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Leading a Small Group Series About Prayer

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While we talk a lot about prayer, we don’t talk nearly enough about how to pray. Prayer is critical to the disciple, and we welcome this discipline as part of our conversations with other believers. In my own journey, I don’t remember anyone pulling me aside or inviting me into an experience with the objective, Pray like this. I’m sure many of us have taken it upon ourselves to search the Scriptures for effective prayers, but I’m sure there are many others who want to be more faithful and disciplined in prayer.

I scheduled a series about prayer for our small group earlier this year. Instead of a series that walked group members through Jesus’ model prayer (Matt. 6:9-13), I opted to explore several prayers of the New Testament as a means for discussing the examples from the people that faithfully forged the early church from a broken and lost culture—in this case, exclusively, Paul.

Sources. I used two sources, both from D.A. Carson. The first is the small group Bible study Praying with Paul and the second is A Call to Spiritual Reformation. I used the videos and questions from the small group study during our group time. The book was extremely helpful to me in preparing to lead the group, but also for augmenting the discussion with extra material and insights. For 8 weeks, we examined prayers from 1st and 2nd Thessalonians, Colossians, Romans, Ephesians, and Philippians. Here are a few tips for leading such a group.

Handout. In addition to the Praying with Paul Bible study books, I created a handout with summaries, condensed commentary notes, future group meetings and topics, and review of past weeks. On this handout I also included discussion questions in addition to what is in the Bible study book. I like doing this for an at-a-glance discussion guide. Plus, it’s something I can send electronically ahead of the group for those people that like to use phones or tablets.

Weekly Take-Aways. I was sure to emphasize a take-away each week. Studying, discussing, and reading Scripture are their own reward. Beyond that, I like for group members to have a “1 thing” they can add to their routines to grow as disciples. In this context, the take-aways included interceding for those outside our inner circles—even people we don’t know, giving careful thought to ongoing prayer needs in our lives (those things for which we will always petition), obedience to God’s commands is the first order of being within God’s will, and developing our own understanding of what it means to be “unceasing” in our prayer life.

Quick Prayer. This isn’t prayer request time nor is it a time for a pastoral prayer of any kind. Rather, it’s an invitation to the Spirit and acknowledgement for the group that we’re entering a sacred space. For this particular series, I was mindful to introduce the weekly take-away for our prayer life.

Discussion Warm Up. Often referred to as the Ice Breaker, this question gets everyone engaged in the discussion and frames the content for the week. My warm-up questions range from list like “According to polls, what things to people pray for the most?” to something more open-ended like “What reasons do you think people give for not praying?”

Background. Right after the warm-up but before the text, I like to provide just a little insight into the authorship, historical background, or interesting word choices about the passage. This is just for context and to create an environment ready for God’s word.

Scripture Reading. We always read the text out loud. And we always read the text out loud multiple times. And we always read the text out loud from different translations. And we always read the text out loud from multiple translations, from different people. Of course, it’s important to avoid putting people on the spot or making anyone uncomfortable, but reading from the Bible is crucial to the effectiveness of any group. The text is included in the Bible study book, but I also like for group members to read from their own Bibles.

Discussion Questions. I choose 6-8 questions from my options from the Praying with Paul Bible study book, the questions at the end of each chapter in The Call to Spiritual Reformation, and questions I developed with my group in mind. The questions are extremely important. A couple of rules I employ are (1) no yes/no questions (2) no questions with easy, one-word answers. Everybody knows this, but it’s still takes intention to avoid them. You may also delineate questions by type: Objective (what does it say), Interpretation (what does it mean), Application (what do I do), Self-Revelation (how do I struggle). Too many objective questions can kill discussion and put people to sleep, while too many self-revelation questions exhausts the heart and leave group members looking for any kind of escape.

Wrap-up. This is a summary of the highlights, of course, and a clear distinction of the take-away along with any notable insights from the discussion. I like to draw from the author’s exact words during the wrap-up and include it on the weekly hand-out.

Prayer Requests and Closing Prayer. Take the opportunity to model the take-away. For instance, when the take-away was to pray for people we haven’t met, I prayed for a local church staff.

These are a few tips for leading a Bible study on prayer. I recommend Praying with Paul as your course. You may also take a look at Pray Like This that uses the Lord’s Prayer as its outline. Other options can be found at smallgroup.com for you to consider. You may want to consider leading your group in this way regularly, like every 12 months. For help in choosing your next study, we have developed the Balanced Discipleship Strategy.

Church Leadership

And Then There Were Two: Managing Your Group When “Small” Becomes “Really Small”

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It’s inevitable in group life where your small group becomes an even smaller group. Regardless of how you feel about the perfect group size (mine is 8-12), there will be those group meetings when you realize it’s just going to be you and 2-3 other people. In my experience, this happens most often in the early stages of group life, before routines have been established and relationships have been forged.

I’m in the habit of texting the group a day before group with the time, location, and topic. I do this for multiple reasons, but mostly to get an idea of who I should expect and to prompt everyone to prepare. Still, there are those times when it’s just my wife and I and another couple. Here are a few tips for those nights when your small group becomes a much smaller group.

First, I never cancel group because of attendance—even if we’re not expecting anyone, we still go through the motions and use the time for prayer or for a media-free time. I’ve been in groups where group is cancelled for low attendance, and I get it. But my recommendation is not to do this because it establishes an unhealthy practice—and maybe even incentivizes less-than-committed group members.

Second, while we never cancel group due to low attendance, there have been times when we’ve invited the lone couple to coffee or dinner. There’s no pretense in this, nor do I feel like I’ve got to “sneak in” a small group-like discussion into the main course or prayer requests with our coffee. It’s just dinner out with friends. This is a good way to “do life” with your group in an unplanned and serendipitous way. Even though I don’t feel the pressure to run through the teaching I’ve prepared, I do want to be open and even encourage biblical truth, God’s redemptive ways, and how God may be at work in our lives as a significant part of the conversation.

Third, when our group becomes a group 4 or 5, sometimes I forego the planned lesson in lieu of an open-ended discussion on one of the seminal texts of the Bible, such as the Sermon on the Mount, Isaiah 55, or Romans 8. The converse of this is I draw from a profound, yet more obscure, text that I’ve discovered in my own devotional time and introduce it to the group with a few questions very broad in nature. This does a couple of things. Because the time isn’t thoroughly planned, it somehow gives more ownership to the group. I’ve also noticed that this gives the group a measure of unpredictability that adds a little intrigue to our time. This doesn’t necessarily have to be a formal presentation, but you need to have a few questions in mind and have a decent idea about what direction you would like the discussion to go.

Yes, low attendance can be disappointing—I’d be less than honest if I didn’t admit to times of discouragement. But don’t be too disheartened. I’ve learned that using these approaches and remaining consistent eventually leads to a solid group dynamic. It’s up to the leader to set the right example of consistency.

Church Leadership

The Top Five Bible Studies of the Summer

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Here we are on the edge of summer, and it’s time for the annual decision of what to do with our small groups. While many groups take a hiatus for the summer, others maintain consistency and meet each week. As a group leader over the years, I’ve made decisions across the board. Yet I’ve found that some measure of consistency is the best recourse for maintaining an appropriate and effective expectation for group members. So while we continue to meet regularly, I make our Bible study curriculum based on the uniqueness of the summer season.

With this in mind, here a few recommendations for you this summer. While not an exhaustive list by any means, the small group studies below all meet the standards for a good study for your group over the summer.

Making Space by Jeff Vanderstelt

Who doesn’t need biblical instruction on how to manage the many expectations and tasks on us in our technology-driven world? The subtitle to this study is, “Making Time for What Matters Most.” Addressing topics such as rest, prayer, friendship, and family, Making Space is the perfect Bible study to redeem the time we have been given this summer.

James by Matt Chandler

While this insightful Bible study may pack a decent-sized punch, the Book of James is a great fit into the summer months. Author Matt Chandler is a brilliant communicator. Because of that, demands of the group leader are somewhat minimized. Also, the way the study is set up works in an environment where members can’t make it every week.

Pursuing Holiness by Philip Nation

Summer is a great time for reflecting and taking a pause to get ready for the fall, which has become the unofficial “new year” in American culture. It doesn’t take much to notice a drift away from holiness in our culture. In Pursuing Holiness, Philip Nation is intentional in emphasizing the ways we can pursue holiness during the hours, weeks, and months of our daily lives. This study meets all my criteria for this season. The videos range from 10 to 15 minutes, and the group expectations are flexible.

God Owns It All by Ron Blue

I like this small group study because it feels like a break in normal rhythms of group life since the topic represents a bit of a departure from the normal curriculum choice. Ron Blue has more than four decades of experience in the financial services industry. In this study, Ron Blue presents financial principles that are affirmed by the authority of Scripture and tested by the marketplace. Group members will be equipped to approach their finances with freedom, generosity, contentment, and confidence. It consists of 6 small group sessions, with exercises between group meetings. God Owns It All is a great experience for those easygoing summer nights.

Pray Like This by Steve Gaines and Michael Kelley

With six sessions, manageable videos, important topic, and easy to lead, Pray Like This makes for a powerful Bible study for your group this summer. Featuring introductions from Pastor Steve Gaines, each of the 6 videos is shot in documentary style. The study includes voices such as Kelly Minter, J.D. Greear, HB Charles, Ken Hemphill, Steve Aiken, and several other evangelical leaders. As I’ve said to many people, we talk a lot about prayer, but we don’t know enough about how to pray. Check out Pray Like This as you make decisions this summer.

These five recommendations represent only a partial list. I realize there are many choices for you this summer, but hopefully this list can be helpful to you along with the brief run-down of basic criteria for choosing your study for this summer. If you prefer an  à la carte approach, I would encourage you to check out smallgroup.com, where you can choose from more than 3,000 small group studies using one search engine.

Group Leadership, Start New Groups

Don’t Do These 6 Things When Starting a New Small Group

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Within the last year, my wife and I have launched a home Bible study group through our church’s Life Group ministry. This isn’t our first time to launch a group—far from it. This time, however, I noticed several things about the process that I thought might make a great “Don’t, Dos” post for anyone either considering starting a group or in the process of starting a group. Here are 6 “Don’t, Do” lessons that we discovered in the process of launching our current group.

  1. Don’t: Assume Everyone You Ask Will Show Up. I know, I know. “Of course,” you might say. “Of course, everyone I invite won’t show up.” Even those who may have told you they will come, don’t count on it. Our group was not launched out of another group, so my wife and I actually had to recruit un-grouped couples—which adds another degree of difficulty. Even though I knew not everyone I invited would show up (not even those that said they would), I was still caught a little off guard the first night. Retrospectively, I realize that I was a little too careful about trying to get it just right. I invited 12 and felt confident about having 8 the first night. Do: Land on an ideal number and invite more than double the ideal number. For me, that means inviting 9 couples. For singles, I think you can bend that rule a little bit, but the basic ideology doesn’t change.
  1. Don’t: Take the Bible study portion of the experience lightly. This is critical. Even as someone who produces small group Bible studies on a daily basis, I realize that I approached my decision the wrong way. No question I chose a great Bible study. It was foundational for believers with content rightfully rooted in Scripture. It had application both for the individuals in the group and their families. The problem with my decision was that it was what I wanted to do. In the end, I realized, it was perhaps a little more bent on the academic and a little less bent on any kind of application to the lives of the group members. I knew all along the study I wanted to launch with. I was so sure, in fact, that I never really listened to the hearts of the people I was recruiting. Do: Just pay attention to what people are revealing to you about their spiritual needs. A great place to begin is with a historical figure like Joseph, or a Book of the Bible like Ephesians.
  1. Don’t: Be unintentional about when to launch and how much lead time to build in. We launched in the spring. I had been in several encouraging conversations about our need for new groups and families looking for a Life Group. We did some wise things, set a date, and began the process of inviting families that had no group home. In our excitement, we failed to look at the calendar. Most of us have astutely concluded that the best times to launch groups are January and September. This doesn’t mean that all other launch points are out of play; it’s just that they’re not quite as natural and may require additional planning. We launched a couple of weeks before spring break and about the time spring sports were ramping up with summer just around the corner. We made it through this season, but it took some hustling to keep our momentum. Do: Plan at least 6 weeks from your first small-group meeting and take measures to know the rhythms of your church and the families as their lives intersect with school and community. Know the calendar. Simply planning helps avoid poor launch times.
  1. Don’t: Conclude that your winsome personality will be enough. I caution against relying on the sheer force of personality for recruiting and beginning a Bible study group in your home. For starters, it’s not a great idea because, ultimately, this isn’t about you. It’s about Jesus Christ and how His death and resurrection plays out in the lives of believers. It’s important to remember that. But it also positions you, as the leader, as the emotional center of the group. While your energy and enthusiasm are supremely important, being the emotional center can be a drain on you down the road. An alternative approach would be focusing on potential group members themselves. Do: As you are engaging individuals and couples in pre-group encounters, be sure to listen for needs and articulate how you think this group will meet those needs and provide valuable community and disciple-making discussion.
  1. Don’t: Be flippant about the schedule. People like to know what to expect. As a group leader, it’s your responsibility to be sure the group has a direction, a focus, and something akin to a destination. Far too many groups enter into a, “So what do we want to study next?” conversation at or around the same time the current study is wrapping up. This shows a lack of commitment and doesn’t instill a great deal of confidence in the group leader as someone who is serious about disciple-making. I like to stay two studies ahead of our current Bible study experience. Pay attention to prayer needs for future Bible study experiences. I’ve learned to create a schedule and keep it in front of the group. Do: Create a 3-month schedule with built-in group outings, weeks off that may be due to travel or holidays, and discussion topics. If you’re using one of our studies, the Table of Contents makes this real easy. Review this every week. It creates a sense of expectation while also demonstrating your commitment to the group.
  1. Don’t: Create false expectations early in the group life. Leading up to our first meeting, I was making all these great plans with food and fellowship. One of the primary shows of hospitality that I had planned was a full meal. In fact, in my heart I thought a full meal might be one of those things that my wife and I offered every single group meeting. By no means should this be discouraged, and I realize that many groups make this a normal part of the group time. That being said, be very sure about any expectations that you might be setting. For instance, the full-meal-plus-Bible-study approach is the same thing you might be complaining about a few months later when group members are still at your house 3 hours later. Do: Keep the Bible study central to the group time so everyone knows why they are there. Make water and light snacks available early on in the group, but have the flexibility for a special occasion down the road.

This list is by no means exhaustive. When you’re starting a group, give good, devoted time to the who, how, what, and why. Our group is going great. We’re not immune to the same challenges anybody faces with busy schedules, personal lives, children, and activities, but we remain engaged with the gospel.

Group Leadership

Five Questions with Jeff Vanderstelt

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In Three Environments for Disciple-Making, I wrote about three spaces, or environments, to consider in your mission of making disciples. The environments identified in this post were life-on-life, life-in-community, and life-on-mission. We have discussed these environments in previous question-and-answer posts with groups experts Jonathan Dodson and Steve Gladen. Today I want us to hear from the author of Saturate, Jeff Vanderstelt. In Saturate, Jeff argues that small groups are most effective and most beneficial when they are focused on the task of disciple-making, both within the group and outside it. I caught up with Jeff for an installment of five questions.

In Saturate you refer to All-of-Life discipleship. Let’s begin with a short description of how you define “All-of-Life” discipleship.

In Ephesians 4:15, the apostle Paul states, “Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.” This passage is in the context of Paul describing how the church is called to equip every believer to grow up into maturity and that maturity looks like Jesus. Notice that Paul states we are to grow up in every way. This refers to every aspect of our lives. In other places Paul shows that our eating, drinking, working, resting, and relating are all meant to be done for the glory of God. So, first of all, when I say “All-of-Life” discipleship I am referring to developing each other toward Christ-likeness in every aspect of life. Discipleship is not a program we attend or a curriculum we get through, though both assist in discipleship. 

Discipleship happens in the everyday stuff of life with followers of Jesus being committed to life-on-life, life-in-community, and life-on-mission together throughout the week. Life-on-life means we are committed to our lives being visible and accessible. We commit to help each other grow up in every aspect of life by having every aspect of life visible and accessible to each other. Life-in-community means we are being discipled by many people, men and women, expressing a variety of gifts, not just by one person. Life-on-mission means we disciple people best when we are making disciples together, with both Jesus followers and those not yet following Jesus.

How do you approach topics that may be best explored in gender-specific sub-groups? Is breaking into gender-specific groups fairly regular or more of an exception?

First of all, one of the things I often have to clarify is that a missional community is not an event but a people who love one another like family on mission together throughout the week. I say this because often people try to fit all of their discipleship work into a weekly event for an hour or two. It’s just not possible to make disciples in that amount of time. Second, to answer your question, most of our groups have another time during the week where they meet in gender-specific groups. We call these DNA Groups (Discover Jesus together in Scripture, Nurture the truths of Jesus in each other’s hearts, Act in response to repentance and belief). Our missional community gathers weekly for a family meal on Wednesday nights, the women connect on Monday nights, and our men connect on Tuesday mornings. And we all gather together on Sunday mornings with the rest of the church.

How are each of these environments resourced? That is, what do group members “do” in each of the environments? Even though Life-on-Mission would seem to be self-explanatory, I’d love to know how missional “events” are planned and scheduled.

These environments are resourced by people who have been and are being trained to “BE” disciples first. So, first of all, we believe we need to equip the church to see they ARE disciples on mission all of the time. That is one of the reasons I wrote Saturate and Ben and I created the Saturate Field Guide. I find that the reason most Christians are not “on mission” is because they don’t believe God has made them His missionary people. When, and if, they believe they truly are missionaries to their neighbors, co-workers, and friends, often they already know what to do.

With that said, some of the work we have to do is to “undo” wrong thinking. For instance, thinking mission is an event is one example. Mission is not an event—it is a lifestyle. So, we don’t teach people to run events. We teach people to invite unbelievers into their lives and the activities they are already engaged in. Or join unbelievers in the activities they are involved in. We are not calling people to add more events to their already busy lives. We train them to engage in what they already do with gospel intentionality. It’s not necessarily additional, but intentional. And ideally, getting a few Christians to join together in the activities of everyday life with gospel intentionality is the goal. Activities like eating, playing, and working. I interact with parents all the time who tell me they don’t have time for Jesus’ mission because they are too busy with their children’s activities. What they often fail to see is that the mission is in the middle of those activities. They can disciple their children and the other parents and coaches during their sports events. They can see their children’s school activities as the ministry and engage as disciple-making disciples there.

The biggest thing we need to learn is how to walk in the Spirit, be saturated with the gospel, and ask God to work through our lives to both attract people to Jesus through our visible witness and call people to Jesus through our verbal one.

I’ve interviewed Jonathan Dodson and Steve Gladen on Life-on-Life and Life-in-Community in prior posts. What tips would you have for a group leader that wants to move his or her group more toward a Life-on-Mission environment?

First of all, if they are already studying the Bible together, move from “personal application only” to communal and missional application. For instance, instead of only asking the question “How will you apply this?” Ask “If we believe this, how will we apply it together in our community and how will we apply it together on mission?” Start obeying God’s word in community.

Most of the Bible was not written to individuals and therefore was not meant primarily for personal application. It was written to God’s people (plural) and intended for communal application. And God wants his people obeying him together in the middle of a dark and broken world, not inside our Christian cul-de-sacs. Getting believers to obey God together in the midst of non-Christians is one of the most powerful witnesses to the gospel we have. Jesus said the world would know we are his disciples by our love for one another. So, let’s start loving God and one another in the midst of a world that needs to see God’s love on display.

Next, the group leader needs make sure everyone knows, believes, and can communicate the gospel in culturally relevant ways—showing that the gospel speaks to every aspect of life. The gospel isn’t just a bridge over the gap of sin so we can avoid hell when we die. The gospel is the power of God for salvation to all who believe, and it impacts every single aspect of our lives today and forever. Group leaders need to immerse their group in the gospel so the group becomes a gospel-fluent people.

And then the group leader needs to regularly remind the group why they exist. They exist to glorify God by displaying what He is like and declaring what He has done. They were rescued and saved by Jesus for a purpose—to make disciples who make disciples for the glory of God and the good of their city. Each group should identify people or even a people group they believe God is sending them to that don’t yet believe in and know Jesus. Then, they should regularly pray for them and ask God how they might intentionally engage in life together with them.

This isn’t about inviting people to attend a church event. This is about a group learning to be God’s people (the church) on mission in the everyday stuff of life with others. For instance, my missional community is presently asking God for how we should engage in our children’s sporting events and school activities in order to show and share Jesus with the families there. Others are asking how they might together show and share Jesus to their co-workers while at work and through after-work parties they attend together. I know of another missional community that is making their nightlife activity their mission by going to the same restaurants or clubs with gospel intentionality together.

The key in all of this is relationships. You will never get a group on mission by just studying about mission and remaining distant from mission. You need to actively engage together in relationships, while at the same time relating together to God in prayer prior to and during these activities.

Taking into account life-on-life, life-in-community, and life-on-mission, is there a natural way for these environments to evolve out of a church’s values, or is the expectation that these environments must be very intentionally and meticulously developed? What are the first steps to adopting this approach to discipleship?

I believe the church’s job is to make this normative. It must be embraced by the church leadership, filtered through all its teaching and training, shaped by how it spends its time and resources, and shown in the lives of its leaders. If the leaders are not engaged in this kind of discipleship, then they should never expect the church to get there. Churches also need to make more space for their people to live this kind of life. Too many churches fill their schedules with activities at their buildings, thus filling people’s schedules with Christian activities that pull them out of the mission field. We have made it a point not to create events that prevent people from being on mission throughout the week. In fact, at this point in the church I lead, Sunday is the only day we have scheduled events. And even those events exist to equip or support our people on the mission of making disciples.

The most important thing is getting church leaders and programs to shift toward equipping and supporting the people to be disciple-makers, instead of looking to leaders and programs to make the disciples for the church.

Once that happens, then the leadership of the church needs to ask if everything they do serves to equip God’s people. I call this a disciple-making audit. I believe every staff member or leader in a church needs to ask how they can better focus their energies and gifts to equip the people for ministry. Instead of doing the ministry for the people, start equipping the people for the ministry.

As the visionary leader of the Soma Family of Churches, Saturate, and the lead teaching pastor at Doxa Church in Bellevue, WA, Jeff Vanderstelt travels around the U.S. and the world doing what he loves—training disciples of Jesus to make more disciples of Jesus and equipping the Church in the gospel and missional living. Jeff is the author of Saturate, Saturate Field Guide, and coming in spring of 2017, Gospel Fluency. He and Jayne, his wife of twenty-three years, have three children: Haylee, Caleb, and Maggie. Connect with Jeff at his website jeffvanderstelt.com or on Twitter: @JeffVanderstelt.

Group Leadership

Five Questions with Steve Gladen on Life-in-Community

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In June 2015 we ran a post entitled Three Environments for Disciple-Making about three spaces, or environments, to consider in your mission of making disciples. The environments identified in this post were Life-on-Life, Life-in-Community, and Life-on-Mission. Rick Howerton and I have addressed notions of disciple-making environments on the Groups Matter podcast to some extent, but as a follow-up I am exploring these 3 environments with thought leaders in each.

In October we got in touch with the author of Gospel-Centered Discipleship, Jonathan Dodson. In Gospel-Centered Discipleship, Jonathan unpacks City Life Church’s approach to Life-on-Life groups, or what City Life calls Fight Clubs. This time I tracked down another author, Steve Gladen, for a few thoughts on Life-in-Community and how this environment contributes to disciple-making. Steve has been the Pastor of Small Groups at Saddleback Church since 1998, where he oversees the development of over 7,000 adult small groups.

Steve, thanks for taking a few minutes to address Life-in-Community with us. First thing: Saddleback literally has thousands of Life-in-Community groups, and you have decades of experience. What have you found to be the symptoms of a healthy, growing, disciple-making community group?

You need a system. To have healthy groups a church needs to have a healthy, growing, disciple-making structure or organization. This begins with a well-defined “end game” in mind. That is, you need a very good idea of what a disciple looks like — what does he do, what does he think about, how does he interact, how does he practice the disciplines and in what context. Once you have defined this for your groups and taken measures to make this a part of your culture, then you put systems in place. I think in terms of guard rails. One guardrail is cognitive and the other is infrastructure. The cognitive guardrail includes initiatives like training, organizational tools, and curriculum tracks. Your infrastructure guardrail encompasses relational and technological support systems. The infrastructure is the interface. Group members will hardly notice or have a reason to be aware of the cognitive, yet it is the cognitive that contributes most to disciple-making. This is the mechanical component. The nuts and bolts. We give a lot of thought to our structure and work hard at keeping the machinery where it needs to be—out of sight and out of mind—so the infrastructure can work seamlessly as we facilitate the work of the Spirit in our groups.


Saddleback is unique in a number of ways. Given this, how do you ensure that discipleship takes place in your groups?

It may sound oversimplified, but to ensure that discipleship is taking place in our groups, we measure health as opposed to attendance or even growth! Attendance doesn’t get you health, but health gets you attendance! Whatever your disciple-making “end game,” you need to have tools that assess your health, training that equips leaders and coaches toward the objective, and curriculum that supports your model. Honestly, a lot comes down to vision and leadership. Your group ministry needs a clearly and narrowly defined objective for discipleship, and everything about your groups culture should align with this goal in mind. Language, Bible study, events, schedules, visuals. Everything needs to be checked against how the Bible defines a disciple of Jesus. We have developed our own health assessment and made it available to group leaders and coaches, but I realize not everybody has that option. It’s too much to get into here, but I do address it in Small Groups with Purpose (chapter 10).



Something I’ve always been intrigued by at Saddleback is how its groups ministry engages its members at gender-specific levels. How do your groups uniquely minister to men and women?

Because these relationships are important to community, we want to take existing gender relationships deeper into God’s Word, into their own stories, and into these relationships. A challenge to any strategy in this regard is that an individual can be in a couples group and a gender-based group—because they tend to be two different contexts—and be two different people. This isn’t healthy. So at Saddleback, to help people become more relationally honest and authentic, we shrink those circles. We want gender-specific groups to emerge from the Community Group. We do this through sub-grouping—two groups in one! This approach doesn’t require an additional commitment. How do we do it? Throughout any given month, I think there are three opportunities to sub-group: fellowship, discussion, and prayer. Fellowship may take shape as a girl’s night out or a guy’s night out. Other options are during the group time itself as women and men take on their discussion or prayer apart from one another. We’ve found this to be very effective.



A few questions about group life: How do you approve or recommend content and Bible study, how often do groups meet or take breaks, and what can a group member expect during a typical group session?

I referenced how we approach curriculum and Bible study earlier. First, it’s important. Organization, infrastructure, strategy, and logistics are important, but small-group pastors and leaders have to remember that what happens during group time is crucial. We are very intentional about curriculum choices, and these choices absolutely must support our paradigm of healthy, disciple-making groups. Either our Bible study and curriculum choices meet these expectations, or we are working in a way antithetical to our objectives and how we feel God has directed us. Obviously it’s not something we take lightly. Groups decide what curriculum they will use during any given season, but our staff does recommend a curriculum “diet” for a balanced discipleship strategy. 

About how often our groups meet and when they take breaks, my answer is more of a question: What kind of schedule or mentality is your church built on? In my experience I’ve seen a few, ranging from governmental, school, corporate, and family-based. We feel the Bible is built on a family system, so our groups are structured accordingly. If your church is built on a school system, then you take breaks consistent with the school calendar. A group in Manhattan may meet consistent with the corporate rhythms of their lives, or a group in downtown Nashville may be beholden to the legislative schedule. In a family system, it is built on relationship. The family approach that we have adopted may not look the same day in and day out.

I outline what a group member can expect during group meetings in my book Leading Small Groups With Purpose. In a family system it is all about growing and developing you into a healthy disciple of Christ. Our groups aren’t going to surprise anybody. We believe in the meal, minimal snacks and drinks. Our groups use a lot of video-driven studies. This isn’t because we’re sold out to that as our preferred model, but because we’ve learned that it makes it less challenging to find small-group hosts. We budget 90 minutes, but I’ve been in groups that go much longer.



Steve, I’m sure there are those that don’t make much of a distinction between “community” and friendship. How have you found that community contributes to the discipleship of group members?

Discipleship is all about applying biblical truth to the lives of group members. In order for someone to apply this truth, they need to trust the person speaking truth into their lives. In order to obtain this trust, they need to spend time with you. Community provides the time to build trust so that when truth is offered it comes from a credible source. This leads to application. This is how community contributes to disciple-making. Just like in a family!

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Pastor Steve Gladen

It’s great to hear from Steve. I recommend you check out the Small Group Network and follow Steve on Twitter @SteveGladen. It was mentioned earlier, but Steve oversees the strategic launch and development of over 7,000 adult small groups on multiple campuses. He has authored Small Groups With Purpose, which has been translated into eight languages to date, and Leading Small Groups With Purpose. He frequently speaks at conferences and consults with church leaders both in the United States and around the world. He has a driving passion to see each church attendee connected to a qualified shepherd and become an integral part of their church body, living purposefully for Christ. He earned a Masters of Divinity from Fuller Theological Seminary in 1985, and a B.A. in Biblical Studies, with minors in Greek and Philosophy in 1982, from Evangel University. Steve and Lisa have been married since 1989 and have two children, Erika and Ethan.

Brian Daniel leads the discipleship publishing team within Groups Ministry at LifeWay. He has written multiple small-group Bible studies and contributes to several blogs, including Walt Disney World News Today. He also co-hosts the Groups Matter Podcast Show with Rick Howerton and the SEC Spin Radio Show during football season. He and his wife Karen live in Hendersonville, TN, where he heads up discipleship at Grace Church. He has two daughters, Ashton and Schuyler. You can follow Brian on Twitter: @BCDaniel.

Group Leadership

Wounds in Groups Life: Five Keys for Responding to Our Scars

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The philosopher Plato purportedly exhorted us, “Be kind to everyone, for we are all in a great battle.” Similarly, when my daughters were growing up, my wife and I often reminded them that behind every front door are tremendous stories, both inspiring and traumatic. On the Post-It note on my desk at home are many names and circumstances that represent prayer needs God has either placed on me or that have found their way to this scrap of paper through others. I look at this list sometimes and realize how much depth of life is represented by a single name. The point here is simple — there is pain. The pain found within our groups comes through trauma, loss, relationships, decisions, and just about anywhere there is human life. Because of this, our groups are comprised 100% of people carrying wounds.

I remember an arborist pointing to a mark in the middle of a cross-section cut from a tree. “Do you know what this is?” he asked. “It’s either from a fire or a lightning strike.” He went on to tell me that, over the years, the tree grew not only up, but out. The scar, he continued, while not detectable from any visual inspection, remained deep within—never completely healing, only covered by years of growth. Those in our groups likely have scars deep within as well and just as undetectable. These wounds are serious. So serious, in fact, that Jeremiah reveals God’s anger at His leaders for not treating our wounds more seriously (6:14).

Scripture is not silent or void of this reality. We are told to bear one another’s burdens, encourage one another, and hold our brothers and sisters in Christ accountable. Ecclesiastes 4 goes even further in instructing us to bind ourselves together. A cord of three strands is not easily broken. We are better able to confront both external challenges as well as our internal scars in true, biblical community.

Our groups, then, in addition to being a primary disciple-making environment, should also be places where we are able to safely work out our faith as we heal and invite God into our healing. This isn’t to say that our group time should become therapy. Rather, our group time should be an environment during which we may become more aware, as God works within us and around us, of where have been scarred and are, perhaps, living out of our scars instead of the new heart we have in Jesus.

To this end, here are 5 things to keep in mind:

1. Posture. Create and maintain a posture of listening. I’ve referenced this in other posts: the goal is for our prayer habits to emerge from relationships instead of requests. Clearly, prayer requests are a part of any effective group. That being true, I encourage you to avoid being dependent on this aspect of group life for developing prayer habits. Pay attention to clues both verbal and non-verbal, during group and outside of group.

2. Prayer. Commit to prayer. Keep a list. These days you can have your list of prayer needs with you all the time. In addition to a regular time commitment, voice prayer throughout the day as a way to maintain the posture described above. Begin your prayers with prayers from the Bible or specific passages that orient your heart, mind, and soul appropriately. (I like Philippians 4:4-9.)

3. Storytelling. As much as possible, allocate group time to storytelling. Leaders often take advantage of an ice-breaker or warm up time to get an element of storytelling into the group time. This practice gets group members talking and comfortable, which opens the door to more sharing of life, which leads to greater transparency. Questions about favorite vacations, childhood memories, challenges that have been overcome, Christmas traditions, and many others give everyone a chance to talk and open the heart.

4. Scripture. Scripture convicts. It exhorts. It empowers. It gives us rest. It also heals. Be sure the Word is given the appropriate measure of emphasis within the group. Truth that emerges from the gospel has the power to reach deeper into our woundedness with greater success than any other spiritual weapon at our disposal.

5. Discussion. This one is easy. Whether it’s because of giftedness, lack of preparation, or some aspect of group dynamics, sometimes we as leaders talk too much. Think about your questions, how you ask them, and how you set them up as a part of your preparation. Your questions need to generate meaningful dialogue as a reaction to biblical truth. Groups of adults need to talk. They need to work out their faith in community and under the leadership of a qualified shepherd. Discussion is very important.

Lastly, I would add the need to follow up with group members. I’m tempted to add “throughout the week” here, and that would be great, but really you just need to follow up. It’s encouraging to know that someone is thinking about you, so the regularity isn’t the most important piece. Group life remains a vital component as we guard our hearts. As group leaders we must be mindful not to put simple band-aids on what may be mortal emotional wounds. The war is real.

Brian Daniel leads the discipleship publishing team within Groups Ministry at LifeWay. He has written multiple small-group Bible studies and contributes to several blogs, including Walt Disney World News Today. He also co-hosts the Groups Matter Podcast Show with Rick Howerton and the SEC Spin Radio Show during football season. He and his wife Karen live in Hendersonville, TN, where he heads up discipleship at Grace Church. He has two daughters, Ashton and Schuyler. You can follow Brian on Twitter: @BCDaniel.

Group Leadership

Five Questions with Jonathan Dodson

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Back in June we ran a post entitled Three Environments for Disciple-Making about three spaces, or environments, to consider in your mission of making disciples.  The environments identified in this post were Life-on-Life, Life-in-Community, and Life-on-Mission. Rick Howerton and I have addressed notions of disciple-making environments on the Groups Matter podcast to some extent, but as a follow-up I wanted us to hear from the author of Gospel-Centered Discipleship, Jonathan Dodson. In Gospel-Centered Discipleship, Jonathan unpacks City Life Church’s approach to Life-on-Life groups, or what City Life calls Fight Clubs. It’s also worth noting that Jonathan is one of the contributors to the successful Disciples Path series that is now available. So it is in this spirit that I caught up with Jonathan Dodson for an installment of five questions.

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First thing, Jonathan, tell us about Fight Clubs. What is the objective of this disciple-making environment at City Life and how do you feel it is different from other disciple-making environments?

When we started the church almost ten years ago, we knew we would eventually be unable to disciple everyone. We were also planting in a city where sin is often celebrated and holiness is mocked. Every Sunday is a second Saturday, when you can even go to a “Sinner’s Brunch.” Yet, the Bible insists that without holiness, “no one will see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14). And in the midst of this, we wanted people to understand that holiness isn’t something you create. It originates with the Holy Spirit and is generated through belief in His gospel. So we wanted to avoid rules-driven “holiness” in favor of gospel-motivated discipleship. This motivational center makes Gospel-Centered Discipleship stand out among many practice-centered models. Enter Fight Clubs, groups of 2-4 men or women who gather regularly to repent of sin, rejoice in Christ, and reproduce disciples. We created Fight Clubs to stress the importance of faith that fights to believe God’s good and true promises and to reflect the glory and beauty of Christ in our world.

Our approach is not unique, but it differs from many Western models because it is communal. Not 1-1 but 1-1-1-1! C. S. Lewis is known for his love of deep, male friendship. When one of his friends died, he commented that the surviving relationships were not the same. The “third” friend brought out something in them that they could not bring out in one another. This is also true of female friendships. Communal discipleship picks up on this insight to foster shared urgency and wisdom for living like Christ in all of life.

Fight Clubs are in addition to ongoing groups. That is, you’ve asked for an additional commitment from Fight Club participants. How did you successfully introduce Fight Clubs to City Life Church as a disciple-making opportunity in addition to ongoing groups?

We’ve stressed the importance of holiness, the necessity of the gospel, and the opportunity of friendship. I make a distinction between friendship and community. Community is based on non-elective relationships; friendship is based on elective relationships. Basically, you get to pick your friends (Fight Club) but you don’t get to pick your community (City Group). Community is great for us because it creates an environment where we have to depend on the gospel to love and serve people who are different from us. Friendship is a safe place to work out discipleship challenges in a deeper way that takes longer in bigger community. The appeal of being known at a deeper level is something that resonates with people today.

To launch them, I preached a sermon on it and gave some guidelines and people started forming them all over the city!

Next question: We all know that leadership requires training.  How does City Life prepare leaders not only to facilitate Fight Clubs but also to begin new ones?

Discipleship has three primary contexts:

  • Informational—typically found in a classroom setting
  • Intentional relationships—found most often in community
  • Integrated into life—primarily understood within a cultural context

Our training process is limited and organic. I’ve written material to help people, so they read Gospel-Centered Discipleship, at least the last third of the book, and then discuss it and start a Fight Club. The classroom context is adequately addressed through sermons, city seminary, and seminars. People can take what they learn in the classroom context and apply it to Fight Clubs. We believe that while Fight Clubs are present in all three contexts to a degree, they are mainly driven by community and the rhythms of cultural life. These discipleship contexts require the least training.

Once a Fight Club grows beyond three or four, an individual or two will spin off and reproduce what they have learned. In this way our Fight Clubs become a pure apprentice model. We occasionally have a men’s or women’s event or retreat—which creates a context for friendship to form—and encourage event participants to seek out others who will fight the fight of faith with them. Like I’ve already said, Fight Clubs are friendship based. Because of this I don’t think the church should tell people who to be friends with. We need to seek that out for ourselves. This is what Jesus did with Peter, James, and John.

Here’s a purely functional question: What does a Fight Club “do” when it gets together?

Fight Clubs are simple and biblical in their content and follow a progression of Text-Theology-Life. (Well, they’re supposed to!) Often, discipleship groups follow Life-Theology-Text and never get to the biblical text. We catch up on life, share our sorrows, complaints, and temptations, but often fail to get to the source of wisdom, comfort, and power in God’s Word. In our Fight Clubs, we stress the importance of beginning with prayer to ask God for the power to change, and then move into shared reflection on a given biblical text, which over the week or two has raised all kinds of issues in our lives that the Spirit has been addressing. By the time you get to a Fight Club meeting, you’re eager to talk about how God is working through His Word to shape you. This becomes contagious and helps our friends see our responsibilities through the text and Christ-centered theology, instead of seeing life through only our responsibilities and failures or struggles.

How have you seen Fight Clubs contribute to the ministry of the church and the discipleship of Fight Club participants?

They have helped people get through very difficult seasons in marriage, parenting, doubt, and suffering. They are, in a sense, little counseling communities that enrich the church as a whole and make much of Christ. They don’t reproduce as often as I’d like, but it’s also hard to say goodbye to a friend. I get that. They can take the form of mentor groups, where I meet with a couple younger in the faith, or peer groups, where we are in generally the same place in life. Women and men do them, and we’ve had more women in them at times. Women don’t mind the name—they actually like it!

We don’t have youth Fight Clubs because most of our kids are elementary age and under, but many youth groups do them all over the country. I get texts and tweets quite frequently from youth pastors thanking me for the book and showing me their Fight Clubs in action! I look forward to forming those at City Life.

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IMG_1519It’s great to hear from Jonathan. I recommend you check out his blog at jonathandodson.org. You can follow him on Twitter @jonathan_dodson. He is the founding pastor of City Life Church in Austin, Texas, which he started with his wife, Robie and a small group of people. Jonathan tells me that he and Robie have three delightful (most of the time!) children. Additionally, he has helped start numerous missional organizations and is the founder of the resource ministry gcdiscipleship.com. He is also the author of Raised?: Finding Jesus by Doubting the Resurrection and The Unbelievable Gospel: Say Something Worth Believing.

Brian Daniel leads the discipleship publishing team within Groups Ministry at LifeWay. He has written multiple small-group Bible studies and contributes to several blogs, including Walt Disney World News Today. He also co-hosts the Groups Matter Podcast Show with Rick Howerton and the SEC Spin Radio Show during football season. He and his wife Karen live in Hendersonville, TN, where he heads up discipleship at Grace Church. He has two daughters, Ashton and Schuyler. You can follow Brian on Twitter: @BCDaniel.

Group Leadership

The Crucial First 90 Seconds of Any Small Group Meeting

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Whether you call it an ice breaker, a warm up, reflection time, or the opening, the way you begin a group is crucial. Usually I know how a group time is going to go within the first 90 seconds of the meeting. There is either energy, or there isn’t. I’ve either done a good job setting the mood, or I haven’t. Parameters and expectations have either been adequately articulated, or they have not. As a group leader, the first 90 seconds of the group time isn’t to be dismissed or taken for granted. It should be every bit as intentional as the rest of the time.

As I’ve created small group studies, edited them, and even led them, I’ve learned to give the first 90 seconds—the sharp edge of the spear—special attention. The idea here is to move the group from whatever they were just doing into the Bible study that you will expect them to engage. Remember, even though you might have been thinking about the group time in great detail for days, there’s a good chance your group members will think about it for the first time when they walk in the door—and maybe not even then. I’ve come to appreciate the ice breaker as an effective means for helping group members transition from the daily grind to a dynamic group Bible study experience.

While the transition is a functional objective, never forget that the first 90 seconds absolutely must establish a comfort level and engage each group member. That is, the ice breaker should get everyone talking and accustomed to hearing their own voice. So the question shouldn’t be too “heavy,” either emotionally or mentally, nor should it be too complicated.

LifeWay’s small-group Bible studies will have options at the beginning of each session that serve this purpose. Even so, I will still at times reserve the right to develop my own icebreaker based on my group’s make-up or maybe even the topic. Things to take into consideration when thinking through this part of your group time include topic, text, environment, and group composition. Here are few tips:

Topic: If you’re in a topical study of any kind, take the opportunity to draw group members into the conversation with a question that touches an emotional moment or connects with a recent cultural event. If the Bible study is addressing the value of work, for instance, ask about the worst job each group member has had. To connect with culture, you could ask something like, “What do you think is the most challenging aspect of being president of the United States?”

Text: Using the text gives you an opportunity to set a scene. Take the story of Gideon from Judges 6:1-13. A text like this plays directly to the idea of building a bridge from the group members’ daily lives into the group Bible study. Describe Gideon’s predicament, his frustration, the vicious cycles of destruction and loss that he’s seen, and how we meet him beating out wheat in the wine press as a defensive measure. Ask the group what they would be thinking or how they would feel in a similar situation. You may also ask how Gideon’s life compares to ours today. Either is an example of an open-ended question with an easy application that invites group members to contribute. I tell people to “mine the text.” Everything you need is already there.

Environment: Are you meeting in the evening, afternoon, or morning? Is it Monday, Thursday, Saturday, or Sunday? Are you in a public place or within the privacy of a member’s home? Just be aware of where people are and what they are coming from. After work on Monday is different from after work on Thursday, which is different from Saturday morning, and each day requires a bit of a different touch. On Saturday mornings I felt like my men’s group needs to be eased into our time, while I’ve found on Thursdays that people are ready to go. The way you begin your group time should take these environments into consideration.

Group Composition: My Wednesday night group is co-ed, while the Saturday morning group is a men’s group comprised of guys that want to be better, more godly husbands, employees, and fathers. On Wednesdays, I tend to be more traditional with the icebreaker. Because men typically aren’t the easiest crowd to get going for a Saturday morning group, however, I try to begin that group with humor. For instance, one morning the topic was about the distractions in our lives that disrupt our pursuit of holiness and discipleship. To open up the group, I read some of those crazy “wanted” posts on Craigslist as examples of crazy things that rob our hearts and thoughts.

Here’s the bottom line: the first 90 seconds are crucial to the success of your group time. It may not be the most important thing you do in your group life, but it will help your ministry if you give it more than a passing thought.

Brian Daniel leads the discipleship publishing team within Groups Ministry at LifeWay. He has written multiple small-group Bible studies and contributes to several blogs, including Walt Disney World News Today. He also co-hosts the Groups Matter Podcast Show with Rick Howerton and the SEC Spin Radio Show during football season. He and his wife Karen live in Hendersonville, TN, where he heads up discipleship at Grace Church. He has two daughters, Ashton and Schuyler. You can follow Brian on Twitter: @BCDaniel.

Group Leadership

The Crucial Element of Content

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The practice of adult small groups has come a long way in our churches over the years. From almost exclusively Sunday School to house churches to the small group movement in homes, coffee shops, and restaurants, we’ve seen groups grow in all sizes and disciplines, closed and open (remember that conversation?). In the last season of groups ministry we’ve seen discipleship groups and missional groups and affinity groups. We’ve been re-introduced to “community.” Largely due to this progression, we’re much more aware of the value of the discussion and the art of the question. And now there are hybrid programs with Sunday School and off-campus groups side by side within the same structure. Many of us are instituting the alignment approach. There’s been a lot of trial and error, frustration, and success, and there have been many good, redemptive results along the journey.  Amidst all the sound and fury over the last 30 years or so, here is my question: Are you serious about your groups? I mean, really. Are you serious?

There’s a creeping danger couched within our current approach to groups. At the core of the programs, the movements, our philosophical approaches and models, I’m wondering how often we really think about why we “do” groups. How often do we consider the end game of each group meeting and its objective? If we are not careful and attentive, our groups will increasingly begin to mirror a culture that lacks any capacity toward what Jesus referred to as “the weightier matters.” Community is biblical, relationships are human, and discussion can be edifying. While these components are essential, the north and south poles of any effective group or group ministry must be personal holiness and disciple-making. These poles orient us and equip us for moving forward as disciples of Jesus.

It’s this reality that makes it so alarming to me how infrequently curriculum choices and options pop up when I’m in conversations with group leaders. Can we really be serious about our groups if we are not intentional about curriculum? After all, this is the material that we’re trusting as a vehicle for transformation several times every week. Have you considered the complete experience of your groups? Do you plan your content so that your group members are getting a comprehensive discipleship strategy? Are you asking—even demanding—something from group members? Are group members being exposed to Scripture at the heart level, trained in doctrine, and taught how to apply truth to their days, weeks, and months?

At LifeWay, we have addressed this paradigm with what we have referred to internally as “starting points,” but it’s actually a scope and sequence—but with neither a scope nor a sequence. It’s really the best kind of prescriptive model, but it’s not actually prescriptive. I recommend that you consider putting your groups on a rotation that runs through theology, text, and life application using our catalog of small-group resources in the Explore the Bible, The Gospel Project, and Bible Studies for Life lines.

Explore the Bible: These 6-week Bible studies focus on specific biblical events, such as The Life of Abraham or The Sermon on the Mount, or on entire books of the BIble, like Hebrews. Each is easy to lead, and even though each of these studies begins with the text, it isn’t to the neglect of application or theology.

The Gospel Project: Our small-group versions of The Gospel Project feature specific theological positions. Each of these releases is also a 6-week study and includes short devotional experiences for each group member to complete between group meetings. Available studies include Kingdom Come, Longing for the King, Saved, God in Our Relationships, and God First. Studies in The Gospel Project series also include biblical application and Scripture.

Bible Studies for Life: The triad rounds out with a curriculum that helps group members work through their faith with life application. While Explore the Bible provides an in-depth study of the text and The Gospel Project explores the theological nuances, Bible Studies for Life addresses the common needs and concerns of everyday life by offering navigational skills rooted in biblical truths. Releases in this series include a DVD with short teaching sessions from the author. Titles include Resilient Faith, Storm Shelter, Overcome, Stand Strong, Distinct, and Like Glue and deal with a variety of topics of faith, such as dealing with adversity, living beyond your circumstances, depending on God’s promises, and family relationships.

Running your groups through theology, text, and life application seems like a natural rotation. Explore the Bible, The Gospel Project, and Bible Studies for Life represent a good mix of video, daily expectations, leader help, and group dynamics. Learning styles and progressive disclosure are also taken into account. In terms of making your groups into disciple-making enterprises, it’s hard to imagine a better engine than text-life-theology.

Brian Daniel leads the discipleship publishing team within Groups Ministry at LifeWay. He has written multiple small-group Bible studies and contributes to several blogs, including Walt Disney World News Today. He also co-hosts the Groups Matter Podcast Show with Rick Howerton and the SEC Spin Radio Show during football season. He and his wife Karen live in Hendersonville, TN, where he heads up discipleship at Grace Church. He has two daughters, Ashton and Schuyler. You can follow Brian on Twitter: @BCDaniel.