While your primary call is to serve God, not man, you are empowered, enabled, and entrusted as his subordinate shepherd to serve your group. You serve God by serving others. Quite simply, you lead your group to “serve one another...
Ministry Leaders, Small Group Leaders
Get Out of the Way
Years ago, as a new Christian, I was thrust into ministry quickly. At the time I didn’t understand surrender, so I tried to lead by my own power. I learned very quickly about God’s power being made perfect in my...
Small Group Leaders
To Be Known
What do you want to be known for? Think about this for a moment before reading on. What do you want people to say about you when you die? What do you want written in your obituary? I would have...
Small Group Leaders
The Group Is God’s, Not Yours
I often take a break from my work here at my home office to walk back in my woods. I call them mine because of the amount of time I’ve spent working back there, even though they technically belong to...
Discipling, Spiritual Life
Safe or Dangerous?
One morning on the Christian radio station I usually listen to, a local pastor of the “church of the week” talked about the nature of the church. He said the teens from his congregation had written essays about the church,...
Ministry Leaders, Small Group Leaders
Life in all its fullness
Life to the full, the abundant life, more and better life than you’ve ever dreamed of, everything you need. These are the ways different Bible versions say the same thing. You cannot lead a small group to experience the fullness...
Small Group Leaders
Teamwork Drills
I have loved coaching kid’s sports teams, especially basketball. One of the most rewarding parts of coaching for me is taking a rag-tag group of kids who don’t know one another at the beginning of a season and turning them...
Ministry Leaders, Small Group Leaders
Appointed, Not Recruited
Leading a small group (or anything else in the church) comes out of an assignment or appointment from God. This is critical and foundational to Christian leadership. When someone recruits you to a job that you are not called to,...
Small Group Leaders, Spiritual Life
Stand in Faith
Jesus knew what it was like to face trials in life. The writer of Hebrews reminds us that he is not “unable to empathize with our weaknesses” (4:15). He faced temptations in the desert at the beginning of his ministry...
External-Focus, Spiritual Life
A Change in Citizenship
When you became a Christian, you took on a new citizenship. You no longer belong to this world. Your citizenship in now in the kingdom of heaven. Comparing non-Christians and Christians of his day, the apostle Paul commented, “Their mind...