{"id":3001,"date":"2015-04-06T13:27:58","date_gmt":"2015-04-06T17:27:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ellecampbell.org\/?p=3001"},"modified":"2015-04-06T13:27:58","modified_gmt":"2015-04-06T17:27:58","slug":"conversations-with-sgls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stuffyoucanuse.org\/conversations-with-sgls\/","title":{"rendered":"Conversations with Small Group Leaders"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Screen<\/a>This month, I got the chance to collaborate with my friend\/hero Brooklyn Lindsey on an ebook called Conversations with Small Group Leaders: <\/i><\/strong>How Giving and Receiving Feedback Can Transform Your Culture.\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

We wrote it for the team over at<\/span>\u00a0Lead Small Weekly<\/a>. And, by the way, have I told you about Weekly yet? I don’t think I have. I need to. Because I think you’re going to love it. Another day, though. For now, let me give you a peek at this ebook. Then I’ll tell you about another place you can go to hear more about this topic. And\u00a0then, if you want even more, you can\u00a0head over to<\/span>\u00a0Lead Small Weekly<\/a>\u00a0to get the full ebook. Cool? Cool. Here we go.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Several years ago, the Middle School Ministry at my (Elle\u2019s) church seemed to be going pretty well. Our programs were fun, memorable and well received by our middle schoolers. More kids were coming than ever before, and our numbers continued to grow. We attributed that success to small groups. At the time, every kid was in a small group and we had a ton of great small group leaders on our team. As far as we knew, things were going great!<\/p>\n

But then we had a wake-up call.<\/p>\n

It seemed like a typical Sunday morning.<\/p>\n

We played games.
\nWe sang songs.
\nWe taught a message.
\nWe broke into small groups.
\nWe began to take attendance.
\nAnd then we spotted the problem.<\/p>\n

The good news: 80-something middle school boys had shown up that morning!\u00a0The bad news: only\u00a0two\u00a0<\/em>of their small group leaders\u00a0had.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not exactly sure when a small group ceases being a small group and, instead, becomes a violent mob, but I\u2019m pretty sure we crossed the line that morning. While we managed (miraculously) to survive the following 30 minutes with zero injury reports, something clearly needed to change.<\/p>\n

Our staff walked away from that morning asking two things. (Okay, three if you count: Am I fired?<\/em>) We needed to know:\u00a0How did this happen? And how do we stop this from happening again?<\/em><\/p>\n

Three things immediately became clear.<\/p>\n

1. Our SGLs were not connecting with kids as well as we had thought.<\/strong><\/p>\n

2. We were not leading our SGLs as well as we had thought.<\/strong><\/p>\n

3. Our structure did not support small groups as well as we had thought.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Somehow we had totally missed all of this. And\u00a0that<\/em>\u00a0was the problem.<\/p>\n

How did it happen? It happened because we didn\u2019t have any ongoing systems in place for measuring the effectiveness of our small groups. If we had, it wouldn\u2019t have taken a crisis to help us see our shortcomings.<\/p>\n

Hopefully, you haven\u2019t been in the spot my church was in. But maybe you know what it\u2019s like to be taken by surprise\u2014to realize, suddenly, that your small groups culture isn\u2019t working quite as well as you thought it was.<\/p>\n

In some ways, the success of small groups can be difficult to measure because small groups are based on relationships and . . . well, relationships aren\u2019t exactly easy to measure. But while relationships can be\u00a0difficult<\/em>\u00a0to evaluate, they\u2019re not\u00a0impossible\u00a0<\/em>to evaluate.<\/strong><\/p>\n

When you\u2019re trying to gauge whether or not your small groups are working, there are some things you can measure objectively. Like:<\/p>\n

how many people showed up this week.
\nhow many SGLs you have\u2014or still need.
\nhow many dollars you have left in your budget.<\/p>\n

But those things can\u2019t tell us everything, because there are other aspects of small groups that are very subjective. Like:<\/p>\n

how much an SGL is investing in their few.
\nhow well you\u2019re training and equipping your leaders.
\nwhether or not relationships are working.<\/p>\n

So how can you measure the parts of your small groups culture that seem so\u00a0un<\/em>-measurable? We think you can start by having more conversations with the people who matter.<\/p>\n

Talk to\u00a0kids.
\n<\/strong>Talk to\u00a0parents.<\/strong><\/p>\n

But maybe most importantly . . .<\/p>\n

Talk to your\u00a0SGLs.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If you’d like to dive more deeply into this topic, I’ve got a couple of options for you. First, you can\u00a0grab the rest of this ebook when you subscribe\u00a0to\u00a0Weekly<\/a>! And second, you can check out Episode 21 of Youth Ministry Answers:<\/strong> One-on-One Conversations with Small Group Leaders.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This month, I got the chance to collaborate with my friend\/hero Brooklyn Lindsey on an ebook called Conversations with Small Group Leaders: How Giving and Receiving Feedback Can Transform Your Culture.\u00a0 We wrote it for the team over at\u00a0Lead Small Weekly. And, by the way, have I told you about Weekly yet? I don’t think […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":3004,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[13,2,8,5,6,9,16],"class_list":["post-3001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-small-groups","tag-discipleship","tag-lead-small","tag-leadership","tag-small-group-leaders","tag-small-groups","tag-vision","tag-volunteers"],"yoast_head":"\nConversations with Small Group Leaders - Stuff You Can Use<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/stuffyoucanuse.org\/conversations-with-sgls\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Conversations with Small Group Leaders - Stuff You Can Use\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This month, I got the chance to collaborate with my friend\/hero Brooklyn Lindsey on an ebook called Conversations with Small Group Leaders: How Giving and Receiving Feedback Can Transform Your Culture.\u00a0 We wrote it for the team over at\u00a0Lead Small Weekly. 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