Over the last month, you have seen practical blog posts on how to virtually lead your group during this time whether through FaceTime, Zoom, Google Hangouts, or other means. Hopefully this has positively impacted your group!
But if you have been a reader of this blog for any length of time, you know that group discipleship goes hand in hand with simply hanging out as a group. Outings, fun group meetings, game nights. These “lower pressure” times are just as important to growing in faith in your small group as the more study-focused meetings. But that presents us with a challenge.
How in the world can we possibly “have fun” in this season?
Glad you asked. Here are 3 ways that we’ve seen small groups keeping the fun in their group meetings.
- Zoom Backgrounds. If you haven’t yet heard of the app Zoom you might want to think about looking into it. Similar to Google Hangouts or Facetime, Zoom allows conference calls between people and can easily be downloaded from the internet. The fun part? You can add in virtual backgrounds to your Zoom meetings. Want to be on a beach? Go for it. The jungle? You got it. Maybe an astronaut in space? We all wish. You can upload any image as your virtual background and simply have fun with it.
- The House Party App. This app is designed to not only let you see other people but to play games with them as well. Invite your small group to this free app, and you can talk to each while choosing to play a variety of games with one another. Each “room” can have up to 7 people in it, and you can play different games such as trivia, heads up and others!
- Host a Cooking Show. Ever watched Chopped? Or Iron Chef? You get the idea… If you have a few people in your group that like to cook, jump on your video platform and cook together! Share recipes, watch the progress, and maybe have a little cooking competition and let your non-cooking friends judge. Obviously, you’re only judging on the presentation, so if you can’t cook, good news…. It just has to look good.
In these unprecedented times, sometimes it’s just best to embrace the weirdness of the situation where we find ourselves. Acting like everything is normal (when it is clearly not) can sometimes lead to more anxiety. When doing these video calls, there will be technical glitches, people will talk over each other, and sometimes you will have that one person that can’t quite figure out their video camera. As we navigate this season let’s approach these odd moments of disconnection with humor and grace–and maybe just a little more fun.
I wanted to take a minute to tell you what an amazing job you have done to help us put into place virtual Bible studies. You’ve also wen’t a step further by giving us a few tips and pointers to help with some of the issues that may come up during a Bible study online. I just can’t say enough about how you have stepped out and freely given Your help to all of us at this time.