Lesson #3



8 Habits of Effective Small Group Leaders, Lesson #3

Good Questions Have Groups Talking



Habits 5 &6 Prepare and Mentor

ACCOUNTABILITY

What three fellowships do we have scheduled for the next three months? Who will invite every member? Who will help invite every prospect? Who will help plan the party?

OPEN

Let’s each share your name one thing you love about following God

DIG

1. Overview. How many of the 8 habits can you recall?

1. Dream of leading a healthy, growing, multiplying group.

2. Pray for group members daily.

3. Invite new people to visit the group weekly.

4. Contact group members regularly.

5. Prepare for the group meeting.

6. Mentor an apprentice leader.

7. Plan group fellowship activities.

8. Be committed to personal growth.

— Dave Earley. The 8 Habits of Effective Small Group Leaders (Kindle Locations 91-93). Kindle Edition.

2. Today we will talk about preparation. What is your normal? How do you currently go about preparing for each week’s group time?

Left brained preparation is a good start. Left brained preparation is studying, digging, analyzing, working, writing, rewriting, thinking and rewriting. You gotta do it. You dig out the commentaries, read the Bible dictionaries, study the concordance, look at comparative usages. Your brain processes information, compares, contrasts, synthesizes. Nothing wrong with this. God created your left brain too. Let me be clear: God loves your left brain.

But the best lessons I have prepared did not come through this method alone. Certainly, there was some study and research and analysis; there was some left brained stuff. But preparation at its best makes full use of both halves of the brain. — Josh Hunt, Disciplemaking Teachers

3. Dave starts this chapter by quoting a teacher who says, “Preparation is not my strong suit.” What advice would you have for such a teacher?

For me the real key is to start preparation early. It doesn’t take hours and hours early in the week, but you do need to get the main big idea into your heart and head early in the week. Early in the week try to settle on the answer to this question: What is the main big idea I want to present next week? Once that is in place, everything you read, see, hear. . . every conversation you have will help you be a better teacher.

4. Have you found any resources that help make preparation easier?

Saddleback makes preparation easier by providing DVD based curriculum:

People often are reluctant to become a leader because they have limited biblical knowledge and/or limited time to prepare for group meetings. One of the things we learned through our campaign strategy was that providing an easy-to-use, DVD-based curriculum takes a huge load of responsibility off the shoulders of the small group leaders. Providing a video-based study in which the virtual master teacher leads the group through the study at the beginning of the group session proved to be a win/win for us and the hosts, who merely had to facilitate the discussion after the video. Of course, we provide our leaders with additional tools, but we use master teacher curriculum to start them on the pathway. — Gladen, Steve M. (2011). Small Groups with Purpose (Kindle Locations 480-485). Baker Books. Kindle Edition.

I try to do a similar thing with Good Questions Have Groups Talking. You are holding an example. I write 4 new lessons a week and have been doing so for years. If you can read 20 questions, you can teach a group. See

5. Ever get stuck in your preparation process—like you are spending time but you just are not getting anywhere? What do you do then?

We all get stuck every once in a while. Honestly, I get stuck a lot. By stuck I mean that deep into my preparation I realize that I’m continuing to add information but it’s not really taking me anywhere. I know I’m stuck when I have several pages of notes but no big idea. I know I’m stuck when nothing I have written or discovered moves me. I know I’m stuck when what I thought was a great idea suddenly goes in three or four unrelated directions.

For those of us who communicate weekly, getting stuck can be a terrifying thing. Sunday’s coming whether we have anything significant to say or not. People are going to show up expecting to hear something they have never heard before. Some of ’em will even bring friends. So we can’t afford to stay stuck long.

So what do you do when you are stuck?

The first thing I do when I get stuck is pray. But I’m not talking about a quick, Help me Lord, Sunday’s a comin’ prayer. When I get stuck I get up from my desk to head for my closet. Literally. If I’m at the office I go over to a corner that I have deemed my closet away from home. I get on my knees and remind God that this was not my idea, it was His. He let me volunteer. I confess that every opportunity I have to open His word in front of people comes from Him and that anything helpful I’ve ever said came from Him.

None of this is new information for God. I’ve been reminding Him for years.

Then I ask God to show me if there is something He wants to say to prepare me for what He wants me to communicate to our congregation. I surrender my ideas, my outline, and my topic. Then I just stay in that quiet place until God quiets my heart. It may be a few minutes. It may be much longer. There are times when absolutely nothing changes other than a decrease in my anxiety level. On some occasions something I need to deal with in my personal life will surface. That’s always a lot of fun. Seems like bad timing. But God certainly has my undivided attention when the pressure’s on. Many times while praying I will have a breakthrough thought or idea that brings clarity to my message.

I don’t know why God chooses to work this way in my life. But I do know the outcome. I am constantly reminded that it is not my education, insights, or study habits that change lives. ME-WE-GOD-YOU-WE is helpful, but on its own it is not transformational. At the end of the day, it is God who empowers people to change. It is the Holy Spirit who opens the eyes of the heart. It is our Savior who gives men and women the courage to love and forgive. I, like you, am simply a mouthpiece. Getting stuck is one way God keeps me ever conscious of that fact.

If I don’t stop and pray, the pressure to get the message finished will override my passion to bring something fresh and clear to my audience. When I ignore the impulse to pray, I find myself churning out information rather than creating an easy to follow journey for the listener. You may be thinking, Gee, don’t you pray before you study? Is praying a last resort? No. I pray before, during, and after! I’m just telling you what I do when I get stuck. — Stanley, Andy (2008). Communicating for a Change: Seven Keys to Irresistible Communication (p. 184). Multnomah Books. Kindle Edition.

6. In addition to preparing for the lesson itself, we also need to prepare our heart the day of your group. How do you do that? What is your practice in terms of getting ready for your weekly meeting?

This is often the most challenging part for me. It is easy to get fired up about some text during the week. The challenge is coming up with that same enthusiasm when it is time to present. It is easier now that my kids are grown!

7. Earley talks about the atmosphere of the group. How would you evaluate the physical atmosphere of your group? What do you like about it? What could be improved?

Where you meet is important. Being in someone’s home, watching the kids run through the room, noticing the photos on the wall, getting “refrigerator rights”6 are all crucial community-building experiences that cannot be encountered in a classroom on campus. “Refrigerator rights” describes the feeling that you can walk in someone else’s house, open the fridge and help yourself — much like you feel at your mother’s house. It is not about the fridge, of course, it is about the community and friendship and closeness you have with the owner. By meeting in homes, you get to experience a person and a family in its true, unfiltered life. You not only know where the refrigerator is, you can get what you need. You know the kids, how they interact, what they love, how to pray and care for them. You learn what is important to the family, what is sacred, and what is a no-no in their home. You have the opportunity to build community at a deep level. Meeting in homes increases community and accountability while building unity among families who participate in them. — Mosley, Eddie (2011). Connecting in Communities: Understanding the Dynamics of Small Groups (Kindle Locations 825-833). Navpress. Kindle Edition.

8. What do you do as far as snacks in your group? Is it working? Any frustrations?

The small-group Bible study meetings are usually a couple of hours long, meeting a minimum of two times a month. One hour for snacking, eating, and hanging out, another hour for Bible study. However, many small-group members begin to do life together, eating out, playing golf, boating, and even taking vacations together. The community that is built in a small group can be life changing. Most groups also have a monthly party and/or monthly or quarterly service project in which they serve. — Mosley, Eddie (2011). Connecting in Communities: Understanding the Dynamics of Small Groups (Kindle Locations 1217-1221). Navpress. Kindle Edition.

9. Talk to me about your group time overall. What do you do, start to finish?

Possible Itinerary for the First Growth-Group Meeting

1. Allow people to arrive, talk, and snack (15 min.).

2. Pray (1 min.).

3. Have participants introduce themselves and share what they do, where they live and why they decided to join the group (10 min.).

4. Introductory game. Have everyone tell three things about themselves, two being true and one being false. Have everyone else try to guess which one is false. Any other interactive game (10 min.).

5. Introduce the group study briefly. Hand out Growth Group syllabus and any other important information. Answer any questions and cover key dates (15 min.).

6. Hand out the Growth Group Covenant. Read through the Growth Group Covenant carefully with the group. Explain the points as you read each one. Answer any questions. If anyone tries to be difficult and disagreeable, offer to talk with him or her individually at the end of the meeting (5 to 15 min.).

7. Explain and ask for volunteers for the different roles within the group: Play Coordinator, Food Coordinator, etc. (5 min.).

8. Share prayer requests and pray together (10 min.).

9. Talk and eat (15 minutes).

Searcy, Nelson (2008). Activate: An Entirely New Approach to Small Groups (p. 206). Regal Books. Kindle Edition.

10. How much of your teaching time is lecture and how much is discussion?

This gave Pastor Johnny an opportunity to attend Sunday School so he visited some Sunday School classes with the goal of joining one. (He did join one and is in Sunday School every week.) One day in a staff meeting he shared about visiting classes and said to me, “Allan, we have some wonderful classes, and we have some teachers who really know their Bibles, but I have noticed that many of them lecture every week. I think we want to get people interacting in a Sunday School class.” “I agree, Pastor, we do want people interacting in Sunday School,” I replied, “and I think I know why so many teachers lecture and where the problem lies. Pastor, you are the problem.” Now at this point I was going to have some fun or many regrets! Pastor grinned and said, “All right, tell me more.” I then explained that it was really a compliment to him. He was such a great Bible teacher, a wonderful communicator of truth, and so passionate about the Word of God that all the teachers wanted to be like him. When teachers hear the Word proclaimed, they most always hear it preached from the pulpit. Unconsciously their mind is conditioned that preaching or lecturing is the way to do it. They mimic that style in their Sunday School class. We must be careful that we do not turn Sunday School into an age-division worship service. Sunday School is to be distinctly different from a worship service.

As we involve people, not only do they learn more effectively, but their retention rate increases as well. Retention is a by-product of concentration. Therefore, teachers cannot afford to let class members sit on the sidelines each week and watch the teacher play the game. They must be engaged in the game with the teacher. Members discovering truth are involved; involvement produces concentration; concentration produces retention; retention means they have grasped a truth. They are positioned to obey because they understand. It is shameful for the teacher to take “the word of God [which] is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword” (Heb. 4:12) and render it dead, weak, and duller than a butter knife to the unengaged member. — Taylor, Allan (2009). Sunday School in HD: Sharpening the Focus on What Makes Your Church Healthy (pp. 66-68). B&H Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

11. What curriculum do you use? What do you like about it? What do you not like about it?

I try to include brilliant insights from best-selling authors in the curriculum I write called Good Questions Have Groups Talking. Check it out at

Mentor an apprentice leader

12. Who mentored you in leadership? How did you come to embrace the idea of teaching and leading a group?

Most mentoring takes place in a very relaxed setting as it did centuries ago in fatherly apprenticeships…walking, sailing, golfing, driving…anywhere you are with your mentor or your protégé. Mentoring often happens ten minutes at a time… here and there as you move through life together. Don’t see mentoring as all work. It often involved the joy of mutual sharing. Mentoring happens more in the context of a relationship than a formal classroom. Mentoring is a life attitude as much as a formal structure. It can be even more enjoyable as you are doing things you enjoy together! — Wilkinson, Bruce (2010). Almost Every Answer for Practically Any Teacher (p. 332). Multnomah Books. Kindle Edition.

13. Why is it important that we have a mentor?

Make no mistake, we all need mentors. Furthermore, we all need those we are mentoring. The church is the ideal place to connect both. When it does, it becomes a contagious place. Just as the home is the place where life training takes place, so the church is another family of sorts—a spiritual family. I read an article that mentioned the fact that 90 percent of the ministries that target a younger generation—for example, Generation X—ran into trouble after only three years.15 Why? For one reason, because these age-targeted ministries often separate young adults from other age-groups in the church.

A contagious church comprises a body of caring women and men who see value in others and take the time to cultivate those lives. That must become a goal in our churches. Otherwise the church becomes a dusty old museum full of stuffed Christians, straight from the taxidermist. When the church fails to reproduce… it dies.

Webster defines a mentor as “a trusted counselor or guide; tutor, coach.”16 This describes a man I knew during a vulnerable time in my life as a young man. I was serving in the Marine Corps, stationed on the island of Okinawa… separated from my newlywed wife for about seventeen long, lonely months. I arrived at that island disheartened and disillusioned. I left transformed. The difference-maker? A mentor. — Swindoll, Charles R. (2010). The Church Awakening: An Urgent Call for Renewal (p. 98). FaithWords. Kindle Edition.

14. In this chapter, Earley discusses the power of multiplication. How many could your group reach if you doubled every 18 months?

The results from doubling groups are amazing. If you want to know where your group could be in five years, and you’re on pace to double every 18 months, just add a zero every five years. If a group of 10 doubled every 18 months, it would reach 1,000 people for God in 10 years. If we kept that principle going, we’d reach the entire world population in about 43 years. One group that continued to double would fulfill the Great Commission. I hope that idea gets you as excited as it gets me. That’s how important this is. — Josh Hunt, Make Your Group Grow.

15. Anyone know of a positive example of where group reproduction has really happened?

The key to reproducing each of those first small groups that we led was asking someone in our group to be our apprentice leader. An apprentice leader is someone who agrees to be developed and mentored as a leader and is eventually released to start a new small group. One of my first small group apprentices was a guy by the name of Jerry. Jerry was not even a believer, but he was actively searching for God, and that was good enough for me. Jerry eventually made a commitment to become a Christ follower, was baptized, and then immediately reproduced and started leading a new small group. Since that time, those small groups of eight to twelve people have reproduced countless times. Today we are a church with more than seven thousand attenders and a network of more than thirty thousand people celebrating every week with several thousand reproducing small groups. — Ferguson, Dave (2010). Exponential (p. 24). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

16. Let’s look at the Seven Steps for Raising Up Multiplying Leaders and Reproducing Reproducers. It starts with an example. Should we be comfortable saying to people, “Follow my example”?

Leadership works in a similar way. When leaders are healthy, the people they lead tend to be healthy. When leaders are unhealthy, so are their followers. People may teach what they know, but they reproduce what they are. — Maxwell, John C. (2008). Leadership Gold: Lessons I've Learned from a Lifetime of Leading (p. 76). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.

17. Principle #2: Selection: who do you know in your group that is leadership material? I want some names!

It all started by Jesus calling a few men to follow him. This revealed immediately the direction his evangelistic strategy would take. His concern was not with programs to reach the multitudes, but with men whom the multitudes would follow. Remarkable as it may seem, Jesus started to gather these men before he ever organized an evangelistic campaign or even preached a sermon in public. Men were to be his method of winning the world to God. — Robert Coleman. Master Plan of Evangelism, The (Kindle Locations 119-121). Kindle Edition.

18. Principle #3: Deepen your relationship with potential leaders. Why is this important?

Having called his men, Jesus made a practice of being with them. This was the essence of his training program-just letting his disciples follow him.

When one stops to think of it, this was an incredibly simple way of doing it. Jesus had no formal school, no seminaries, no outlined course of study, no periodic membership classes in which he enrolled his followers. None of these highly organized procedures considered so necessary today entered into his ministry. Amazing as it may seem, all Jesus did to teach these men his way was to draw them close to himself. He was his own school and curriculum. — Robert Coleman. Master Plan of Evangelism, The (Kindle Locations 245-248). Kindle Edition.

19. Principle #4: Describe the vision. How would you describe your vision for your group to an apprentice?

Our new vision revolves around connecting people into small groups. Our first vision statement said, “We envision fifty thousand people participating in weekly small groups that are committed to multiplying.” Even though we had reduced our vision to a sentence, it was not catchy or memorable. So our groups director, Bill Willits, went back to his team and brainstormed how to make the vision easier to communicate. They came back with this: 5/50/10.Our vision is five thousand groups with fifty thousand people by 2010. 5/50/10. It’s been exciting to watch our various departments begin to reorganize around this new vision. One of the powerful things about a clearly articulated vision is that it has a way of redirecting the focus and resources within an organization. If the vision is too complicated for people to embrace, nothing changes. People tend to keep doing what they’ve always done the way they’ve always done it. Bottom line: to make vision stick, it needs to be easy to communicate. — Stanley, Andy (2009). Making Vision Stick (Kindle Locations 151-152). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

20. Principle #5: determine the commitment to be made. What does it cost to be an effective group leader? How would you explain it to an apprentice?

Following Jesus seemed easy enough at first, but that was because they had not followed him very far. It soon became apparent that being a disciple of Christ involved far more than a joyful acceptance of the Messianic promise: it meant the surrender of one's whole life to the Master in absolute submission to his sovereignty. There could be no compromise. "No servant can serve two masters," Jesus said, "for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon" (Luke 16:13). There had to be a complete forsaking of sin. The old thought patterns, habits, and pleasures of the world had to be conformed to the new disciplines of the kingdom of God (Matt. 5:1-7:29; Luke 6:20-49). Perfection of love was now the only standard of conduct (Matt. 5:48), and this love was to manifest itself in obedience to Christ (John 14:21, 23) expressed in devotion to those whom he died to save (Matt. 25:31-36). There was a cross in it-the willing denial of self for others (Mark 8:34-38; 10:32-45; Matt. 16:24-26; 20:17-28; Luke 9:23-25; John 12:25-26; 13:1-20). — Robert Coleman. Master Plan of Evangelism, The (Kindle Locations 353-359). Kindle Edition.

21. Principle #6. Develop them. What are the keys to developing the skill of our apprentice?

The best type of training takes advantage of the way people learn. Researchers tell us that we remember 10 percent of what we hear, 50 percent of what we see, 70 percent of what we say, and 90 percent of what we hear, see, say, and do. Knowing that, we have to develop an approach to how we will train. I have found the best training method to be a five-step process:

Step 1: I model. The process begins with my doing the tasks while the person being trained watches. When I do this, I try to give the person an opportunity to see me go through the whole process. Too often when leaders train, they begin in the middle of the task and confuse the people they're trying to teach. When people see the task performed correctly and completely, it gives them something to try to duplicate.

Step 2: I mentor. During this next step, I continue to perform the task, but this time the person I'm training comes alongside me and assists in the process. I also take time to explain not only the how but also the why of each step.

Step 3: I monitor. We exchange places this time. The trainee performs the task, and I assist and correct. It's especially important during this phase to be positive and encouraging to the trainee. It keeps him trying, and it makes him want to improve rather than give up. Work with him until he develops consistency. Once he's gotten down the process, ask him to explain it to you. It will help him to understand and remember.

Step 4: I motivate. I take myself out of the task at this point and let the trainee go. My task is to make sure he knows how to do it without help and to keep encouraging him so he will continue to improve. It is important for me to stay with him until he senses success. It's a great motivator. At this time the trainee may want to make improvements to the process. Encourage him to do it, and at the same time learn from him.

Step 5: I multiply. This is my favorite part of the whole process. Once the new leaders do the job well, it becomes their turn to teach others how to do it. As teachers know, the best way to learn something is to teach it. And the beauty of this is it frees me to do other important developmental tasks while others carry on the training. — John C. Maxwell. Mentoring 101 (Kindle Locations 426-427). Kindle Edition.

22. Principle #7: Deploy them. This has to do with starting new groups. How important is mentoring to the vision of starting new groups?

Though we didn’t fully realize it at the time, I cannot overstate the significance of insisting that every small group begin with a leader and an apprentice leader. Looking back, that one decision was foundational in establishing us as a reproducing church. Don’t just skim over these words. I realize you may have heard this before. But take the time to highlight it if it will help you remember it. As I look back, I am convinced that insisting every small group begin with a leader and an apprentice leader was one of the most important choices we ever made. This is our first reproducing principle. — Ferguson, Dave (2010). Exponential (p. 24). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

23. What impressed you about today’s study?

24. How can we support one another in prayer this week?

Note: If you enjoyed this lesson format, I would invite you to try Good Questions Have Groups Talking. I write 4 new lessons each week that correspond with Lifeway’s lessons, as well as the International Standard Series. They can be used supplementally or stand-alone. Each lesson is similar that this one, with 20 or so ready-to-use questions and answers from leading experts on the subject. Good Questions are available on a sliding scale basis that is affordable for any size church. See for more information.

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