An Open Letter to Our Small Group Leaders (Part 7)

Hi Small Group Leaders,

In a series of open letters over the summer I’m focusing on several small steps we’ll be taking this fall to mature and deepen how we do small groups, so that we can more effectively make disciples who make more disciples.

In addition to developing a group Rule of Life (and then using it regularly), we are asking our leaders to attend a monthly small group leadership community. 

Many of you remember Mark Porter. Mark now lives in Florida. Mark led the area men’s BSF for many years. A couple of summers ago he was in town and we had some time to connect. I asked him about what he did in his weekly meetings with the men’s BSF small group leaders. 

He shared with me how he considered the weekly leader meeting to be his most important meeting. If a leader was leading on Monday night, he had to come to the leaders’ meeting on Saturday at 6:00am! If a leader was going to be out of town on Monday, he could miss the meeting. 

Mark told me that his goal was to make the meeting so valuable that guys would come even if they were going to miss Monday night. Every time a guy showed up that didn’t need to show up (and it often did), he knew he was hitting the mark.

I know we are asking a lot when we ask you to come to a monthly leader gathering, but we promise to really sweat the details and put in the prep work to make this a worthwhile time for you. We want it to be a meeting you won't want to miss. 

What will our monthly meetings look like? We’ll all be reading and discussing books on making disciple-makers. Together we’ll determine further steps toward deepening our small group ministry model. We’ll share best practices and dumb taxes regarding the group Rule of Life. We’ll get on our knees and pray for our groups, for each other, and for our redemptive mission in this hurting world. 

I truly hope to see you there!

Blessings,
Pastor Henry