Today I came across a great blog post by DeAntwan Fitts, pastor of Peace Chapel in Los Angeles, titled “Five Stages of a Healthy Small Group.” Great post, and a very necessary part of what I’m discussing here.
DeAntwan begins his post,
Healthy small groups do not just happen. They are the result of the leader being INTENTIONAL about moving the group through the four [sic] important stages of a healthy small group.
He’s dead-on about this. While I’m sharing 7 “signs” of a healthy small group, which I believe leaders can use to diagnose the health of their group(s) and then make prescriptive changes to make their groups more healthy, DeAntwan’s list provides five very useful benchmarks for those signs.
I also really like the fact that DeAntwan encourages leaders to be very intentional in all this. Unhealthy groups generally do not know their win and just meet week to week with little or no direction. Healthy groups are intentional about who they are, where they are going, and how they are going to get there.
Check out DeAntwan’s post here.
Hey bro, this is great! I love small group people. God is so awesome in how He brings people together.
Looking forward to reading more post from your blog.
Grace & Peace,
DeAntwan
Great post here Michael. This is currently the message that I am re-stating to my leaders. I think that when a leader is not intentional she has just handed over her leadership to the group. The measure then for a successful group is that we got together, we ate something and we all shared our thoughts…let's do it again next week.
What I love about this is that often a leader just needs his coach or pastor to speak vision into his life. Re-affirm that God has given him what he needs to intentionally lead his group.
Thanks again for the discussion!