Creating a culture of discipleship in your groups

Yesterday, I was privileged to speak to a number of pastors in Saddleback's small group network concerning the ongoing need to develop more leaders for groups.

Most of the pastors listening in, if I'm not mistaken, launch groups through a group connect strategy or do campaigns a couple of times a year... while I don't hate these programmatic methods by any means, I highly prefer organic growth. My guess is that all the pastors forced to programmatically launch new groups feel the same way, but don't know how to get the ball rolling. So that was the basis for the conversation, recorded below.

http://www.freeconference.com/Recordings/ConferenceRecording-10543361-472579.mp3

If you click the link above, it should start streaming right away. There's a bunch of beeps at the beginning, signifying people coming onto the conference call.

If you want to listen to this later or on your iPod, right click on the link and choose "save link as" and download it.

Enjoy, and please share this link with other pastors you know who need some help to seed an organic discipleship movement within their groups and church.

Randall

Expectations and Inspections

"In small group ministry, people don't do what you expect, they do what you inspect."

I recently read this online. Even though I've said this to small groups pastors and group leaders before, I don't think I'm going to say it to them any longer. Why?

Because the expectations (and subsequent inspections) too often come from the leader, not from God!

It would be far better to apply a different perspective on group leadership that is healthy and Christ-centered...

"In small group ministry, people don't do what God wants them to do because they haven't had enough my your time, concern, love, mentoring, and prayer support."

So, no more man-made expectations, delegations, and subsequent inspections. Together we must do what GOD has called us to do. He's the Great Inspector.

I think the healthiest mentality for a small groups point person or pastor to have with his or her small groups would be that of a counselor. If you've ever spent time with a Christian counselor, they ask questions such as:

"What's God calling you to do and be for him on earth?"
"What keeps getting in the way of that?"

The counselor doesn't tell you what to do (well, the good ones don't!). They ask you questions and help you make your own decisions.

I know most pastors practice their counseling side most of the time, but when that doesn't work, human nature takes over... they start deciding what God wants for the small group ministry and then tells everyone what to do and how to do it. That's when inspecting your expectations become so important.

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?

Deep Friendship: Far too rare in the West

Most every day I visit with pastors whose members are too busy for friendships. In their world, it's all about the kids and managing a household and working a high-stress job to maintain a certain lifestyle without financial margin. It's quite evident that they think enjoying the company of others without an agenda is what the irresponsible or filthy rich do with their time.

This is jacked up. There's absolutely nothing right with the lifestyle or the mentality in which we Americans find ourselves. Plus, there's very little difference in values between those in the American church and those outside it.

Now think about your small group and how much more personally transformational it would be for the members if they valued friendship enough to actually invest in others and allow others to invest in them without an outlined agenda for their scheduled gatherings.

The western drive to attain that next level of status and personal comfort has systematically annihilated friendships, or that which God has set out to be the way the world will be reached for Christ.

At the risk of telling the cow how to eat the cabbage, I must state the obvious just in case it's not so obvious...

Small group relational evangelism will not occur if the members have no idea how to become a friend to someone (churched or unchurched), ask them for help in areas of life, help them out whenever possible, introduce them to their other friends who are far more than acquaintances, and do life together.

In fact, discipleship among believers won't happen either if deep friendships are not formed between small group members.

And I guess it goes without saying (but I will anyway) that new leaders for new groups will not be raised up if potential leaders have no relationship with their group's coach or pastor.

If you're wondering what to preach about next quarter so your members can discuss and apply it in their groups, why not go back to basics and challenge them to hold others in higher regard than themselves?

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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Top Five Mistakes Made by Small Group Members

In September of last year I wrote a blog entry similar to this one for small group leaders (the link is below if you want to read it). It occurred to me that the same kind of frank discussion could be made for group members, but no one had written it yet to my knowledge. So here it is...

The Top Five Mistakes Made by Small Group Members

1. "I'll wait until group night to tell everyone about..." is a mistake. This reveals that you may have a "meeting mentality" about your group, and this mentality quickly feels like a membership in an organization, not a life-giving part of an organism. While gathering together regularly to worship, apply the Word, and pray together is vital, small group is about people who have sacrificially chosen to be with one another and do life together. Don't "save up" prayer requests, urgent or even small needs, or praise reports until your group meeting rolls around! Be a real friend and call someone for help, to share a praise, or just relate to them.

2. It's a mistake to think that a human is the leader of your small group. The real leader of your small group is Christ! Communing with the Christ within other believers and focusing on Christ's agenda whenever you are with them is powerful and very transformational. To really enter into a Christ-centered small group experience, you have to prepare your heart to receive what Christ wants to give you through others, and then be willing to give away what Christ wants to give others through you. Arrive at your meetings hoping Christ's presence will be felt so strong that everyone in the room will be permanently changed by the time you spent with him. This is the kind of group that anyone—including YOU, a group member—would be anxious to lead.

3. Keeping your children out of your meetings so the adults can focus on ministry to one another is the third big mistake. Your children desperately need to encounter adults sharing deeply and receiving ministry in a Christ-centered small group. And they need to participate in these practices at an early age. If they don't catch and adopt this value as a lifestyle during their formidable years, they will grow up thinking that adults do not sin, don't have issues they desperately need to share, and many other things that will fill the bank accounts of psychiatrists and therapists for years to come. To completely raise your children in a manner according to the Lord, they need to be active participants in a biblical community... not just go to children's church on Sunday morning and have a brief devotional time with you after dinner a couple of times a week.

4. Thinking, "This is a great group of Christians. I hope we keep our group this way for a long long time" is not healthy and another big mistake. You may be enamored with your first genuine experience of a biblical community, but it won't remain a healthy environment unless the members have a personal desire to grow up spiritually (ie, gain life-changing breakthroughs with personal struggles; dig into the Word regularly and apply it; reach friends for Christ; disciple them; and move out of the original group to begin a group of your own).

5. Viewing yourself as one of many small group members in your church is the last mistake, and it's a biggie. You are a minister with a ministry and a mission. Your ministry is to allow Christ to work powerfully through you in the lives of the other members. Your mission is to co-labor with other group members to effectively extend Christ's love to people who have yet to experience it in a transformational way. When you do both of these things, you'll see that you are a maturing Christian who views leadership of a new group and far more as the next big thing you are anxious to do, partnering with God Almighty.

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Most folks who read my blog are pastors. So, I want you to know you can freely use this blog entry any way you see fit! Plus, if this kind of straightforward communication is what you need to share with your group leaders, do check out what I blogged about here:

Top Ten Mistakes Made by Small Group Leaders
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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.

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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What I'm editing

Today I will continue the editing work on TOUCH's next release, which is a pocket book by Michael Mack. It's all about developing a core team to lead a small group instead of the leader doing all the planning and recruiting volunteers from the group to help him or her get the job done. It's called The Pocket Guide to Burnout-Free Small Group Leadership: Leading from the second chair and developing a core team.

This is a going to be a great little book! What I'm gleaning thus far is:

• It's not your group. It belongs to God. It's always belonged to God and it's never been yours. You must never forget that God is the first leader and you are leading from "the second chair." While Jesus was fully God while here on earth, he only did the will of the Father and the Father was in charge at all times. Jesus did nothing under his own power. This is huge. If our small group leaders can get their heads and then their hearts around this, it will revolutionize their ministry as a small group leader and eliminate burnout.

• Do not seek out the members of your small group that you think would make excellent core team members. Set your ideas aside and fast and pray and ask God to lead the right members to you vs. recruiting them. Mack explains in the book that Jesus did not interview people for the job of disciple. He waited until he heard from the Father as to whom he should ask and when he should ask them to join him. This won't be easy for anyone to do, especially the burned out small group leader with a "git-r-done" attitude. But I clearly see why it must be done this way. Very powerful.

• The goal of the small group leader who leads a core team is very different from the traditional small group leader. A core team small group leader facilitates core team strategic planning sessions and the team members and others from the group that they recruit lead the various meeting components and also lead the entire small group into ministry and mission. This is a big distinction. Once the team and the core team leader (the small group leader) grasp this, it's going to change everything. Think about it. Instead of one apprentice, the group will now have a half-dozen members who are co-leading the group and being prepared with on-the-job training for leadership.

There are some other really cool things about Mack's book that I will share in a formal book review, but I'll leave this for a future blog post. If you like what you're reading and you want to pre-order the book, you can learn more about it by clicking here.
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Quote for the day

This is yet another powerful quote taken from Walking Together by Liz West and Trevor Withers, which is a little book on discipleship:

"When the Sunday morning sermon is the central point of interest, we select and train leaders on the basis of the gift of teaching. We have lost the sense of shared experience and our communities revolve around meetings."

When your small group members hear the word leader, is their knee jerk response to define it as teacher or one who leads others through a relationship built on trust?

This might just explain why so few small group members in America want to be small group leaders. Not everyone has the gift of teaching and they know it.

Yeah, I know... you've taught them repeatedly that group leadership isn't about being a teacher but a friend—and that's the problem! The leadership paradigms we hold dear but do not realize we possess require a great deal of new experience and dialog to shift.

Thoughts? Comments?

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!

Who's to blame for the lack of new small group leaders in many churches?

I've given this question a lot of thought. After three cups of very strong expresso, I feel confident that I can tackle this question with two bits of fabric-free truth.

1) Discipleship. Where did it go?
The last time I read my Bible, the Great Commandment was still in force. If the church was busy making disciples, we'd have more small group leaders than we could handle. 

Oddly enough, when I ask pastors of leader-starved small group ministries to tell me about their discipleship path to spiritual maturity—you know, the one that every single member of the small groups is moving through—I hear, "We decided to go ahead and train leaders and launch groups. We haven't crossed that bridge yet."

The naked truth is rather obvious, isn't it? If a church doesn't maintain a dogged determination to disciple people into spiritual maturity and enter into small group ministry with discipleship at the center of it, they'll always be starved for leaders.

2) Relational coaching is weak or non-existent.
Traditionally, the existing small group leader has the task of finding and training someone to take over his or her group so a new one can start out of the original group. I don't care what the books by experts say. This doesn't happen consistently in any of my groups. It takes an additional friendship with the coach for it to happen.

Sadly, most coaching structures in churches are new and frail. When I encourage coaches to befriend future leaders, either the pastor over groups or the coaches themselves tell me they do not have the time to do this. In fact, the coaches complain that they have been asked to do too much already, and can't visit groups now and then or meet with leaders consistently.

The naked truth here is that appointing coaches and assuming they are investing in the lives of their existing leaders as well as future leaders is foolish.

So who's to blame?
You decide. Is it the senior pastor who uses small groups solely for a retention strategy for his rapidly congregation? Or does the blame go to the short-sighted leadership team who wants a small group program to increase member fellowship and community?

I do not believe I corner the market on the truth. So, you tell me. Who's to blame?