Insights, tips, and suggestions for small group of leaders. When put into play, these bite-sized, consumable pieces of wisdom help leaders "knock it out of the park" and set them up to win.
Over the past two decades, small groups have gone from spontaneous gatherings among friends to a major and elaborate phenomenon in the church. Many evangelical churches have some form of small groups ministry in place. But there's just one problem, says Bill Search--what started as a simple get-together has become a complicated process, especially for small group leaders. They are often not sure what is expected of them or what to expect from their groups as a result of their efforts. In Simple Small Groups, Search lays out the three C's of small groups--connecting, changing, and cultivating. This paradigm helps to simplify leading small groups in a way that is helpful, rewarding, and life changing. Unlike many other books geared toward small group leaders, Simple Small Groups does not require a church-wide adoption of an intricately designed system of assimilation, making it useful to any small group leader looking for guidance.
Like nothing else, small groups have the power to change lives. They are the ideal route to discipleship—a place where the rubber of biblical truth meets the road of human relationships. However, church leaders often feel at a loss when it comes to assessing the strengths and weaknesses of group life in a church, and they struggle with understanding and solving the root causes of problems. Group Life resources provide, in ebook format, the practical tools and training resources needed to develop life-changing small group leaders, coaches to shepherd group leaders, and ultimately, a thriving church-wide small group ministry. These resources include the updated and revised versions of the best-selling Leading Life-Changing Small Groups and Coaching Life-Changing Small Group Leaders, the new Building a Life-Changing Small Group Ministry and the supplemental Group Life Training DVD. Appropriate for individual or group study, the books function as manuals and workbooks that teach and allow readers to process and record information as they learn. Downloadable web-based vision clips and supplemental videos in the DVD help readers explore and discuss topics further. Group Life Resources conveniently integrate with the ReGroupTM curriculum, giving trainers the option to use them together. Bill Donahue and Russ Robinson’s Building a Life-Changing Small Group Ministry presents a broad introduction for pastors and point leaders to use as they navigate through the process of establish-ing and developing independent groups or a church-wide ministry of small groups.
The goal of youth ministry is “real” transformation. But “polite” youth ministry—when teenagers show up, say nice things to each other, yet never get real with one another—is not how transformational discipleship happens. Authors Tighe and Thomas believe leading young people into an intimate, abiding relationship with Jesus is the most important investment small-group leaders can make in life. And they truly believe that anyone who cares for teenagers can do it! Real ministry happens when volunteers/small-group leaders are equipped and empowered to reach and develop relationships that make a difference in the lives of the teenagers. But so many don’t feel like they really know how. Small-Group Leader’s Quick Guide to (Almost) Everything gives your volunteers the practical training they need in the bite-size format they’ll appreciate. This book is like a satisfying “protein bar” for youth ministry volunteers. It’s made for busy people who want to make a big difference in the lives of teenagers. Here’s some of what you’ll find packed into this quick guide: • Why relationships are EVERYTHING in youth ministry, and how to pour fuel on that fire • How to “decode” teenagers’ behavior in the moment and respond in a meaningful way • Why experiencing a relationship with Jesus matters more than just knowing facts • How to help hurting teenagers • How to set healthy boundaries for you and the teenagers • And so much more! If you’re a volunteer youth worker who cares for teenagers, you don’t have to be “cool” or wear skinny jeans or have a theological degree. You just need to have a desire to be present in the lives of students and feel equipped to respond. This book helps you do that...
Lead small groups through astounding growth with principles from the best-selling books How People Grow and Boundaries.No matter what need brings a group of people together—from marriage enrichment to divorce recovery, from grief recovery to spiritual formation—members are part of a small group because they want to grow. This book by psychologists Henry Cloud and John Townsend provides small-group leaders with valuable guidance and information on how they can help their groups to grow spiritually, emotionally, and relationally. With insights from their best-selling book How People Grow, Cloud and Townsend show how God’s plan for growth is made up of three key elements: grace plus truth plus time. When groups embrace those elements, they find God’s grace and forgiveness and learn how to handle their imperfections without shame as they model God’s love and support to one another.In addition to describing what makes small groups work, Leading Small Groups That Help People Grow explains the roles and responsibilities of both leaders and group members. Employing tenets from the book How People Grow, this book equips leaders to understand the ins and outs of how to promote growth, and using principles from their best-selling book Boundaries, they show how to identify and find solutions for common problems such as boredom, noncompliance, passivity, aggression, narcissism, spiritualization, over-neediness, over-giving, and nonstop talking.
Assessment and solution for seven commonobstacles to building small groups.It’s one thing to start a small group ministry. It’s another tokeep the groups in your church healthy and headed in thesame direction. Whatever your church’s approach maybe—whether it is a church with groups or of groups—sooner or later, as a leader, you’ll need to do sometroubleshooting. That’s when the expert, to-the-pointguidance in this book will prove its worth.The beauty of this book lies in its unique diagnosticprocess. It allows you to assess, diagnose, and correctseven common “deadly sins” that can drain the life fromyour church’s small group ministry.In The Seven Deadly Sins of Small Group Ministry, whatwould take you years to learn through trial and error isdistilled into some of the most useful information you canfind. Drawing on the knowledge they’ve gleaned fromworking inside Willow Creek Community Church, fromconsulting with hundreds of churches, and fromconducting conferences and seminars worldwide, smallgroup experts Bill Donahue and Russ Robinson furnishyou with proven, real-life solutions to the toughestproblems in your small group ministry. This is not theory—it is hands-on material you can read and apply today.
What do we mean when we talk about small groups? And more importantly: what do we expect to happen when people gather in this way? The small group that wrote this book—made up of current and former campus ministry professionals with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship—explores these questions and gives you everything you need to know about small groups, including foundations, key components, life stages, planning, communication, conflict, leadership and more!
Leading a small group can literally change the world. We have been commissioned to make disciples who make disciples, and Jesus showed us that the best way to carry that out is through small groups of believers. Just like the first-century church, small groups form the foundation to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. Chris Surratt, Discipleship and Small Groups Specialist for Lifeway Christian Resources, and author of Small Groups for the Rest of Us, wants to help you get from here to there. Regardless of whether you have never lead a small group or have been leading one for years, all of us want to know how to create environments where spiritual growth takes place and communities are changed. Leading Small Groups walks the reader through the stages of gathering, launching, leading, and multiplying a gospel-centered small group. There are also follow-up questions for discussion and reflection at the end of each section, and practical resources that can be implemented immediately by the small group leader. Jesus left his followers with a task—the Great Commission. This book will help small group leaders and churches in their obedience to this task.
Community within the church today is hemorrhaging. Attention spans are dwindling, noise levels are increasing, and we can't seem to find time for real relationships. The answer to such social fragmentation can be found in small groups, and yet the majority of small groups—at least in the traditional sense—are often not the intentional, transformational community we really want and need. Somehow we need to get our groups off life support and into authentic community. Pastor Brad House helps us to re-imagine what gospel-centered community looks like and shares from his experience leading and reproducing healthy small groups. With wisdom and candor, House challenges us to think carefully about our own groups and to take steps toward cultivating communities that are able to glorify Jesus, bless one another, and participate in the mission of God.
A survey of resources about small groups at the beginning of the 1990s led to a discovery: Many books on small groups carried an instructional content and touched on groups as instrumental in delivery of that specific subject matter. How a leader was to function relative to a group was discussed as a matter of how to manage an instructional hour. The potential of groups for making connections and building community and serving others was largely unrecognized. What a group leader might do to pull together and maintain a group, or how a group leader might become acknowledged as part of a larger leadership strategy for service and outreach was simply unaddressed. From the insights developed in his complex and widely recommended Prepare Your Church for the Future, best-selling author Carl George extracts the most basic, practical elements of how an individual leader can contribute to the well-being of others and the overall organization. He interprets the role of a group leader in language that is easily understood and remembered: nine commitments leading to a partnership with professional church leaders. Pastors and church consultants consistently report that the people exposed to these nine keys are easy to work with. They readily grasp the reasonableness of the principles, which help them be trustworthy team players in this matter of shared ministry. From the forward, by Robert Coleman, Director of the Billy Graham Institute: "This book speaks to our need for practical leadership training. With profound simplicity, it describes how small groups grow through loving relationships as readers build up one another in the faith. More importantly, the reader learn ways to prepare yourself for leadership in the group. The sequential steps show readers how to bring others into the circle of love, and in the process, how to enlarge your outreach by multiplying disciple makers." This 2007 edition includes an updated Appendix, describing recent developments in the fi