7 important questions to consider
John 15:1-17; Acts 2:42
1. What is the vision for small groups at our church? This question is fundamental. Answering it requires asking two more questions. First, what is our overall vision for what small groups can and will do in our church? (And, What is our biblical basis?) Second, what kinds of people in our church can and must be reached by the small group ministry?
2. What kinds of groups will we utilize?
3. How will we "fill" these groups with people? People will go to the kind of group that best meets (and continues to meet) their needs. Consider how to recruit the people whose needs these groups will meet.
4. Who will lead these groups? Will we have a program of "apprenticing," where leaders-in-training get hands-on training? How will we discover and begin nurturing leaders?
5. How will we insure the growth of this ministry? What goals do we have for six months? How will we deal with a group once it has 12 members (or, how can we help groups to effect positive group splits)? How will we continue to recruit members and leaders for this ministry?
6. What kind of accountability will we require of leaders? What kind of ongoing training will we provide our leaders? What kinds of reporting will we require, and how often? What about periodic meetings? Who will oversee the ministry in general?
7. How can we communicate our unique ministry desires with potential leaders and members? Many churches with dynamic small group ministries will sit down with their answers to the above questions and "codify" them into a small group manual or a philosophy statement.
Related Tags: Small Groups, Christianity Today, Christian Fellowship, Fellowship, Community, Christian Community, Christian, Christ, Christianity, Jesus, Vision
2 comments:
Chris,
Thank you for the lesson on small groups leaders.
Travis is did a blog post on I included your two earlier posts on it. Feel free to read his post and join the discussion if you have time.
I think Jeff's 7 questions are good. Very helpful to help someone to begin thinking through starting a small groups ministry. However, I would add one more question. Question #8 - What is our strategy to launch small groups at our church? Having the entire church leadership behind the vision helps in communicating this strategy to the congregation and also creates an expectaion for key players to be involved.
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