Small Enough to Win, But BIG Enough to Matter

Please take heart what we discussed in our meeting this Sunday and last week’s email about making your group time more effective.

As we discussed in our meeting on Sunday (some kids are not present on Wednesday’s because of a lack of depth of study) it would not appear that I am responding to that need immediately. I will say this in response that as the pastor of student ministries I feel as of right now our students need consistency over depth. We might lose out on a couple of disappointed kids but I feel as long as we are providing a space for them to be KNOWN, LOVED, and CARED FOR then all will be well. I am willing to take a risk to establish a culture in our ministry that is responsive as opposed to being reactive. The moment we give in to being reactive to urgency is the moment that instability will be said of our leadership style. “Walking slowly through the crowd” “Walking slowly through the crowd” “Walking slowly through the crowd” “Walking slowly through the crowd” “Walking slowly through the crowd”……. ……. Get it?

Here are the 4 w’s of a group meeting: in order

1. Welcome (relationship building)

a. An example of this would be to have some form of an ice breaker

i. A couple of funny or thought provoking questions for tomorrow might be:

1. Have you ever accidentally killed an animal? Where? When? What happened? How did you feel?

2. Have you ever broken a bone in your body? Which one? How did it happen?

These are just a few examples. Try to play it as more inspired than just something I wrote down for you to recite.

2. Worship (entering into the presence of God)

a. Prayer here is more than appropriate. Singing is good if you have willing and able musicians but not necessary at this point in the game.

3. Word (applying God’s word to our lives)

a. Questions provided below

4. Works (reaching out to others)

a. A good example of this would be praying for non-Christians, preparing for a social project (or talking about one the church is sponsoring – i.e. the 410 bridge Here is some info about it - http://www.graceincranberry.org/outreach/gyff/index.cfm

b. A possible dialogue about evangelism might look like this:

i. Leader: “Brad, who will you invite next week?”

ii. Brad: “I’m going to invite my neighbor.”

iii. Leader: “Great, let’s pray in a moment that Brad’s neighbor comes with him next week.”

Make sure to discuss the importance of inviting others before asking these questions or you will run the risk of not being understood or presumptuous.

I will provide more resources as the time goes on and I hope that this is not too much for you at this moment. Use what you can and know that I acknowledge the process of us buying into the same vision. It just takes time. These are basically “Battle’s small enough to win, but BIG enough to matter” which I think are doable at this point.