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Browse the E-zine Archives 
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How to Find Plenty of New Small Group Leaders - Right in Your Church’s Parking Lot
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My first church staff position was Associate Minister of Christian Education in the middle of Indiana. I knew no one in the church, and I had the assignment of starting a new small groups ministry in a predominantly Sunday school church. I began by asking the senior minister for some names of people who might be interested in leading groups. He gave me the name of one family, the Morfords, who had been pestering him for more than a year to start small groups and whom other leaders in the church considered renegades. I met the Morfords and asked them if they knew anyone else. They thought the Smiths might be interested.
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Un-Natural Selection & Relational Leadership Development
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Good leaders know how to spot potential in people and call it out. A lot of people need to hear a leader’s confidence in them before they become open to God’s possibilities for their future. I imagine that is how it was for the disciples when Jesus first called them. Do you think that Peter, Andrew, James, and John had a natural following of people as young fishermen (Mk 1:16-20)? Probably not. Do you think people perceived Matthew, the tax collector, as being anointed (Mt 9:9-12)? Nope, they probably wanted to wring his neck for being Rome’s lackey.
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Infecting Others
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As parents of three young children, my wife and I have learned firsthand about the power of infections. Despite our wishes, a contagious infection often seems impervious to prayers and Children’s Tylenol. Going to the doctor can reveal the infection is viral, which in our minds means we have to wait for it to run its course often involving it sweeping through the rest of the family!
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A Common Sense Approach to Finding New Leaders
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Being the point person for small groups in a church definitely has its challenges. Among the most challenging aspects is recognizing and raising new leaders. It goes without saying that without new leaders, a small group ministry will never grow. In reality, it will decline if new leaders are not raised up.
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Changing People’s Minds
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Have you ever changed your mind about something? I have changed my mind more about things in the last few years than I would ever dreamed I would. Here is a very humbling experience of that from my own life. When I started working in industry, I had the idea that a person should not miss work for anything, particularly when you were sick. So for 6+ years straight, I never missed a day of work because of illness. Did I get sick during that time? Yes. But I said, “no matter, I’m going to work.”
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Leadership Issues in the Small Group
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I know this may sound redundant, but here goes: “Leading a small group requires leadership.” We have all suspected for a long time that small group leadership may involve leadership, and if you have led a group for any length of time you know that it definitely requires some leadership skills. With this revelation in mind, let me ask you a question: When you think of leadership, what definition or word picture comes to your mind?
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Engaging God from the Heart
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At 22 and fresh out of college, I was honored to be one of the first small group leaders in our new church plant. I felt like I was really doing well as a Christian and on my way to accomplishing great things in the Kingdom of God. Two years later, the group I had invested so much of myself in decided together to disband because they felt they “weren’t having a good small group experience”. Ouch. That event was the beginning of a two-year series of blows to my confidence that led me to the point of giving up on my call. I thought my usefulness to God as a leader was over.
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The Authority of Love - A Leader After God’s Own Heart
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On our journey as leaders and servants of the church, we encounter many truths. Most are gleaned from Scripture. The most powerful lessons are learned through experience which corresponds with Scripture. They come as insights from the Holy Spirit, whose teaching ministry we were promised would: “lead [us] into all truth.” These biblical life lessons and Spirit insights form a body of wisdom that we draw upon in our oversight of God’s people. Through this process, of comparing biblical truth with life experience, the leaders I serve with at New Life Fellowship have discovered several “authority of love” principles that God is teaching through their care for their small groups, called Lifegroups.
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The 5 H’s of a Small Group Leader’s Journey
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“Hey…have you ever considered leading a small group?” That is usually what people think is the beginning of their journey into small group leadership. However, the journey begins much earlier in the unofficial, perhaps unnoticed steps. This leadership journey is a continuum that I call the 5 H’s of a leader’s journey:
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When a Small Group Leader is Running on Empty
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There is a metaphor that we often use with each other, particularly in Christian circles. It is the metaphor of the “fuel tank.” We like to say, “How is your tank these days? Is it full or empty?” Of course, we are not talking about the fuel tank on our mini-van or lawn mower. We are talking about a psychological tank that somehow monitors our physical, emotional, and mental energy.
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