Food for smallgroups Thought

Crossroads Classic smallgroups are just about to kick-off for the year.

I'm spending some time with our leaders tomorrow, and we're going to take a look at the models advocated in these two articles:

• The Big Read - on reading big slabs of Scripture
• The Swedish Method - on a super-flexible framework for studying a shorter passage in a group

This year, our smallgroups will follow a varied curriculum across the year: a couple of months reading big slabs of Scripture; a couple of months at a slower pace, in the details; some time functioning as a book club; and more.

So I need to figure out how to coach our smallgroups leaders to run fantastic book clubs... hmmm. More thought required :P

Our Lab on Team Leadership

Yesterday I wrapped up a six week ministrylab (Crossroads training course) on Team Leadership. The idea was to develop both the practical skills of our team leaders, and their 'inner life' as leaders. For one of our sessions, Nathanael Jeanneret--a great ol' mate of mine--came along to give us a bit of a masterclass on running meetings. He's developing an app called, Meetron, which is set for release around Easter 2012.

You can grab the (rather full) notes of the entire lab from our ministrylab page. Check it out, and let me know what you reckon.

I'll be running the lab again in February(ish) 2012.

By the way, John Dickson's Humilitas worked really well as a companion reading to the course. I recommend.

Kids These Days

Recently, I was reading Their God is So Big--a kids' ministry handbook--with Nick Mollison recently. Here are a few things that grabbed my attention (no surprises, just helpful reminders to me):

• Two year-olds
• have short attention spans, you have to change it up regularly
• they like to help
• they thrive on routine and repetition, rather than getting bored with it.
• Three-Four year-olds
• fantasy and reality remains a blur, so work to reinforce the historical truth of the Bible
• Structure your various activities so that they give you their attention at the key time
• use visual aids to lessons
• Five-Seven year-olds
• involve them in helping you
• give them approval
• delegate small tasks to them

Evangelism and Training

Recently, I've been mulling over how to best encourage our church to excellence in welcoming newcomers and helping them become integrated to our church community. Obviously, evangelism is a closely related topic. I just stumbled across this pithy little quote from Phillip Jensen and Tony Payne, in their old Fellow Workers booklet:

"If you wish to promote evangelism as a high congregational priority, we need to include a strong evangelistic element in our public prayers." (45)

But how do you train for evangelism? Even though I run the formal in-house training platform at Crossroads (our ministrylab), I've been quick to point out it's limitations. So it was nice to read this quote, which affirmed me in my reservations ;)

"Training courses are asked to do too much. They are expected to motivate and teach people as well as train them for the task. This is a false expectation. Prayer and good teaching are the only things that will deliver motivation for evangelism. A training course harnesses that motivation and channels it in the right direction, but we must not expect the course to do it all." (46)

(PS. My copy of Fellow Workers is very old, so page numbers are likely different in newer editions).

Owning Stuff

Occasionally, I read about people resolving disputes among their kids with stuff like, "It's not your toy anyway, it belongs to Jesus, so let your sister play with it."

Occasionally, I hear people speaking as if the secret to the simple life was communal ownership, just like those first believers in Acts 2:44-45--or so they say.

"All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need."

I'm not so sure. And the apostles' response to deception and feigned generosity in Acts 5:3-5 suggests private ownership is good and right in its place.

But here's the thing: private ownership makes your life easier because you can genuinely say, "This thing is mine" (which, of course, cannot overturn Christ's claim on it, you, or the whole world, for that matter). But it also makes life harder, because you (or your kids) have to be generous with your things. And generosity is a harder thing to instil in our children than fairness.

Forgiveness v Brooding

Ken Sande makes this little comment on forgiveness in his book The Peacemaker:

“Forgiveness is a choice, a decision you make by God’s grace in spite of your feelings.” (p, 202)

The above comment comes in the context of an example that's pretty powerful. Forgiveness, in that case, worked itself out in this:

“I promise never to think about your sin again, or to dwell on it or brood over it. I promise never to bring it up and use it against you. I promise not to talk to others about it. And I promise not to let this sin stand between us or hinder our relationship.” (p, 202).

Forgiveness in action. I'd do well to think that way more often.

Integrating Newbies to Church: Environments

Recently I read 7 Practices of Effective Ministry. Stanley, et al., have this kinda cool way of thinking about the different 'environments' in our church programs through the metaphor of three rooms in a house. '[T]he environments of a church can work as steps to move people down a relational path to where they experience a sense of belonging and care.' (p 92).

So here are the three rooms:

• Foyer typically describes a larger environment… it is an entry point for the unchurched… The relational goal of a Foyer Environment is to make sure that people walk away and feel like guests.
• The Living Room is an environment where a number of people can network and meet with one another… Our goal is for people to walk away and feel like they are friends with someone.
• The Kitchen Table is the most intimate of environments… where people should begin to feel like they are family. (pp92-93)

Just so you know, they include small groups in the Kitchen Table category.