Making Small Groups Accessible & Effective
Open Space – Input Form
Person who initiated this discussion: Frances // Space #10 (Small Groups)
Names of people who participated: Amy Obenour, Shannon Berendes, Randi Wiesner, Frances Hakala, Kristin Guenther
Topic: How to increase the effectiveness of the Journey in our mission by…
Make small groups / growing in small groups more accessible to everyone through:
Journey website forum as catalyst
Groups for all different parts of the faith journey
Easy to try out & not feel as much pressure to stay if it doesn't work out well
Can have a set beginning and end or continue on as groups decide
LTG focus/interaction around themes from Sun AM topics
Offering larger groups: more stability, more accountability, increase support/sticky-ness at the Journey when members interact in each others' lives & offer prayer and deeper relationships.
Ideas for types of small groups:
movies, (faith in AFI top 100 movies)
singles (pathways) - time to resurrect?
leadership development (not just a group of leaders talking about leadership, but also a great way to apprentice new leaders in any group)
healthy lifestyles, physical fitness (e.g. first place)
God reaches out through culture, culture through faith
new Christ followers – Bible 101
Bible studies
Formula One for Jesus
Dancing
Sports
Exploratorium
- Login to post comments
Exit Strategy
I love the idea of a minimal commitment to a new group. Run LTGs and small groups in "semesters" where the groups run for 12, 14, 16 weeks... whatever. Long enough to create opportunity for friendships to be made (or not), for some energetic discussion, the development of trust, maybe even a bit of conflict.
But not long enough that it feels like a 20 year sentence with no time off for tolerating that one wanker in the group who completely drives me crazy. (And I just made that up, so no, I am not talking about someone real LOL).
---------------------------------------
I believe in God because every once in a while, I hear a voice that says, "You're my favorite."
PEZ
Let me throw out my PEZ vision for what it's worth. What if:
Regardless of the type of group, it has a (varying) mixture of 3 activities:
P - Party
E - Explore
Z - Serve (well, it's not Z. Say it like a German)
Party is just having fun, sharing food and laughter. Jesus is our model here.
Explore is some kind of spiritual exploration: Anything from a full-on Bible study, to an "un-Bible study" (where the point is to come up with good questions, not good answers), to worship stations set up in a back yard, a prayer walk, etc.
Serve involves looking for ways to bless our community and world in the name of Jesus, especially blessing those on the fringes of society (the poor, the weak, the prisoners, etc.) The Journey does a lot of serving through Community Impact Days, but I know I have a long way to go to knead this in to my day-to-day life.
The key to PEZ is (and, I suspect, the easiest part for church people to overlook) that each element is for both Christ-followers and normal people, participating in kingdom activities together.
References from my blog:
Un-Bible study: http://jonreid.blogs.com/oneanother/2003/11/unbible_...
PEZ: http://jonreid.blogs.com/oneanother/pez/index.html