the Young Life retreat center in upstate NY. The retreat is put together every year by the
Orchard Group which is a church planting organization that helped Christ's Church of the Valley get started.
What has been really valuable about the whole experience up here is networking with other new church leaders around the Northeast. I have been gather ideas and swapping stories about the joys and challenges in group ministry.
Sometimes we can get wrapped up in our own church context that we forget that there are others who have been where we are going. Even if they are not more experienced, a fresh pair of eyes can be very helpful in generating new ideas.
On this trip I met Nic (yeah he doesn't use a k), a new guy from Community Christian in MD, who gave me some new ideas about an approach to starting new groups that I have been hesitant to implementing. I will share more we get figure things out and I talk more with our team.
It is about 2am and I am working on a few side projects, while taking care of baby feedings, so my wife Shelli can get some sleep. We have a new addition to our family that arrived last week. If you didn't know you can see the details on my
personal blog.
All the activity that has been happening with this new child is a wonderful reminder how great my Home Team (small group) is. Many of them have checked in via phone, email, or at church on Sunday to make sure that we are all OK. They also are taking turns dropping off food to make sure we are well fed as we go through this transition.
If you are leading a group I want to encourage you to keep tabs on these sort of life transitions that occur in the lives of your group members. It could be a job change, arrival of a baby, death in the family, crisis moment, illness, or major wedding anniversary. Some of these life transitions are exciting and others are difficult. However, they all have one thing in common, they can be used to bring a group of people closer to each other and closer to God.
/2006/05/200px-Blogger.Logo.png">
Yes! A Blog! One of the Home Teams (small groups) at CCV recently started a blog to keep everyone in the group filled in on group events and life change that is happening in their Home Team. Blogs are so easy to manage and start with all of the user friendly tools out there and I think it is a great idea for any small group. You can post your next study or even start discussions online about what the group was talking about the previous week.
Here is a link to the group I mentioned.
! Bob, who is becoming a good friend of mine, is a gentleman I met at our church about a year and a half ago through friends at church. Everyone who had spent some time with him said that I had to meet him because he might be a great Home Team (small group) leader. After spending some time with him I learned he had a wealth of experience I could learn from. Plus after getting to know Bob I quickly found out that he wanted to be used by God in our church as well. He had previously been a pastor for 15 years, worked for many years with the
Navigators, and is now currently serving with
Prison Fellowship. There are people in our churches that have spiritual gifts, talents, and great amounts of life experience that we can draw from. We just have to spend some time getting to know the people that God has placed around us.
Posted by: Frank Chiapperino in prayer, community on
May 29, 2007
an interesting question as an ice breaker. I asked them what was a recent spiritual moment that they had that was significant for them. We got a wide range of answers that were all great. I love hearing about what God is doing in the lives of others. I obviously can't write those answers here because it would violate the confidentiality of our group.
However, I can share one thing that tugged at my own heart. One of our group members shared that their spiritual moment was when our group's prayers were answered for my son Michael. He recently had a full evaluation from a developmental pediatrician. Fortunately the evaluation went well and he tested age appropriate. Our little guy has had some challenges but God has done some cool things.
It is also nice to know that we are in a group who really cares about us and our son. Nothing confirms that more than asking about their significant moment and getting an answer that their moment is your moment... an answered prayer.
