Thanks to Chris Loach for sending me this.
Category: Community
A resource for small group leaders
It is 7:13 pm on Tuesday. The doorbell rings and the last person has arrived for community group. It’s Annie. She smiles and asks “How are you?” but you can see in her tired eyes that it has been another long day. You and the other group members have been catching up so you open up the circle and invite her in. Annie gives a concise description about her week, mostly focusing on the pressures and demands of the office. You move into the group study and she doesn’t say much. Her prayer request revolves around someone at her work, and then she’s out the door after a few minutes of closing small talk. All in all a pretty standard group meeting for Annie.
You find yourself frustrated at times with her. But you remind yourself that this is literally the only safe environment she has ever been a part of. Growing up, her parents were highly critical of their second child. College brought only competition and comparison, while the workforce has only brought more of the same. The walls that she has built up to hide her insecurity seem insurmountable.
But you think you can sense them crumbling a little. And that’s the power of a safe environment.
All around us we walk in and out of unsafe places. At the office you face the pressure to produce in a dog-eat-dog world. At home you face the expectations of being a good husband/wife/parent/roommate. Almost everywhere you turn there are people who want something from you. All around you it feels like you’re coming up short and falling further behind. And so what happens? You learn to keep your guard up and other people at arms length.
So how do you create a safe environment in the middle of all this? With people carrying in so much baggage from unsafe places, how do you turn the tide and make your community group a place where people can drop their guards? A place where people feel the freedom to be themselves? A place where Annie can come and learn what true community looks like? Though it is not an instantaneous or easy process, it is a critical one if your members are going to experience authentic community and spiritual growth.
Why is creating a safe environment important?
Creating a safe environment paves the way to community. It is an essential for building connections. When people feel the freedom to open up and share, it cultivates the relationships within the group.
It removes the obstacles and distractions that can get in the way of the Holy Spirit’s work. If people don’t feel safe in your group, they will close down, shutting themselves off from what the Spirit could do in their lives through the group.
A safe environment is irresistible. People are acceptance magnets and they will go where they feel they are accepted. Especially in an unsafe world, making your community group a safe place will make it like a light in a dark place.
What characterizes a safe environment?
What comes to mind when you think about the word “safe”? Baseball fans may think of sliding into home before the tag. Investors may think about something that is free from risk (i.e. a “safe bet”). But most of us tend to think of a safe place as a place where we are protected, or as the Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines it, a place where we are “free from harm or risk” (www.webster.com/).
So how does this translate to community groups? Imagine if you were able to create an environment such as this:
How do you create a safe environment?
You can begin to lay the foundation for a safe environment right from the start by using the Covenant. The Covenant is a great tool for setting expectations and for laying the groundwork for your group. Emphasizing the values of confidentiality, authenticity, and respect sets the right tone for creating a safe environment. As well, walking the members through the group guidelines will go a long way in keeping the group a predictable place where members know what to expect.
Another way that you can create a safe environment is by modeling the way. When you lead by example, it shows the other members what is expected. So it is important that you as the leader be a safe person yourself. It goes a long way when you model transparency, acceptance, commitment, consistency, and integrity.
How do you know if your community group has become unsafe?
If we aren’t careful, our community groups can become part of the problem instead of being part of the solution. Symptoms of an unsafe community group include:
- People shut down.
- Conversations tend toward superficiality.
- Members feel insecure.
- There is a lack of trust.
- People make excuses and don’t show up.
- Prayer requests become third-party.
- Discussion is flat.
- People check out.
How do you correct an unsafe environment?
If you find that your community group has become an unsafe environment, there are some steps you can take to get it back on the right course.
Revisit vision. Perhaps you could go back through the Covenant, inviting discussion from the group as to whether the group has lived up to the Covenant or not.
Take personal ownership and responsibility. Look at yourself first before looking at your group members for why the group has become unsafe. Is there anything that you are doing that is making your group unsafe?
Talk about it openly in the group. You can’t simply ignore an unsafe environment and hope that it will somehow become safe again. You need to initiate discussion of where the group is and where the group needs to be.
In diagnosing the problems in the group, you’ll need to determine if this is a general group issue or just one or two members. If it is just one or two members, then you’ll need to consider having private conversations with those involved. Do what you can to repair broken relationships. And when possible, encourage direct communication among the group members.
(taken from groupleaders.org)
We had a last minute Community Group Leader training last Saturday. Two of the groups gurus from North Point Community Church came to help us train our group leaders and Host Team. For those of you who were able to make it, it was great. Great information, great learnings and key insights into how to make groups work. For those who were unable, here is the handout and some key thoughts I wrote down from the training.
7 Key Learnings that Make Community Groups Great & Long Lasting
- Everything rise and falls on leadership
- We need to train leaders well, North Point gets them together 5x a year for training and 3x a year 1-on-1 meetings with their groups director
- Equip Leaders
- Trust Leaders
- Leaders Must be PASSIONATE about their groups
- The church must POUR into the Leaders - Keep relationships a priority
- Leaders must decide that “I may disagree with you, but our relationship is more important than being right” - Celebrate the small wins along the way
- More often than not you will experience hundreds of SMALL WINS and not very many or any BIG WINS
- Share EVERY WIN, no matter what size with the church staff and your group because these stories motivate us to apply God’s word and encourages others to share their wins – it creates momentum - Whenever possible ask questions rather than make statements, everyone learns more than way
- Ask questions to get to the bottom of this
- “Why do you think that?”
- “Why do you feel that way?” - Share the group facilitation, it allows others in your group to stretch themselves and grow
- Identify potential group leaders within your small group because one day you will need to multiply your group
- Allow newer believers to lead a week because they will spend MORE TIME IN THE WORD that week than ANYBODY else…they don’t want to look like they don’t know what they’re talking about AND it will start to teach them to feed him or herself instead of relying on others to provide spiritual food - Care opportunities are difficult at times but can be major catalysts for growth
- If someone has a difficult personality and it hard to handle in the group, make sure he/she doesn’t poison the group – love them, meet them where they are at, but don’t let them dominate the group with their negativity - End well, talk about it early and often
- Groups are broken down like this: first 8 week is a dating period, if things aren’t clicking people can switch. After 8 weeks the group becomes closed to new people (unless everyone in the group agrees to open it up to someone). That group will stay closed until it multiplies. Multiplication needs to happen in the 18-24 month mark.
- If groups stay together past 30 months, typically they dissolve because the group has reached it’s relational and spiritual stagnation point
Other Learnings:
*as a leader you are responsible for what is said, theologically, in your groups
*community group leadership is an art, not a science
*community group leadership challenges how much you lean on God because people will come with real questions and hurts and you need to rely on the Holy Spirit to give you the right words to say
Curriculum can be chosen and ordered from this website: groupcurriculum.org
Questions? Email us.
Let’s pretend we’re trying to get people into small groups.
And let’s also pretend that it was your job to get them into a group.
How would you go about making sure people joined?
In 50 words or less, how would you convince them to join a group?
John Ortberg from Menlo Park Pres. Church in the South Bay was recently invited to North Point to train the group leaders. Through our partnership with NP they gave us the video to show to our small group leaders for some great practical training. Please watch this and apply it to your life.
more about "ReGroup 2010 Small Group Training Con…", posted with vodpod
We are all bombarded with information on a daily basis. If you stop for a moment and think about all the sources of information that hit you on a daily basis, it can be overwhelming. The strange thing is that in an information-heavy culture, we can tend to be a community-starved people. Pollster George Gallup has said, “Americans are among the loneliest people in the world.” This statement sounds strange due to the fact that we are around more people than any previous generation. Another author has coined the term “crowded loneliness” which seems to fit what many in our world are feeling today. We are around many people but are known by very few. God has hard-wired us to be in relationship with other people. We see that reflected throughout the Bible as God used people in other people’s lives. If you could plot this concept on a chart, it could look something like this:
Isolation_______________________________________Community
We are all trending toward isolation or community. Think about the last few major decisions you made in life. Who did you talk to about your decision? If you are married, with whom besides your spouse, did you through decision? What is something that you are praying for? Who is praying with you for this request? What is one area of your life that you think God wants you to give to Him? Who is helping support you as you seek to surrender this area of your life to God?
In the Bible, James tells us “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” I realize that I can tend to deceive myself, and I recognize that I need people in my life who are asking me questions, praying for me, and supporting me as I seek to do what God is telling me to do. This is WHY Community is so important. Our spiritual growth requires experiencing community with others who are likewise seeking to grow in their relationships with Christ.
Steve Giddens -Director of Group Life Buckhead Church
