</p>.jpg" hspace="4" vspace="4" width="140" height="127" align="right" />Does your small group ever breakdown into smaller disscussion groups? Or how about splitting up for activities? Recently the women in my group got together while the men stayed home with the kids. From the sounds of it the ladies didn't miss us much. After my wife (Shelli) got back from the meeting I actually thought that they might birth a women's group from ours and leave us guys hanging!
Anyway, after spending some time with the guys a couple of us are going to read a book together and meet one morning per week to discuss the book till we are done. I am looking forward to the experience with these guys since I rarely see them without their wives.
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Brian Kruckenberg at LifeChurch.tv recently wrote on the topic of conflict. He is their groups pastor at their campus in Mesa Az.
Here is what he had to say...
Capitalizing on Conflict
Whenever you get a group of people together to do anything, one thing is certain: there will be conflict. As a leader, you have to become effective at dealing with conflict, or as I have begun to think about it, you must learn to capitalize on it. No more “conflict management,” okay? And, let’s be clear: conflict in and of itself is not bad. Conflict can lead to innovation and breakthrough. Non-constructive conflict is what we most often think of when we hear the word “conflict” and that’s the junk we need to overcome as leaders.
Here are some quick thoughts for you to ponder and comment on:
Vision and passion trump most non-constructive conflict. If you cast a strong vision, write it down and reinforce it, group members who want to be negative will be run over by the vision.
You must uncover the real reason behind the conflict. Often the stated issue isn’t really the issue at all. You must dig deep as a leader but to dig deep requires trust.
Once you’ve found the real issue, you have to be willing to confront it. Again, if you don’t have trust, this is difficult to do. But, to be an effective leader, you have to ask the hard questions.
Which brings me to this: ask questions. One of the best ways to confront conflict is to ask the right questions. You’ll get a lot farther by helping people uncover a potential problem area in their life than by showing them the problem yourself. Help them discover it.
I am conducting this Sunday at our church. We are going to be exploring the answers to the following question: How do we ensure that people have a meaningful experience in our small groups?
I asked one of my co-workers (Terri) the question and I agree with her answer. She said, "In my group we aren't afraid to say what is on our mind, we speak truth to one another."
Basically, authenticity is a key ingredient. Recently
Church Marketing Sucks did a poll on what keeps people in churches and authenticity of the church was the TOP response.
You can read the article here.In your opinion, what are some of the key ingredients to a meaningful small group ?
