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Church Leadership, Group Leadership
March 12, 2018

I’m a Small Group Leader, and I’m Exhausted: Preventing Burnout in Your Groups Ministry

By Rob Tims

It’s all too easy to burn out when it comes to small groups. Pastors aren’t the only ones with ministries. Indeed, their ministry is to equip those who minister in groups! I suppose it’s questionable whether Jesus had the capacity to “burnout.” Mark 1:35-39 gives us a glimpse into the kinds of ministry pressures Jesus faced and how he dealt with them:

35 And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. 36 And Simon and those who were with him searched for him, 37 and they found him and said to him, “Everyone is looking for you.” 38 And he said to them, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.” 39 And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons.

As you can tell from verse 35, our ministry—in whatever capacity—is not merely about what we do for others, but about who we are in our relationship with God. Our ministry is first and foremost the fruit of our relationship with God, not what we do for other people. Ministers of the gospel are not monks, living in solitude with little to do with the people of the world; nor are they social activists, serving others to the detriment of their relationship with God. Small group leaders do not exist just to gather strangers into one room, without actually caring about the people who gather.

First and foremost, group leaders must not be afraid to ask for help. Contact your Groups Ministry leader, or seek advice from a mentor. If you must, have someone substitute leading the group one week. Sometimes it’s okay to not be okay.

The failure to prioritize our relationship with God and the refusal to rest will cause us to give in to the selfish demands or expectations of others, many of which will be “biblical” or “good” (vv. 36-37). The word “looking” in verse 37 carries with it the connotation of seeking to determine and control Jesus, not follow Him. Likewise, there will be those whom we minister to in our small groups who will demand things of us that may sound right or good, but are actually selfish and wrong for us and them. It’s only by remembering where our ministry comes from that we can be aware of such manipulation taking place. If we don’t remember this, we can quickly burn out.

Finally, a great deal of small group ministry burnout is related to the level of notoriety present in our small groups. This is not about number of attendees, Facebook friends, a “small group shout out” from the pulpit, or even the number of people who are directly impacted by our ministry. Yet groups of all shapes and sizes can have high degrees of notoriety. In verses 38-39, the disciples wanted Jesus to capitalize on his notoriety as a miracle work right then and there. Yet Jesus refused to build His ministry according to what made Him famous. Rather, He built it according to the Father’s will. So quit trying to be “the best”—this will keep you from burnout.

So how do we prevent burnout as group leaders? We constantly remind ourselves that our ministry is a derivative of our relationship with God, not what we do for God and others. This protects us from the selfish motives of others in our care, and keeps us from falling into the trap of a ministry driven by notoriety. Then, like Jesus, we can lovingly and confidently say, “This is why I have come.”

 

Rob Tims has been married to Holly for 17 years. They have four children: Trey, Jonathan, Abby, and Luke. He has served in the local church for 20 years as a children’s pastor, student pastor, and senior pastor. He currently serves on a team at LifeWay Christian Resources that develops customized Bible studies for groups and teaches two classes for Liberty University School of Divinity Online. He is the author of the book Southern Fried Faith: Confusing Christ and Culture in the Bible Belt.

Church Leadership, Group Leadership
March 8, 2018

The South and the Church

By Rob Tims

Growing up southern is a privilege. If you’re from the South, you understand my sentiment. The food alone is enough to justify permanent residence: fried okra, white rice with butter and sugar, green beans sautéed in bacon grease left over from breakfast. The South has good food and great people. I believe the nation’s kindest, best-humored people are Southerners. They will butter you up as they butter your corn bread.

Perhaps the thing I love most about the South is the church. I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s when the community had great respect for the local church because the local church served the community well. These are things the southern church does well. We are heartbroken and angry at the loss of virtue we see taking place in our country. We are hardworking people who want the best for our children and grandchildren. We see the Bible and its Judeo-Christian ethics as foundational to a healthy society, and we are not about to simply let it slip away without a fight. This is an admirable thing, but the great threat to such churches is that they fall in love with the work they do for God in place of God Himself. And God has nothing to do with such churches.

In some ways, the Southern church resembles the first body of believers in Laodicea. Jesus chastised that church for resembling its culture more than it resembled Him. In the same way that the Laodiceans found their identity in their community’s wealth, the church in the South tends to find its identity in being “southern.” Rather than resist the sinful tendencies of our culture, we tend to embrace them as part of our Christian personality. In doing so, we essentially operate without Jesus in the same way the Laodiceans did. Indeed, God would just as soon let a church full of hard-working, truth-loving, culture warriors disappear if they loved being that way more than they loved Him. As Jesus said to the church in Ephesus, “I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent” (Revelation 2:5).

Jesus had loving, straightforward messages for both of these churches. He urged the Ephesian church to do three things: remember Him, repent of their sin, and live accordingly. He called upon the Laodiceans to “open the door” and rekindle their relationship with Him. These same actions are called for today in churches across the American South, for we have grown comfortable with being southern more than being like Jesus. How, precisely?

First, we have an inclination to trust our emotions to guide us in making key decisions, often ignoring the truth of Scripture. While feelings are crucial to our faith, they must not be what we place our faith in.

Second, we prefer peacekeeping to peacemaking. We tend to avoid conflict all together or cave to whatever makes certain people happy or causes the least amount of turmoil. Keeping the peace is admirable, but making peace is biblical.

Third, we relish in our accomplishments more than Jesus’ accomplishment. In our quest to love others and help people walk with Jesus, we fall in love with our efforts and become legalistic people. As a result, we judge others more than we love them. We separate ourselves from them rather than live life among them.

Fourth, we have made church about us. We’ve come to believe that God and His church revolve around us instead of us around Him. As a result, we resort to personal gratification and guilt manipulation to coerce one another to participate in the church and its mission.

Finally, we fight harder for our earthly citizenship than our heavenly citizenship. We have fallen in love with the virtues that make our country great, treasuring them more than the gospel that brings them to bear. Love of country is biblical, but not at the expense of allegiance to the Kingdom of God. Early church history shows that the Ephesian and Laodicean churches did, indeed, remember, repent and act, restoring Jesus as their first love. The question before us southern Christians is whether we will follow in their footsteps.

This was an excerpt from Southern Fried Faith: Confusing Christ and Culture in the Bible Belt by Rob Tims.

Rob Tims has been married to Holly for 17 years. They have four children: Trey, Jonathan, Abby, and Luke. He has served in the local church for 20 years as a children’s pastor, student pastor, and senior pastor. He currently serves on a team at LifeWay Christian Resources that develops customized Bible studies for groups and teaches two classes for Liberty University School of Divinity Online. He is the author of the book Southern Fried Faith: Confusing Christ and Culture in the Bible Belt.

 

 

Church Leadership, Group Leadership
March 6, 2018

Links We Love

By Group Ministry

Four Ways I’ve Made It Through Difficult Seasons of Ministry —Ronnie Floyd 

Disappointment leads to discouragement in ministry. As I have shared with pastors before, you must see these times as seasons, meaning they come and go. Nevertheless, how do you make it through the difficult seasons of ministry?

Three Intentional Steps to Reaching Your Goals – LifeWay Pastors

The crowd at my local YMCA is getting thinner. And I’m not talking about waistlines. Approximately six weeks into the new year many who set the goal to “lose weight and get in shape” are no longer working on that goal. The thinning crowd is one example of how stating a goal is easy, but reaching a goal will require more of you than you thought. The same is true for your pastoral ministry. Someone, somewhere once said, “Goals are dreams with deadlines.”

5 Ways to Honor God Through Work – LifeWay Men’s Ministry

God has indeed made us, by gifting and by calling, for certain tasks. As we fulfill those tasks, we flourish, our families are strengthened, others are well served, and Christ is honored. We need, then, to discover and pursue our vocation.

Another Year of Fighting the Same Old Sin – LifeWay Women’s Ministry

As a ministry leader, do you ever have those seasons in ministry where you feel so frustrated when someone you care about confesses to you that they’ve once again given into sin? Why can’t they stop? Why must we have this conversation again? Or I thought we dealt with this a year ago—or 5 years ago or 15 years ago! What do you mean that sin is back and better than ever?

2 Underlying Beliefs that Make Us Drift from Grace – Michael Kelley

if you’re a Christian you might have once believed that it’s by grace alone that you are saved, apart from anything you can do. But self-justification is a slippery slope. Most of us have, at one point or another, drifted into believing that though we might have been initially made right with God only by His grace, we are kept in good standing with God based on our works. It’s easy to get there.

Church Leadership, Group Leadership
March 5, 2018

Why You Should Customize Your Bible Studies 

By Caroline Case

Choosing the best Bible study for your small group is like trying to find the pair of shoes that fit just right. You need a Bible study that will both support your members and enable them to go the distance in their faith journey. LifeWay offers a myriad of Bible studies for groups of all shapes and sizes, but there’s one brand that’s sure to fit your group just right.

Smallgroup.com is an online subscription service that offers customizable, discussion-driven, and video-enhanced studies to fit your church’s needs, preferences, and tastes. With a library of over 3,000 Bible studies, if our website doesn’t have a study you need, then the team at smallgroup.com will write one for you—custom. Our studies enable you to customize your discussion for any small group to have a discipleship experience consistent with your church’s vision. Our team has a passion to serve the people of God in their mission of making disciples, and we strive to do that by providing the best online tool for building the highest quality Bible studies for small groups.

So what are the benefits of a customizable Bible study? Below are three factors to consider when choosing your next study to enhance your group experience:

  1. Customizable Bible studies are personalizable. These studies fit the context of your specific church. Every church is different, and customizable studies provide the flexibility to both edit and enhance your group experience.
  2. Customizable Bible studies incorporate the specific vision and mission of the church in connection with the Scriptures. Although our commitment to Scripture is our first priority, we realize that there are multiple tools that can supplement your time in the Word of God. Smallgroup.com‘s studies are written by seminary-trained, degree-laden professionals from LifeWay Christian Resources. Everything we publish has the “stamp of approval” of being biblically accurate and theologically sound. You shouldn’t settle for less in your Bible studies.
  3. Customizable Bible studies that are supplemental to the sermon give the church a cohesive topic to study together. Through discipleshipincontext.com, we offer a subscription service that writes sermon series that align with your church’s messages. This lends to greater focus for discipleship within the church, especially when including studies for youth and children.

Caroline Case is a proud Nashville transplant from Naples, Florida, who serves as the Production Editor for LifeWay’s SmallGroup.com and Discipleship in Context teams. Caroline has a Bachelor of Communication from Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach, FL. She is pursuing her Master of Arts in English at Belmont University in Nashville, where she will go on to pursue her doctorate and teach.

Church Leadership, Group Leadership, Start New Groups
February 19, 2018

Leaders Can’t Do Everything

By Reid Patton

Most people look for leaders in the church like they are trying to fill a job—they look for the most competent person available. This may seem like a good idea at first, but it excludes people who may not appreciate the gifts they have. Having strong competent leaders is a blessing, but if you only seek out people who are ready to lead right now you are missing a great opportunity to build leaders through groups.

The reality is that not all leaders come to us fully formed. The best future leaders of your groups may be those who don’t show an ability or even a desire to lead right now. So how do we equip and identify leaders who do not come to us ready to hit the ground running?

We do it by equipping our current leaders to share the responsibility of leadership with others.

We build future leaders by refusing to do everything. Such an approach cultivates a culture where new leaders are continually being trained and sent out. This type of shared leadership is effective for at least a few reasons. 

  1. The best leaders are actually the ones who defer to others. Good leaders let different people lead in different areas. Most small groups include the following elements—teaching, praying, and cultivating relationships. Someone in your group is likely better at one of these things than you. As you identify this, encourage them to take ownership in that particular gifting.
  1. Developing leaders gradually allows group members to grow in their calling. Jesus didn’t send the twelve out immediately. They only went out after they spent time with Him and observed what He did. Gradually, Jesus gave the disciples responsibilities in the mission. They grew in their calling, as well as their ability to depend on Jesus.
  1. Refusing to do everything helps group members see that community is not dependent upon leadership or personality. Everyone loves to have a dynamic group leader, but groups are not about the leadership gifts of one person. Rather, groups are a conglomeration of individual members of the body of Christ coming together. Refusing to do everything trains the people in groups to take responsibility and see that a group is about everyone—not just the leader.

We build leaders by not doing everything. 

Reid Patton is a Content Editor for the Short-Term Discipleship Team at LifeWay Christian Resources. He is the thankful husband of Kristen and proud father of Ceile and serves with the Life Group leadership team at the Church at Station Hill in Spring Hill, Tennessee. In his free time, Reid likes reading, watching NBA Basketball and Auburn Football, and going to record stores. You can find him on Twitter @jreidpatton.

Church Leadership, Group Leadership, Uncategorized
February 16, 2018

The Lord is Close to the Brokenhearted

By Group Ministry

Psalm 34:18 teaches us that the Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Scripture also tells us that Jesus has overcome the world.

In light of the recent tragedy in Parkland, Florida, group leaders across America now have an opportunity to speak life and the truth of the gospel into members of their group that are hurting and broken or wondering how to feel. Click the links below to download two free Bible studies we hope will be helpful to you as you navigate this time with your groups this week.

God’s Embrace in Our Grief

Suffering Well with Others

Church Leadership
February 12, 2018

The Bible is a Crock-Pot, Not a Microwave

By Michael Kelley

If you’re not a great cook, there are two 20th century inventions that have probably positively impacted your life.

The first is the microwave. In 1945, Percy Spencer was working for a company called Raytheon. He noticed that while he was near a radar set, a candy bar melted in his pocket. The idea occurred to him that microwaves from the radar were responsible for the melted candy bar. To test his theory, he tried to cook popcorn and then eventually exploded an egg. With some modification, Raytheon filed a patent for the cooking process later that year.

The second is the slow cooker. Irving Naxon developed the “Naxon Beanery All-Purpose Cooker” after his Jewish grandmother told him how her mother would cook a stew for several hours in an oven. The invention gained popularity in 1970 when it was reintroduced under the name “Crock-Pot” when, after many women began to work outside the home, it allowed them to start cooking dinner in the morning before they left for work.

It’s easy to cook in both the microwave and the slow cooker. The only difference between the two is time. Well, time and taste.

Because what you’ll find is that you can cook a steak in the microwave, but it won’t taste great. Neither will it be tender. But if you put the same piece of meat in a Crock-Pot, it’s going to come out with a ton of flavor and much easier to chew. Simmering, it seems, changes the composition. It just takes a little longer.

While almost every Christian would acknowledge that reading the Bible is important, most treat the Bible like a microwave. We want an immediate answer to some issue in our life or our world. Or we want to have an immediate boost of good vibes. Or we think that reading the Bible is like a rabbit’s foot—that by looking at a few verses we are motivating God to give us what we want.

We want what we want now. Immediately. Microwaved. But the Bible doesn’t work like that. It’s less like a microwave and more like a Crock-Pot:

How I love your instruction!
It is my meditation all day long (Psalm 119:97).

As Christians, we aren’t meant to only turn to the Bible when we need some kind of quick spiritual fix. Instead, we are meant to simmer in the Word. To have our lives marinated by the truth we find there. To have the composition of our hearts and minds reformed according to the Bible. And that takes time. It’s a slow-cooking process. It’s not just getting in a quick 10 minutes here and there, but instead reading. And reading again. Thinking. Praying. Slowly.

Take your time, Christian. Simmer in God’s Word. Don’t rush through the truth. Memorize it and bring it to mind over and over again. Make sure, as you can, that your heart and soul have time to cook.

For one resource that can help you and your group simmer in God’s Word, check out the Daily Discipleship Guide from Explore the Bible. The Daily Discipleship Guide will allow you and your group to have daily devotions from the same biblical passage you study each week in your group.

Michael Kelley lives in Nashville, TN, with his wife, Jana, and three children: Joshua (10), Andi (7), and Christian (5). He serves as Director of Groups Ministry for Lifeway Christian Resources. As a communicator, Michael speaks across the country at churches, conferences, and retreats and is the author of Wednesdays Were Pretty Normal: A Boy, Cancer, and God; Transformational Discipleship; and Boring: Finding an Extraordinary God in an Ordinary Life. Find him on Twitter:@_MichaelKelley.

Church Leadership
January 22, 2018

The Global Gospel: The Case for Diversity in Our Churches

By Rob Tims

I had the privilege of visiting one of the churches I work with from time to time. I’m something of a student of church culture, so I always treasure the opportunity visit, talk with leaders and volunteers, and just generally get a feel for what God is doing in and through a local congregation.

This church is in a southeastern state. The city is 65% black, but the suburb the church sits in is 90% white. Interestingly, in visiting every Sunday school class for all age groups, I saw only two African Americans. You can do the math. To accurately represent the demographics of their suburb, I should have seen approximately 90 people of color among the 1,000 people present, and as many as 600 to more accurately reflect the city.

There are lots of reasons why this was the case, but it’s not the purpose of this post to examine all those reasons. We all wish that our churches looked more like heaven, and this church longs for it, too. And that is what I want this post to do for us: long for our churches to look like heaven.

In Genesis 12:2-3 (CSB), God announced the subject of the entire biblical narrative. To Abram the Lord said:

2 I will make you into a great nation,
I will bless you,
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you,
I will curse anyone who treats you with contempt,
and all the peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.

This reality is brought to fruition in the Book of Revelation, where we see a picture of God’s people from every tongue, tribe, and nation worshiping before His throne.

9 After this I looked, and there was a vast multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language, which no one could number, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands. 10 And they cried out in a loud voice:

Salvation belongs to our God,
who is seated on the throne,
and to the Lamb!

11 All the angels stood around the throne, and along with the elders and the four living creatures they fell facedown before the throne and worshiped God, 12 saying,

Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honor
and power and strength
be to our God forever and ever. Amen (Revelation 7:9-12, CSB).

The idea that God’s people are a blend of all peoples is not a secondary or tertiary issue when it comes to the gospel. Rather, diversity is core to the gospel. God invites His people to join in His overarching plan to redeem all people. As a redeemed people, we are included in His work to share the gospel to those who are lost. Jesus urged His followers, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt 28:19-20, CSB).

May we feel the weight of this, and may we make a concerted effort as individuals and as churches to live out the gospel in this way.

Rob Tims has been married to Holly for 17 years. They have four children: Trey, Jonathan, Abby, and Luke. He has served in the local church for 20 years as a children’s pastor, student pastor, and senior pastor. He currently serves on a team at LifeWay Christian Resources that develops customized Bible studies for groups and teaches two classes for Liberty University School of Divinity Online. He is the author of the book Southern Fried Faith: Confusing Christ and Culture in the Bible Belt.

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