Community groups will be resuming in January 2025! To be completely upfront, this is a push to find more community group leaders. To be completely honest, (which we should be always) making a push like this feels risky and somewhat of a slippery slope. Let me explain.
- Group leaders should want to lead because they are first and foremost convinced (or at least mostly convinced) that God is directing them to lead a group. Group leaders shouldn’t feel pressured from another person (in this case me) to lead a group. So, the slippery slope here is that people feel “pressured” to do something they really don’t want to do in the first place. Yikes! Even though there is a need for more groups and group leaders to lead them, if a person leading only does it as a result of pressure or guilt; it probably won’t go well or last etc. This sounds like a horrible slippery slope to me.
- Asking for group leaders might open the door for some bad consequences like ”power hungry” or “know it all” people seizing the moment and attaining leadership level status. (Let me also throw in “hyper-spiritual God talking” people and “single issue plant the flag crusader” people into this group as well.) Yikes! That’s a slippery slope, and my mind envisions all kinds of crash and burn scenarios with dumpster fires everywhere. No, that’s not the kind of drama encouraged or wanted anywhere – especially at community groups.
However, I’m taking the risk and making the push to recruit anyway. Here’s what I’m thinking. Maybe there are enough of you, who for whatever reason aren’t aware of this growing need, and you’ve been considering/sensing God’s stirring to do something like this. And now that you know of this need, you’d be interested in finding out more details about leading a group. If so, I’m your man to ask. Shoot me an email. Maybe you’d be interested in leading a group, but you are thinking something like – “I don’t know enough about the Bible, what if someone asks me a question and I don’t know the answer then what?” Truth is these kinds of people make for being great community group leaders. I’m not kidding. I agree with a guy named Larry Osborne. In his book, Sticky Church, he makes a brilliant point. (I think.) Larry says the best community group leaders are warm – spiritually warm and relationally warm. He defines a spiritually warm person as a person who is in a growing relationship with Jesus. That’s essential! And he defines a relationally warm person as a person who is likeable and enjoyable to be around. This doesn’t mean a person needs to be extra extroverted or bouncing with charisma. Introverts and quiet people make for great leaders just the same. Bottom line, a relationally warm person is good with people. That’s also essential!
If this describes you, a spiritually warm and relationally warm person, your help is needed. Email me to get the ball rolling. Basically, to be organizationally ready, there are three weeks remaining to finalize the community groups (and Bible study groups too) before the church-wide plug to join a group begins in January 2025.
