Small Group Dynamics

Friday Flashback: Pictures of Multiplication

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:00:00 -0600

I've been working this week on a downloadable training resources that will (Lord willing) help churches successfully multiply their small groups. As I've been reading and reviewing a lot of material on the subject, I've come up with two interesting observations. (They are interesting to me, at least.) First, there are plenty of churches, coaches, and group leaders who do not want to multiply their small groups. This is usually due to a bad experience, or multiple bad experiences, and they would prefer their groups to stay together for long periods of time and grow deep, deep roots. Second, there are three images that keep popping up whenever people write about multiplying small groups, and I've tried to visualize them above. One is the idea of "birthing." Another is "dividing," and this is usually accompanied by an explanation of cellular mitosis and meiosis (my 6th grade science teacher would be proud that I still remember those terms). And the final image is the idea of "splitting," which usually comes to mind for those who have had negative experiences. Now, there's no way that we can come up with a consensus on which image is best or most appropriate for actual ministry. But I'm curious how you respond to these images. Have you had an experience in the past that is well represented by one of these pictures? Is there a different image you would use to describe small-group multiplication? If something comes to mind, don't be shy! We want to hear your thoughts, so please take a moment and type them out.

Video of the Week: Small Group of One

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:52:05 -0600

The following video is a preview from the good people at Worship House Media. Thoughts?

Question of the Week: BuzzWords and Jargon

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:05:16 -0600

I'm going to take things a little broader for today's Question of the Week. Specifically, I'm wondering this: If you could go back and time and eliminate the origin of any Christian buzzword or jargon, which one would you choose? Below are some examples of the kind of thing I'm talking about. If you have an opinion (good or bad) regarding any of these phrases, I'd love for you to post a quick note about it in the Comments section. I'd also love for you to let me know which words and phrases I've missed. Buzzwords

Emerging
Metanarrative
Praxis
Koine Greek
Assimilation
Missional
Community
Attractional
Seeker
Witnessing
Justification and Variagated Nomism (just kidding on that one)

Jargon Phrases

LiveBooking: "Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus"

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:35:04 -0600

Welcome to our third week of "LiveBooking" for Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus, by Ann Spangler and Lois Tverberg. I've been reading through Chapter 3, which is called "Stringing Pearls." The title is an old Jewish saying for teachers who would bring together passages of Scripture from different places in order to highlight and explore what those passages really say. This was a tactic commonly used by rabbis and teachers in Jesus' day, and the authors do a great job in this chapter of showing how Jesus followed suit. For example, the Beatitudes in Matthew 5 are a great example of Jesus combining several references from Isaiah and the Psalms in order to make a bold statement about God's faithfulness. But what captured my attention most in this chapter was the ancient practice of "hinting." This was a teaching tool that rabbis used to bring attention to a specific passage of Scripture by quoting only a portion of it and forcing their students to remember or look up the rest. Here's an example from the book: [Jesus] had been preaching and healing people within the temple grounds. The crowds were cheering for him. Even children were shouting out: "Hosannah to the Son of David!" Indignant, the priests and teachers of the law stormed over to Jesus to confront him: "Do you hear what these children are saying?" they asked. Jesus replied: "Have you never read, 'From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise'?" (Matthew 21:16). Instantly, the rest of Psalm 8:2 would have reverberated in their minds: "From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise because of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger" (italics added). The Psalmist is saying that God's glory is so great that even children instinctively worship him, to the sshame of those who hate him. In the same way, the children who acclaimed Jesus were responding to his ministry the way his interrogators should have, but refused to do. ...Jesus was using a quote from Scripture to invoke a longer passage that his opponents knew well. God's Word delivered the rebuke they deserved. Bam! I thought that was cool. Can you think of any other sections of the Gospel where Jesus only quoted from portions of the Old Testament Scripture? I'm going to go look and see....

Friday Flashback: A Dynamic Quotation from Eugene Peterson

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:35:46 -0600

I had an "Aha!" moment yesterday as I was editing a batch of devotional material for Men of Integrity magazine. (Yes, every now and then I work on something that isn't directly related to small groups.) The devotion was an excerpt from Eat This Book, by Eugene Peterson, and one line in particular made my mouth drop open. Here's the paragraph:

If I'm not living in active response to the living God revealed in the Bible, reading about his creation/salvation/holiness won't interest me—at least not for long. The most important question we ask of any text isn't "What does this mean?" but "What can I obey?" Simple obedience will open up our lives to a text more than any number of Bible studies, dictionaries, and concordances.

Wow. Not "What does it mean," but "What can I obey?" That's revolutionary, isn't it?

Video of the Week: Mac vs. PC Parody

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:20:24 -0600

Here's a good example of a church doing a parody of a popular commercial series. (Actually, this is probably a parody of Community Christian Church's Christian vs. Christ-follower videos, which are a parody of the Mac vs. PC commercials.) In any case, this is short, funny, and effective. Don't you think?

LiveBooking: "Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus"

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:04:37 -0600

Welcome to our second week of "LiveBooking" for Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus, by Ann Spangler and Lois Tverberg. If you don't know what LiveBooking is, or what this post is all about, I suggest you check out our explanation from last week. Onward! Cool Quotes Here are some of my favorite soundbites from chapter 2:

Would it surprise you to learn that the rabbis thought that study, and not prayer, was the highest form of worship? They pointed out that when we pray, we speak to God, but that when we study the Scriptures, God speaks to us.

The mission of a rabbi was to become a living example of what it means to apply God's Word to one's life. A disciple apprenticed himself to a rabbi because the rabbi had saturated his life with Scripture and had become a true follower of God. The disciple sought to study the text, not only of Scripture but of the rabbi's life, for it was there that he would learn how to live out the Torah. Even more than acquiring his master's knowledge, he wanted to acquire his master's character—his internal grasp of God's law.

Summary Chapter 2 focuses on understanding what it means that Jesus chose to impact the world as a Jewish rabbi in Israel. The authors include a lot of interesting nuggets and tidbits, but what I found most helpful was the description of how rabbis functioned during that time. (Interestingly, the term "rabbi" was a label of respect in Jesus' day—one given to those who taught Scripture well. But "rabbi" did not become a formal title until A.D. 70 at the earliest. That's why it made sense for Jesus to serve as a carpenter before launching his teaching ministry at age 30.) Here are some of the primary functions of a rabbi during Jesus' time:

They interpreted the Torah and explained what the Scriptures meant—often through parables.
Many rabbis travelled from village to village and taught in the synagogues. They relied on the hospitality of others during their travels, but they accepted no salary.
Rabbis spent a good deal of time training disciples. These men usually travelled with their rabbi for years with the goal of becoming like him and eventually spreading his interpretation of the Torah.

The authors make a good point at the end of the chapter in regard to that last item: "So often we focus on Jesus' mission on the cross to save us from our sins. As marvelous as that is, it's critical for us to grasp the importance of his mission on Earth as a rabbi. His goal was to raise up disciples who would become like him. As followers of Jesus, we are still called to live out the adventure of discipleship, becoming like Jesus through the power of his Spirit at work within us." Jesus started a movement, in other words—one that has changed the course of human history forever. We are all the continuation of that movement, which means we have work to do.

Friday Flashback: The Wink and the Gun

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:50:06 -0600

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?

Collective Decision Making

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:22:08 -0600

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.

Video of the Week: Sorie

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:54:55 -0600

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...)

Question of the Week: Sickness

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:05:14 -0600

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?

A New Day for the Blog

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:45:06 -0600

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.

LiveBooking! "Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus"

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 08:52:09 -0600

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:

Networking or Neighboring?

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:46:33 -0600

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.

Video of the Week

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:25:15 -0600

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!