me with a complaint about their group or leader, I do not take ownership of the problem. Assisting a runaway is an offense punishable by law! I promptly see them home and I don’t let them wander off. If the issue can’t be worked it out in the group in which they are a member, he or she should visit with the coach or pastor above the group, not with other group leaders in the church.
When my church friends want the benefits of group life — counseling, ministry and support, just to name a few — but are unwilling to join a group, I am unable to give them much of my time either. If they want a deeper relationship with me, I invite them to join my group! This way, we can minister to one another and they can catch the vision for living in community. While I don’t come off as “high and mighty,” I do tell them what they’re missing by resisting the invitation to join a biblical community. It’s the best place to be in my Book (Acts 2 to be specific).
The same thing applies for believers who want to join my small group and maintain a church membership elsewhere. If they want the benefits of biblical community my group offers, they should be giving my church (and my group members) 110% of their time and energy. This includes attending our weekend services, daily involvement in my group member’s lives, reaching people for Christ the group has befriended, and discipling members or being discipled by a member of the group. The bottom line is that a person cannot have two simultaneous spiritual authorities. He or she will run back to the first church to evade conflict and will not easily accept a challenge when it's given.
“I made community the highest goal of my group.”
This mistake is tough. It seems so right when you’re doing it! When the group fizzles, no one understands why. Small groups that focus on community, fellowship and intimacy as the ultimate goal rarely see new believers in the group. God gave us community for a reason that transcends the “little corner of heaven” created in group life. If your group does not harness the power of biblical community to build the kingdom with new believers and new leaders, it will slowly die. The best way to avoid this mistake is to pray for the lost in every small group meeting.
Also, schedule a time to meet and hang out with your member’s lost friends and family. Make a personal goal to help your members help these loved ones find Christ and join your loving community. If you’re stuck in the community phase of group life, you must show your members this is what the victorious Christian life is all about! When your members catch a fire for reaching the lost, they will finally understand why community is so important and why it was created.
“I took shortcuts with equipping, discipleship and accountability”
Pairing up members for accountability or sponsorship is a pain. The members don’t really understand it and resist the self-discipline it demands. You may have even said to yourself, “Our church’s equipping pathway is comprehensive, but my members seem to be doing O.K. without it.”
Has this kind of thinking entered your mind? This mistake will come back to bite you, and it has huge gnarly teeth. One day you’ll think “why is my ministry as a small group leader so strained and going nowhere all at the same time?” Please, learn from the failure of others here! If you don’t pair up your people for accountability, guess who gets to meet each member to encourage them to grow spiritually before work each work morning? YOU. If your members don't get discipled through the use of your equipping track and a mentor or accountability partner, guess who will baby sit a bunch of immature believers through the never-ending small group cycle? You guessed it! YOU. But the results are really more impactual than your personal state of exhaustion.
Jesus modeled discipleship for us as He developed and released his twelve. They left and did all kinds of cool miracles because of His work with them. No equipping books way back then, you say? Yes, you’re right. It was much harder without printed materials. You have it easy in the age of information in which we live!
Get busy pairing people up to work through your church's discipleship process or set your alarm for 5:00 a.m. There are no short cuts in discipleship and if you take them, your alarm clock and a death-warmed-over look in the mirror will remind you every morning.
“My sole focus was the weekly small group meetings.”
If you fail to create a seven-day-a-week relationship with your group members, your group will not grow because people aren't interested in another meeting. They want deep friendships where there’s impromptu meals, baseball games, prayer, ministry time and relaxing. Watching TV, surfing the net, or sitting at the kitchen table and watching a pot of coffee disappear will dynamically change group life. Your members will tell their friends how much fun group life is — as opposed to a good small group meeting — and your group will flourish.
If your group only sees each other at the weekly meeting and at the Sunday services, you’re not doing it right and it’s not a genuine “small group.”
If you’re making this mistake, don’t worry; it’s easy to fix. For example, invite a single person from your group over for dinner and tell them to bring over a load of laundry. When you fold laundry together, they’ll know you are interested in true Christian intimacy, not an attendance roster.
What you must do is to reserve time to be with your group members between meetings. If you don’t have the time to do this, make the time. Let go of things that are non-essential. Your golf game can suffer, your kids may not be in as many after school activities, and your new “open-door policy” at home will make for less private time, but this is your ministry and it deserves more than leftovers! Remember: group life must be a high priority in your life for it to work. God has called you to it and He wants to use your group to win souls and raise up leaders. It takes a sizeable time investment, but it’s worth it.
“I appointed myself as the Holy Man (or Holy Woman).”
Answering all the Bible questions and maintaining dominant spiritual authority will make you a very lonely person! No one will join you in leadership because they don’t measure up. People won’t get close to you because you can’t just be that special friend in a time of need . . . you have to fix the problem. It’s also stepping on God’s toes. If you’re making this mistake, ask your group members for forgiveness in your next meeting. Tell them you love them and you need help with a pride issue. That’s the root of this problem.
The way to avoid this mistake is to prayerfully ask yourself “How can God be glorified through someone else right now?” He will be faithful to show you how the whole body builds itself up by every supporting ligament. Even baby Christians can minister to others very effectively. The Holy Spirit operates at full strength in all who believe and give it away freely.
“I operated out of a vocational paradigm.”
If you see small group leadership as a job at the church, you’ll hate the position. Your role is one of a calling. A hired hand quits when the going gets tough. A called man or woman just sees the obstacles as new ways God will reveal His power. See the difference?
The way to avoid or recover from this mistake is to simply read the last mistake below. Drink at the well often, and you will never be thirsty. Prayer is the key here, and this will birth a calling in you, empowering you to do great things for God.
“I had no prayer life.”
The biggest mistake small group leaders make is to cut off the lifeline to God’s power and wisdom. It comes from above and it solves all the problems a leader faces. Jesus modeled a life of prayer for us. As I reflect on His integral part of the Trinity, I see why Jesus prayed so much while on earth. He was recently separated from His Father and the Holy Spirit and missed His family!
God created us in His image, and our spiritual nature thirsts for community with Him through prayer. If you don’t pray much, don’t expect much power in your ministry! Pray alone, with group members, family, friends, children, neighbors, co-workers, your boss, and total strangers when you feel led by the Spirit to do so. Prayer is powerful and the more you pray, the better your ministry will be!
There are only two kinds of mistakes...
Good mistakes are the ones you learn from; bad mistakes are the ones that you repeat or ignore. God has given you a unique opportunity to shake up Satan’s kingdom with the power of community. Your group was designed by God to storm the gates of Hell and set captives free. Don’t be afraid to make changes today in your ministry to see revival in your small group!
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Leader training. What are your non-negotiables?
If you were shopping for a new small group leader training, what topics must be covered for you to be excited about the resource? My short list is as follows:
• Possessing a deep prayer life as a small group leader is vital.
• Learning to become a good listener is another key to unlock the door of success.
• Becoming a genuine friend to one's group members is all-important.
• Helping one's group members "grow up and move out of the house" is a big key to success.
• Mobilizing the members of the group to reach friends for Christ must be a primary goal for a good leader.
• Developing a core team of members who are capable reduces burnout for the leader.
Michael Mack and I have decided to team up and create an all-new small group leader training process for local pastors to use to develop leaders. Your input concerning your likes and gripes with what you're using now and what you wish you could be using would be most helpful!
Just leave a comment and we'll get to work incorporating your "must-have" topics into the overall design!
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.
• Possessing a deep prayer life as a small group leader is vital.
• Learning to become a good listener is another key to unlock the door of success.
• Becoming a genuine friend to one's group members is all-important.
• Helping one's group members "grow up and move out of the house" is a big key to success.
• Mobilizing the members of the group to reach friends for Christ must be a primary goal for a good leader.
• Developing a core team of members who are capable reduces burnout for the leader.
Michael Mack and I have decided to team up and create an all-new small group leader training process for local pastors to use to develop leaders. Your input concerning your likes and gripes with what you're using now and what you wish you could be using would be most helpful!
Just leave a comment and we'll get to work incorporating your "must-have" topics into the overall design!
.
.
.
To be truly effective, we must remain affective
My dad taught me a bunch of things growing up, most of which I didn't realize at the time because I didn't have a use for it. One of those things was an understanding how people learn new things and apply them to their lives. Educators have discovered three ways people gain knowledge about something, but the application of that knowledge is quite different. Kinda like knowing you should eat your vegetables (ordering the fries anyway) versus skipping the deep fried potatoes and eating steamed broccoli. Yum!
You may not think this has anything to do with the way you train your new small group leaders. However, designing your training around what I'm about to share will make the difference between leaders who are passionately pursuing their ministry and those who do stupid things (or nothing at all) ... which only serves to hurt the small group ministry and the group members, not to mention making you look like an idiot.
Do I have your attention? Good! Take a big sip of coffee and put on your thinking cap for this next bit. Here's a very brief overview of the three domains of learning:
Cognitive Domain
The cognitive domain is knowledge or mind based. A vast majority of the training I have received in church life has been cognitive. Someone stands up and talks and I am supposed to listen intently, take notes, and apply the truths they are sharing. In fact, we all hear a cognitive-based sermon each Sunday. Taking in new information cognitively isn't fun, but it's safe. For example, it's much better to warn a child that the stove is hot and it will hurt him or her instead of watching the toddler learn by being burned and learning about heat the hard and painful way. So, cognitive learning does have it's place in the learning experience.
Psychomotor Domain
The psychomotor domain is skill-based. This is where a person participates in the new activity to gain confidence and competence. Facilitating the ministry time in the meeting, praying with a pastor for an hour, or making a visit to a member's home with their leader are all psychomotor activities that help a person fully understand the cognitive information supplied to them. However, do not be fooled... just because they've tried it and even done it successfully does not mean they will do it again in the future! That's a deeper level you must help them move into described next.
Affective Domain
The affective domain is based upon behavioral aspects and may be labeled a a core value or a belief. When the leader calls members of the group to check up on them without being asked, is praying alone for a half hour to an hour at a time because he's burdened about something or wants a breakthrough in his group, the knowledge he gained in the cognitive domain has been applied in the psychomotor domain and is now a core value that has been fully integrated into his lifestyle. He doesn't think, "I have to do X or Y because I'm a small group leader." He just does it because he wants to and it's who he has become.
Think about it...
Does your small group leadership training process successfully move members into leadership by moving them through all three domains?
Most small group pastors train by utilizing the cognitive domain alone because they don't have the time to follow up with people after giving them homework assignments to move them deeper into psychomotor activity. Or, they assume the leaders and potential leaders are hanging on their every word and anxiously leave leader training to apply everything they heard.
When Christ walked this earth in human form, he worked with a handful of faithful, able, and teachable men and moved them through all three domains of learning. The proof is not in the expansion of the New Testament church. It's in the fact that the disciples died as martyrs of the faith. When it came down to it, they were more than willing to die a cruel death for the sake of Christ.
That, my small group pastor friend, is where we must find ourselves and lead others to be as well. If your training stops with a lecture, give them a homework assignment to apply. Then, follow up with each and every person to see they've completed it. Ask the leader and coach over their group to help you and watch the person and encourage them.
But don't stop there. They must repeat the activity until it becomes natural and they just do it without thinking about it any longer (i.e., developing a taste for broccoli and craving it when you see it on a menu or on the dinner table).
I think I will expand on this in my book and really drill down to why so many pastors don't train leaders effectively and what to do about it. Reading a book or hearing a lecture alone is nearly worthless if that's all one provides a small group leader.
Ponder this: How much of what you learned in high school was retained to pass a test and then forgotten? Did the cognitively-delivered information in Driver's Ed concerning safety keep you from exceeding the speed limit? How about maintaining a safe distance from other vehicles on the freeway? And do you replace your tires before they're worn out or park your car if you can't afford new tires because they're bald?
You don't have to answer that. Lord knows I'm not gonna confess my driving sins online! Knowing and doing are two very different things, aren't they?
It's time to rethink the way we train leaders and create a transformational learning process for our leaders. To be truly effective, we must remain affective.
You may not think this has anything to do with the way you train your new small group leaders. However, designing your training around what I'm about to share will make the difference between leaders who are passionately pursuing their ministry and those who do stupid things (or nothing at all) ... which only serves to hurt the small group ministry and the group members, not to mention making you look like an idiot.
Do I have your attention? Good! Take a big sip of coffee and put on your thinking cap for this next bit. Here's a very brief overview of the three domains of learning:
Cognitive Domain
The cognitive domain is knowledge or mind based. A vast majority of the training I have received in church life has been cognitive. Someone stands up and talks and I am supposed to listen intently, take notes, and apply the truths they are sharing. In fact, we all hear a cognitive-based sermon each Sunday. Taking in new information cognitively isn't fun, but it's safe. For example, it's much better to warn a child that the stove is hot and it will hurt him or her instead of watching the toddler learn by being burned and learning about heat the hard and painful way. So, cognitive learning does have it's place in the learning experience.
Psychomotor Domain
The psychomotor domain is skill-based. This is where a person participates in the new activity to gain confidence and competence. Facilitating the ministry time in the meeting, praying with a pastor for an hour, or making a visit to a member's home with their leader are all psychomotor activities that help a person fully understand the cognitive information supplied to them. However, do not be fooled... just because they've tried it and even done it successfully does not mean they will do it again in the future! That's a deeper level you must help them move into described next.
Affective Domain
The affective domain is based upon behavioral aspects and may be labeled a a core value or a belief. When the leader calls members of the group to check up on them without being asked, is praying alone for a half hour to an hour at a time because he's burdened about something or wants a breakthrough in his group, the knowledge he gained in the cognitive domain has been applied in the psychomotor domain and is now a core value that has been fully integrated into his lifestyle. He doesn't think, "I have to do X or Y because I'm a small group leader." He just does it because he wants to and it's who he has become.
Think about it...
Does your small group leadership training process successfully move members into leadership by moving them through all three domains?
Most small group pastors train by utilizing the cognitive domain alone because they don't have the time to follow up with people after giving them homework assignments to move them deeper into psychomotor activity. Or, they assume the leaders and potential leaders are hanging on their every word and anxiously leave leader training to apply everything they heard.
When Christ walked this earth in human form, he worked with a handful of faithful, able, and teachable men and moved them through all three domains of learning. The proof is not in the expansion of the New Testament church. It's in the fact that the disciples died as martyrs of the faith. When it came down to it, they were more than willing to die a cruel death for the sake of Christ.
That, my small group pastor friend, is where we must find ourselves and lead others to be as well. If your training stops with a lecture, give them a homework assignment to apply. Then, follow up with each and every person to see they've completed it. Ask the leader and coach over their group to help you and watch the person and encourage them.
But don't stop there. They must repeat the activity until it becomes natural and they just do it without thinking about it any longer (i.e., developing a taste for broccoli and craving it when you see it on a menu or on the dinner table).
I think I will expand on this in my book and really drill down to why so many pastors don't train leaders effectively and what to do about it. Reading a book or hearing a lecture alone is nearly worthless if that's all one provides a small group leader.
Ponder this: How much of what you learned in high school was retained to pass a test and then forgotten? Did the cognitively-delivered information in Driver's Ed concerning safety keep you from exceeding the speed limit? How about maintaining a safe distance from other vehicles on the freeway? And do you replace your tires before they're worn out or park your car if you can't afford new tires because they're bald?
You don't have to answer that. Lord knows I'm not gonna confess my driving sins online! Knowing and doing are two very different things, aren't they?
It's time to rethink the way we train leaders and create a transformational learning process for our leaders. To be truly effective, we must remain affective.
New Leader Training. What works best?
I'm working with a pastor who is developing his own small group leader training. I think it's a great idea for each church to develop their own process for raising up and releasing members of groups to lead members of new groups. Taking responsibility in this area will keep the pastoral staff's minds and hearts involved in the small group ministry, create relationship connections between staff pastors and group leaders, and promote missional group direction.
I do have a couple of thoughts on what makes for a good training program. The features of an excellent training process for new small group leaders should have a firm foundation in:
1. Relational development with the trainer and other participants
2. Experiential learning through trial and error (psychomotor activity)
Let me briefly expand on these foundational components...
Relational Development with the trainer and other participants
I'm often asked if our ministry has small group leader training on DVD. While I'm caving into pressure and producing some this year, I'm not a big fan of DVD-based training in the church. It further removes a relational way of developing leaders found in both the Old and New Testaments.
Jesus' example of developing leaders is excellent. He chose unlikely young men who didn't make the cut to go to the synagogue and become a priest (every Jewish parent's dream for their sons) and were fishing to make ends meet to help their families survive. He then spent a lot of time getting to know them in a place they were very comfortable, which was the shores of Lake Galilee and in a boat. As he served them and helped them catch fish, he proved he was the true Messiah, and not like any of the other false Messiahs that had come before him or were concurrently proclaiming to be God on earth.
After a season of sowing into their lives, he asked them to sow into his life and assist him in ministry. For quite some time, they protected him, helped out with big events, did administrative tasks, and acted like village idiots some of the time. It's no wonder they weren't chosen for priesthood through the traditional rabbinical school!
However, God transforms people through Christ and he transformed stinky fisherman through a relationship with Jesus, the son of God and the Christ who lives among us and inside us today as Christians.
This kind of leadership development is something that was done with me and I in turn do it with others. I was mentored for three years in ministry by a man named Greg. Greg took me under his wing, telling me I had great potential but said I was lazy and had a lot of issues I had to work through. Those three years were both exciting and tough on me. His dedication to discipling me into a much stronger, motivated man of God taught me a lot about developing others, which I am currently doing.
Last weekend, I went to a race track to watch a couple of my unsaved buddies drive their sports cars. That same morning, I was to have breakfast with a member of one of the groups I coach, so I invited him to go along with me for the day. What this fellow does not yet know is that I will be inviting him to do a lot of things with me that will develop him into a disciplemaking man of God, not just one who loves God personally.
Developing future leaders through relationship takes a lot of time. Time most staff pastors just don't have because of the many things they are responsible to do. However, training future leaders in a weekend event or giving them a Saturday morning "knowledge dump" about leading a small group rarely produces competent leaders. So, something must change with the pastor's job description or his or her priorities to forge more relationships with current and future leaders during the training process.
Of course, existing group leaders and coaches can be a great help and support in the leadership training process and they should be employed as well.
Experiential learning through trial and error
Most small group leader training is done in the realm of cognitive training. Pastors lecture a group on the do's and don'ts of leading a small group and fill the heads of the participants with as much knowledge as possible. As mentioned above, this knowledge usually comes in one shotgun blast of a weekend event, where the mind is saturated in a matter of minutes (or a couple of hours for the really sharp participants) and the rest goes in one ear and out the other.
I personally do not learn much from lectures. I am a kinesthetic learner, or one who must practice doing what I am learning for the principles to sink in and be truly learned. In fact, this kind of "psychomotor" activity is how most people gain competence and confidence doing most everything in life.
So, future small group leaders need longer term "on the job" training to see themselves as a leader when they look in a mirror. A cognitive dump of information on a weekend training event isn't gonna cut it, and will only produce partially knowledgeable people who feel ill-equipped to lead... and the groups suffer.
The best training looks like this...
1. Stretch the leader training out over six months. This gives the participants time to grow into the role by doing something new in leading the group in which they are a member. It also allows them to create a friendship with the trainer, who has four weeks between training events to connect with them to see how they're doing.
2. Meet in the trainer's home. This bonds the trainer to the participant in a special way.
3. Eat a meal together at the monthly meeting, and use the meal time to talk about the homework assignment and what God is saying to the participants as they learn to serve in a leadership capacity.
4. Work with the existing leader and coach over the group in which the participant is currently involved to insure they are given opportunities to do their practical assignments and take responsibility from the existing group leader.
5. Applaud failure as the best teacher. Success teaches very little if not proceeded by at least some failure.
Now let me ask you, what have you found to be the best foundational training for raising up new leaders in your small group ministry?
I do have a couple of thoughts on what makes for a good training program. The features of an excellent training process for new small group leaders should have a firm foundation in:
1. Relational development with the trainer and other participants
2. Experiential learning through trial and error (psychomotor activity)
Let me briefly expand on these foundational components...
Relational Development with the trainer and other participants
I'm often asked if our ministry has small group leader training on DVD. While I'm caving into pressure and producing some this year, I'm not a big fan of DVD-based training in the church. It further removes a relational way of developing leaders found in both the Old and New Testaments.
Jesus' example of developing leaders is excellent. He chose unlikely young men who didn't make the cut to go to the synagogue and become a priest (every Jewish parent's dream for their sons) and were fishing to make ends meet to help their families survive. He then spent a lot of time getting to know them in a place they were very comfortable, which was the shores of Lake Galilee and in a boat. As he served them and helped them catch fish, he proved he was the true Messiah, and not like any of the other false Messiahs that had come before him or were concurrently proclaiming to be God on earth.
After a season of sowing into their lives, he asked them to sow into his life and assist him in ministry. For quite some time, they protected him, helped out with big events, did administrative tasks, and acted like village idiots some of the time. It's no wonder they weren't chosen for priesthood through the traditional rabbinical school!
However, God transforms people through Christ and he transformed stinky fisherman through a relationship with Jesus, the son of God and the Christ who lives among us and inside us today as Christians.
This kind of leadership development is something that was done with me and I in turn do it with others. I was mentored for three years in ministry by a man named Greg. Greg took me under his wing, telling me I had great potential but said I was lazy and had a lot of issues I had to work through. Those three years were both exciting and tough on me. His dedication to discipling me into a much stronger, motivated man of God taught me a lot about developing others, which I am currently doing.
Last weekend, I went to a race track to watch a couple of my unsaved buddies drive their sports cars. That same morning, I was to have breakfast with a member of one of the groups I coach, so I invited him to go along with me for the day. What this fellow does not yet know is that I will be inviting him to do a lot of things with me that will develop him into a disciplemaking man of God, not just one who loves God personally.
Developing future leaders through relationship takes a lot of time. Time most staff pastors just don't have because of the many things they are responsible to do. However, training future leaders in a weekend event or giving them a Saturday morning "knowledge dump" about leading a small group rarely produces competent leaders. So, something must change with the pastor's job description or his or her priorities to forge more relationships with current and future leaders during the training process.
Of course, existing group leaders and coaches can be a great help and support in the leadership training process and they should be employed as well.
Experiential learning through trial and error
Most small group leader training is done in the realm of cognitive training. Pastors lecture a group on the do's and don'ts of leading a small group and fill the heads of the participants with as much knowledge as possible. As mentioned above, this knowledge usually comes in one shotgun blast of a weekend event, where the mind is saturated in a matter of minutes (or a couple of hours for the really sharp participants) and the rest goes in one ear and out the other.
I personally do not learn much from lectures. I am a kinesthetic learner, or one who must practice doing what I am learning for the principles to sink in and be truly learned. In fact, this kind of "psychomotor" activity is how most people gain competence and confidence doing most everything in life.
So, future small group leaders need longer term "on the job" training to see themselves as a leader when they look in a mirror. A cognitive dump of information on a weekend training event isn't gonna cut it, and will only produce partially knowledgeable people who feel ill-equipped to lead... and the groups suffer.
The best training looks like this...
1. Stretch the leader training out over six months. This gives the participants time to grow into the role by doing something new in leading the group in which they are a member. It also allows them to create a friendship with the trainer, who has four weeks between training events to connect with them to see how they're doing.
2. Meet in the trainer's home. This bonds the trainer to the participant in a special way.
3. Eat a meal together at the monthly meeting, and use the meal time to talk about the homework assignment and what God is saying to the participants as they learn to serve in a leadership capacity.
4. Work with the existing leader and coach over the group in which the participant is currently involved to insure they are given opportunities to do their practical assignments and take responsibility from the existing group leader.
5. Applaud failure as the best teacher. Success teaches very little if not proceeded by at least some failure.
Now let me ask you, what have you found to be the best foundational training for raising up new leaders in your small group ministry?
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