November 6, 2009
Friday Flashback: The Wink and the Gun
An embarassing memory from my formative years...
I just read Reid Smith's post again on The Perfect Welcome, and I had a weird flashback. (If you haven't read Reid's post, you'll want to do that before continuing here).
Anyway, I was thinking about greeting people and I remembered that, back in high school, I went through a phrase where I constantly used "the wink and the gun" to say hello to people.
If you aren't familiar with "the wink and the gun," this guy does a pretty good demonstration:
I usually went with the "single hand" version, but you get the idea. Whenever I saw someone coming down the hall at school or church, or even at home, I always broke out the wink and the gun. It was some kind of weird, juvenile instinct. And now I look back and I think people must have busted out laughing as soon as I walked away. Oh well.
What about you? What are some other gestures or habits that might not work very well when it comes to greeting people in your small group?
posted by Sam O'Neal | Comments (0)
November 6, 2009
Collective Decision Making
How to create a group environment where the collective wisdom of the group will prevail
Not too long ago, I listened to an audio book called The Wisdom of Crowds, by James Surowiecki. A section of the book deals with the decision-making capacity of small groups and teams, primarily in a business setting. The conclusion of most studies on small-group decision-making is that the quality of group decisions is poor when compared to individual decisions.
Why? The reason given in the book is that stronger vocal individuals in a group will tend to give their opinion, as they normally would, but non-vocal members or members with different opinions will tend to continue to be silent and avoid confrontation. Or some stay silent to avoid prolonging an unproductive group discussion. By not being heard and bringing different perspectives into the group process, the result is the expressed opinion of the few becomes the default opinion of the group. The broader group may not be unified behind that decision, but everyone defaults to the opinion of the vocal member(s). The book goes on to say, "If a group in this situation makes a good decision, it generally is because the stronger more vocal person just happened to have a good opinion."
Despite this common dynamic of poor group decisions, one of the ideas proposed by The Wisdom of Crowds is that a collective group decision (small group or large group) can and should be a better decision than any one individual in the group could make—IF, and this is a big IF, the group process includes provisions for having every member be heard without being biased by other member’s comments. But according to the book, in business and organizations, groups and teams seldom reach the best collective decision because the group process is normally flawed.
Continue reading Collective Decision Making...
posted by Dan Lentz | Comments (0)
November 5, 2009
Video of the Week: Sorie
This week's video looks at one group's efforts to make a difference in a young boy's life.
This week's video comes via the blog run by Alan Danielson, which is appropriately called AlanDanielson.TV. Alan is a regular contributor to SmallGroups.com, a social media guru, a Star Wars nut, and an all-around good guy.
I'll let the video speak for itself for the most part, but you should know that it focuses on one small group's effort to make a difference in the life of a boy living across the world in Sierra Leone.
Here you go. (Alan says that if you can watch this without crying, you don't have a heart...)
posted by Sam O'Neal | Comments (0)
November 4, 2009
Question of the Week: Sickness
What should you do if a group member shows up sick?
It's time for our first Question of the Week!
If someone arrives to your group meeting who is obviously sick, what should you do?
I hope to have other people beside myself give the first answer to these questions more often than not, but I didn't have much time this week, so you're stuck with my opinion first. And that is: recommend politely that they head back home. Thank them for their dedication to your group and willingness to learn "no matter what," but be firm about sending them on their way.
This is true in the age of Swine Flu, but really, this is what should always happen when someone shows up at a group with more than the sniffles. Especially if there are children present in the home.
What do you think? Agree? Disagree? Are there exceptions that need to be made? Is there a way to define when a person is "too sick to participate"?
I'd especially love to hear from some of you who have experienced this in recent months. What did you do?
posted by Sam O'Neal | Comments (0)
November 3, 2009
A New Day for the Blog
Check out our shiny new schedule and features.
You know how in some families there will be one kid that has a bunch of problems and takes up most of the parents' attention? And then the other kids get the short end of the stick a little bit because they behave normally, which means the parents let them do their own thing and don't spend a lot of energy on them?
Well, that kind of summarizes the relationship between www.SmallGroups.com and this blog in the past year. SmallGroups.com is the older child, and while it contains the lion's share of the features and resources, it has also generated a great deal of problems that have absorbed just about all of my time and attention. Which means I haven't had a lot of energy to focus on this blog.
But things are changing! We are gradually working the bugs out of SmallGroups.com, and I am going to make a conscious effort to give this blog more of the time and attention it deserves.
Starting with this new schedule for regular features and posts:
Monday: Dot Com(unity) [starting in January]
Tuesday: LiveBooking
Wednesday: Question of the Week
Thursday: Video of the Week
Friday: Friday Flashback
I'll explain some of these terms in more detail after the jump below, but I also want to emphasize that these will not be the only posts added to the blog each week. We'll still have regular, article-length posts from myself, Dan Lentz, and the other authors you've come to know and love over the past year—all focused on helping you grow as small-group leaders.
Continue reading A New Day for the Blog...
posted by Sam O'Neal | Comments (0)
November 3, 2009
LiveBooking! "Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus"
Check out this new weekly feature for the blog.
Welcome to the first post on what will be a weekly feature on Small Group Dynamics: LiveBooking!
You've probably all heard of LiveBlogging by now. It's when someone attends a conference or event and then writes blog posts about speakers or experiences as they are happening. I recently had some fun LiveBlogging from the Willow Creek Small Groups Conference, for example, and you can see some examples of it here, here, here, and here.
So what is LiveBooking, you ask? Well, I had so much fun at the Willow conference that I asked myself, How can I do this more often? My answer was books. There are a great many books that intersect with small-groups ministry and the spiritual formation/growth of individual believers. And I know that group leaders often don't have time to read them all, just like most group leaders don't have the time or money to attend a lot of conferences.
So, I will spend a good chunk of time each week reading through a book that I think will benefit regular small-group leaders. And then I'll write about what I've read, both summarizing and giving my opinion. It will be kind of like "Cliff's Notes," but for group leaders! And then you can all add in your opinions and experiences, and we could have a real opportunity for learning and growth each week.
Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus
The first book I'll be blogging through is called Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus, by Ann Spangler and Lois Tverberg (Zondervan, 2009). This is a book that I actually received several months ago, and I've been excited to read it ever since.
Here's a quote from the 1st chapter of the book that shows why I've been waiting for a chance to get this off my shelf:
Continue reading LiveBooking! "Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus"...
posted by Sam O'Neal | Comments (0)
November 2, 2009
Networking or Neighboring?
One is good for groups, while the other is a community killer.
Networking and Neighboring are not the same.
Networking has my agenda in mind.
Neighboring has the agenda of the other person in mind.
Networking is motivated by getting something from someone.
Neighboring has the goal doing something for someone.
Networking stems from selfishness.
Neighboring flows from selflessness.
Networking is a business term.
Neighboring is a Jesus expression.
Someone you network with can become a neighbor and someone who is your neighbor can become part of your network.
The people you are being the church with should always be neighbors.
Small-Group Leader: guard your heart from turning your neighbors into another member of your network. You might get more work out of them, but in the process vast amounts of love, grace, and mercy will escape and you'll be left with a heart occupied by aloneness.
posted by Sam O'Neal | Comments (0)
October 29, 2009
Video of the Week
God's Pies: A funny and sobering look at how we divide our resources
Last week I promised that we would be rolling out some new features for the blog in the coming month, and here's the first one: I'm going to regularly troll through the Internet to find a Video of the Week.
Some of these videos will be professionally produced, others will be off the cuff from amateurs and churches. And they will run the gamut from funny to moving to encouraging to shaming. Whatever I can find that I think will have benefit for small-group leaders!
Here's the first one, from Worship House Media. It's supposed to be a look at financial resources, but I think it does just as well speaking about our time—or our total allocation of resources in general. Enjoy!
posted by Sam O'Neal | Comments (1)
October 27, 2009
Renewing our Small Group Purpose
Stop "going to church" and start "being the church!"
It’s always important to think about the purpose of small groups. Whenever I think about this issue, I almost always go back to examining the New Testament pattern of church to confirm the “why” of small groups.
Consider some of the history of the early church:
Though there's a lot we don't know about the early church, we can learn a lot from the New Testament, especially the letters of Paul. Paul uses the word "ekklesia," which from pre-Christian days meant "any gathering of a group of people," to refer to a gathering of people before God. The gatherings were usually small, probably 30 members on average, and the people often belonged to the same household or guild. Sometimes several such groups met together, but this was probably rare before the third century, when special buildings for Christian worship began to be constructed. Small groups of Christians met regularly for worship, encouragement, and instruction as early as the first decades of Christianity, but it's not quite accurate to call them "small groups" in the contemporary sense. These groups didn't think of themselves as the more personal, relational aspect of a larger church, as many small groups do now—they were the only church that members knew. (Taken from BuildingChurchLeaders.com “Ask Christian History”)
That last statement, for me, is the real key: "These groups didn't think of themselves as the more personal, relational aspect of a larger church, as many small groups do now—they were the only church that members knew." As we consider the early days of the church, it doesn’t make sense to see small groups (or whatever you want to call them) as the "what is missing, help people connect, add one more thing to my schedule" component of church. Instead, is it possible for all relational, purposeful gatherings of Christ-followers, whether small or large, to be simply looked at as just "being the church"?
If we could see church as not something that we do, so much as something we are, then the small-group gatherings (or large-group worship services, for that matter) would just be part of the natural expression of "being the church." And with that vision and purpose, small groups don’t become the forced add-on to what we now think of as "church." Rather, smaller gatherings are simply an expression of the overall organism of the Body of Christ. Then we can gain freedom from the purpose of "going to church" and replace it with the purpose of "being the church."
posted by Dan Lentz | Comments (0)
October 24, 2009
Group Life: Bill Donahue
Have you experienced "text abuse"?
I just finished listening to Bill Donahue speak at the Willow Group Life conference. His talk was a bit different from the first sessions in that it dealt specifically with the group leader's role in Bible study and facilitation, which was cool.
Some of what Bill said was pretty basic, but one point especially stood out to me. I'm paraphrasing a bit, but here's what he said about some people's use of the Bible: "When we use our strength to force or beat someone, that is physical abuse. When we use our tongues to cut people, that is verbal abuse. When we enforce our will over children, that's child abuse. And when we use the Bible as a weapon or a method of control, that is textual abuse."
That idea needs to be shouted from the rooftops. So many people feel like the Bible is a club to be wielded against those who need it. They feel that change happens through bludgeoning with verses. And this happens in small groups all the time. If someone's opinion is different than mine, I stone them with BIble verses until they submit or shut down.
This needs to stop. But how? As a group leader, what should we do when this starts happening in our group?
posted by Sam O'Neal | Comments (3)
