Group Leadership

March 17, 2020

Four Ways to Deal With Tricky Questions in Your Group

If you teach a Bible study group long enough, someone is going to ask you a tricky question. It’s just bound to happen. It’s one of the most uncomfortable things that happen to group leaders. I’ve seen two categories of tricky questions in the groups I’ve taught. “Category 1 questions” are what I’m going to call “innocent” tricky questions. They are asked with pure motives, but can be hard for a group leader to answer. The second category of tricky questions is what I’m going to call “malevolent questions.” These tricky questions are not asked with pure motives. In fact, these are asked by group members when they are intentionally trying to stir up something in the group. Here are four ways to deal with each category of questions.

Four ways to deal with tricky, but innocent, questions:

ADMIT – Learn to use three powerful little words: “I don’t know.” It’s OK to admit that you don’t have an immediate response for the person. Use this when you really don’t care to address the question. You’ll earn people’s trust and respect by not simply making up an answer—because everyone knows when we do that.
AFFIRM – Say something to the person who’s asked the question like, “That’s a good question,” or, “You’ve helped me see this in a different way.” You can affirm their question, but you don’t necessarily have to stop to address it. Move on. Keep the lesson on track. Affirm the person by saying, “You’ve given me something to ponder.”
ASK – This is where it gets fun! Turn the tables, as Jesus did (Luke 20) and simply say, “Now that’s an interesting question—how would you answer it?” 9 times out of 10, the person is eager to share their insight. They asked you, but now you’ve asked them.
ACKNOWLEDGE – This is a cousin to the first solution above, Admit. The difference here is that you admit your lack of knowledge and you commit to do further study. You simply acknowledge that you don’t have an answer, but you also promise to do some further study and get back to the person and/or the group.

Four ways to deal with malevolent questions:

If you’ve ever been put on the spot intentionally by someone during a Bible study, don’t despair! This happened to Jesus at various times. In Luke 20 a group of men came to Him to trick Him, and He turned the tables on them. He wouldn’t respond to their question before they responded to a question He decided to throw at them. The result? They dared not ask Him any more questions! I think there is some humor in the Bible, and that’s one of the spots—I would have loved to have been there to see Jesus expertly handle a group of people with a malevolent question!

When you sense that a question has been asked to derail the study or to challenge you, take a deep breath, compose yourself, and choose one or more of the following ways to deal with that malevolent question:

DEFLECT – Deal with that potential barbed question by deflecting it. Say, “If I have time before the Bible study is over, I’ll get to that question. If not, I’ll visit with you after class. Let’s continue our study…” I never get to the person’s question (imagine that!). If I sense that the question was asked to do me or the group some level of harm, I always want to isolate the person and not give him or her a platform in front of the group. I always meet with the person afterwards.
DEFEND – On occasion, when I really do want to bring correction to the person asking the snarky question, I choose to respond. Jesus did this in Matthew 24 when He was asked an intentionally tricky question about which was the greatest command in the law. Sometimes the best course of action is to confront the person and give your response. Defend your position. Use Scripture. Stand your ground—but do it humbly and gently.
DIVIDE – This is a great response that normally puts the person in their place, and causes them not to ask challenging questions anymore. When asked one of those malevolent questions, say: “John has posed a hard question. Let’s divide into groups of 3 or 4 and work quickly to respond based on Scripture. Elect a spokesperson for you group. You have 5 minutes. Go!” What always happens is that the groups of people end up “policing” the person with the malevolent question. They put the questioner in their place using Scripture, and you don’t have to say a word. It also give you, the teacher, time to think about a response while the groups are doing their work.
DIG – Normally when you are asked a malevolent question, there’s a question behind the question. Do a little digging and find out the real issue. Say, “Wow—I didn’t anticipate that kind of question in our study today. Why do you ask that?” Continue probing with an even more pointed question, “Why is it important to you that we answer that right now?” or, “Help me see how that question connects to our study.” Just keep digging and ultimately the person will either back off, or that person will reveal the true reason he or she is putting you on the spot.

Ken manages the Ongoing Adult Bible Studies and Church Trainers at LifeWay. He has been a group leader for 6 years, and has over 20 years of church education ministry experience. He blogs daily about groups at kenbraddy.com.

Group Leadership

March 3, 2020

3 Ways to Use Silence in Your Group

By Chris Surratt

We are afraid of silence, especially as small group leaders. If there is silence in the room, then that means no one is talking. And if no one is talking, then we are surely failing as facilitators. But I believe we are missing out on an effective tool if we completely eliminate silence from a group meeting. There is something powerful about creating intentional space in a group meeting. In fact, there are examples throughout the Bible where silence and solitude are commended:

“After the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there was a voice, a soft whisper.” – 1 Kings 19:12
“a time to tear and a time to sew; a time to be silent and a time to speak” – Ecclesiastes 3:7
“My dear brothers and sisters, understand this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger.” – James 1:19
“I wait quietly before God, for my victory comes from him.” – Psalms 62:1

So how do we plan for and best utilize the power of silence in our small groups? Here are three ways to take advantage of silence in your group.

1. Use silence to encourage group members to speak.
It seems like an oxymoron to use silence as a tool for participation, but it works. An effective facilitator should only be talking 30 percent of the time. Remember that you have read the questions ahead of time. It will take everyone else a few moments to process the material before they are ready to answer. It’s uncomfortable to let a question sit there for a few beats, but if you can let the awkwardness go, that silence will eventually be broken by someone. You can miss a great conversation by speaking too quickly.

2. Use silence to allow a moment to sink in.
There will be moments during a Bible study where the group needs a few seconds to take in what was just read or said. Effective speakers use pauses in their speeches to make important points resonate. It’s the same thing with a group discussion. Next time a powerful verse is read or someone makes a thought-provoking comment, pause a second or two before moving on. Those two seconds of silence will make the moment stickier.

3. Use silence to meditate on Scripture.
Before launching right into prayer time at the end of the discussion, take a few moments to allow the group to meditate on the Scripture from the Bible study. Ask someone read a key verse or two aloud and then be silent as you allow God’s Word to prepare your hearts for prayer. This time doesn’t have to be long—maybe two to three minutes—but fight the temptation to break in too soon. Meditation can help lead to application.

Chris Surratt is a ministry consultant and coach with more than twenty years of experience serving the local church. Chris served on the Executive Teams at Cross Point Church in Nashville, TN., and Seacoast Church in Charleston, S.C., prior to becoming the Discipleship and Small Groups Specialist for LifeWay Christian Resources. He is the author of Small Groups for the Rest of Us: How to Design Your Small Groups System to Reach the Fringes. You can follow his blog at www.chrissurratt.com.

Group Leadership

February 24, 2020

All Means All, Whether Big or Small

By Group Ministry

by Michael Kelley

Pretty Seuss-ian title, right? But let’s get down to it:

We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God: those who are called according to His purpose.” —Romans 8:28

That’s arguably one of the most quoted verses in the Bible—the stuff that sympathy cards are made of. But there are two ways that I think we typically misunderstand this beautiful promise from God’s Word here.

The first way happens by replacing in our thinking the word “good” here for the word “comfort.” God does not work all things for the comfort of His people; He works all things for their good, and those are two very different things. A yearly physical at the doctor’s office might not necessarily be comfortable, but it’s good for us to have. And eating three gallons of ice cream might be a very comfortable thing for us to do on a Saturday but that doesn’t mean it’s good for us. The promise here, then, is not that we would, as the people of God, be supremely comfortable in our big houses with our big incomes and our big lives, but instead that God will engineer and work everything for our good. So what is that good, ultimately, for us?

That we might know Him in a deeper and more full way. That we would be conformed, little by little, into taking on the character of Jesus. And that we might learn the true value of the kingdom and the King and help others see the same. God is actively—all the time—working things for our good.

Couched in that promise is a three-letter word that deserves some extra attention, which is the second misunderstanding we might bring to this promise. The word in question is this:

“All.”

The way we read this word betrays our obsession with the big and important. When we read that God works all things together for our good, we tend to think of the most significant, life-altering situations we’ve ever experienced. We think of the cancer. The job loss. The death. The difficult relationships that go on for years. On the good side, we think about His miraculous provision during times of need. The healing. The wonderful friendship of another. The child. We take stock and look back over the course of our lives and realize that, in both the best and worst of times, God has been working for our good, even (and perhaps most especially) when we could not, for the life of us, perceive how.

But those are all big things. The milestones. The dividing markers. Curious, though, that the verse doesn’t say that God works the big events of life for our good. In fact, we could go so far and say that if we only think of this promise in terms of the “big” then we are failing to grasp the true—and somewhat ironic—immensity of what we find here. “All” is, if I could say it like this, much bigger than just the big things.

“All” means all.

It means the daily commute. The casual conversation over coffee. The date night with your spouse. The almost nightly discipline of your children. The prayer before dinner and the bedtime stories at night. “All” means all. “All” even goes beyond those events of which we are immediately aware. It means those things right now happening halfway across the world we have no idea about. It means political decisions made at the highest levels. It means acts of nature and random news stories we read about. Somehow, even these things are for our good. Such is the amazingly intricate work of God—that God might be working in yet unknown ways and in yet unknown people to provide for His people in yet unknown ways.

The group environment provides a unique opportunity to reflect together on “all”—not just the big, but also the small. It affords us a chance to view the everyday with new lenses, confident together of God’s enduring presence and work.

“All” means all. Breathe it in. Because it’s happening right now.

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, Group Leadership

August 8, 2019

Coaching Webinar Replay

By Group Ministry

Please enjoy this replay of our recent webinar: Developing an Effective Coaching System for Your Group Leaders.

Sponsor: Smallgroup.com

Resource: Group Answers Podcast

Group Leadership, Uncategorized

July 22, 2019

Free Groups Webinar on Coaching Leaders

By Chris Surratt

How can you develop an effective coaching system for your group leaders? That is the topic that we are going to tackle in this free webinar on August 6, 2019, 11am – 12pm CST. Here are a few of the questions that myself and our expert panelists will take on:

Why should a church offer coaches for leaders?
What do you look for in an effective coach?
What kind of expectations should you have for a coach?
How do you recruit coaches?
How do you train a coach?

Spots are limited, so register soon at the link below!

Church Leadership, Group Leadership, Uncategorized

May 21, 2019

Six Summer Strategies to Invigorate Your Group

By Group Ministry

by Reid Smith

By the end of spring, It’s not uncommon for groups to want to change things up for the summer instead of starting a new Bible study. This comes from a common felt-need to take a break and get refreshed before school, ministries, and so many other things restart in the fall.

However, if you only saw the summer as a chance to unplug, you’d be missing easy and effective opportunities to invigorate your group. Groups don’t have to break from being together in the summer and potentially breakdown their momentum of community-building. Rather, they can use this season to change gears with their regular meeting rhythms in order to find new ways to grow together in Christ.

Mix it up! Instead of your usual, say, Tuesday, 6:30-8pm time – decide to get together every other Friday for dinner and a movie together. If you meet weekly, try meeting every other week. Or everyone could plan to attend the same service and afterwards do an outdoor activity together.
Morph into a shared interest group. Discover who shares the same interests in your group and organize activities around them. Start out by asking:

“What do you enjoy doing the most with your free time?”
“If you could invite a few others to join you in an activity, what would it be?”
“What special interest, topic, creative hobby or sport do you enjoy doing?”

You don’t have to choose one! Create a “mixed shared interest group” out of the ideas that came up. You might do a specific topical study one week and then softball the next. Plan it all out, but don’t try to do too much; just enough to keep the relational connection and continue building upon the community that God has built so far.

Schedule it! Before the onset of summer, ask group members to bring their calendars to a meeting and plan around the dates people know they are going to be away. Before scheduling, appoint somebody to find out what is happening in your surrounding communities during the summer like farmers markets, festivals, outdoor concerts, etc. Besides community events, other examples of fun activities to put on the calendar include:

Going out to a restaurant together and/or the movies.
Grilling in a local park or the backyard of somebody other than your typical host.
Going to a sports event together or doing an activity everyone can get into like bowling, paddle-boating, volleyball, hiking, etc.
Taking a day-trip to the coast, mountains, or state/national park.
Watching July 4^th fireworks together (invite neighbors to join you and introduce them to others in your group).
Having group members pray for one person in their lives they can invite to your group by the end of the summer. (Take a meeting to pray for these people and for what group members hope to see happen in their personal lives by the end of the year.)

Plan a servant evangelism project together. Click HERE for ideas and select a project that would be low risk for people in your group and shows God’s love in practical ways.

Volunteer to help your church with an event or project.

Encourage group members to discover and develop their spiritual gifts. Here’s a simple three-step process: 1) Read and discuss 1 Corinthians 12; Romans 12:1-8; Ephesians 4:7-16; 1 Peter 4:10-11. 2) Have each one complete a spiritual gift assessment. 3) Affirm the outcomes for everyone and brainstorm how they could use them to build up the group in the fall.

Group members who wouldn’t take on new responsibilities for the group in the midst of a study might be willing to do so during the different pace of the summer. Seize this season to “test drive” potential co-leaders by giving them bite-size responsibilities that will help you implement any of the strategies above. Also, seriously consider sub-grouping by gender when you change things up in any of these ways because it will help relationships grow deeper and develop new leaders for future groups so more people can be impacted with the love and message of Jesus Christ!

Reid Smith has been equipping leaders in churches of all sizes and stages of growth for effective disciple-making since 1996. He currently serves as a Pastor of Groups at Christ Fellowship in Palm Beach County, FL and has been a contributing author for various publications, including LifeWay’s Ministry Grid. Learn more about how to start and multiply healthy groups throughout your church at www.reidsmith.org.

Church Leadership, Group Leadership

March 4, 2019

Free Small Groups Webinar

By Chris Surratt

Can small groups really work in smaller size churches? That is the topic that we are going to tackle in this free webinar on March 19, 2019, 11am – 12pm CST. Here are a few of the questions that myself and our expert panelists will take on:

What are the greatest challenges to groups in a smaller church?
What is the best type of groups system for a church that is just starting to offer small groups?
How do you best utilize your budget (or lack of one) for small groups?
What does leader recruitment, training, and care look like?
and many more

Spots are limited, so register for this free webinar soon here.

Chris Surratt is a ministry consultant and coach with more than twenty years of experience serving the local church. Chris served on the Executive Teams at Cross Point Church in Nashville, TN., and Seacoast Church in Charleston, S.C., prior to becoming the Discipleship and Small Groups Specialist for LifeWay Christian Resources. He is the author of Small Groups for the Rest of Us: How to Design Your Small Groups System to Reach the Fringes. You can follow his blog at www.chrissurratt.com.

Church Leadership, Group Leadership

February 26, 2019

Free Online Small Groups Cohort

By Chris Surratt

UPDATE: This group is now full, but if you would like to be considered for a future cohort, email Chris Surratt at chris.surratt@lifeway.com.

We can all benefit from spending time with other ministry leaders asking the same questions we are. That is why I am launching a free online cohort for church small groups point people. There will be six mandatory online meetings where you will have the opportunity to be a learner (ask questions) and a leader (teach others). We are keeping this group small, so if this cohort would interest you, register soon at the form below.

Church Leadership, Group Leadership

October 16, 2018

Take Sunday out of Sunday School if you want a Healthier Ministry

By Ken Braddy

“Sunday” is quite the misnomer. My understanding of Sunday School is that the best Sunday School happens after noon on Sundays and continues through late Saturday night six days later. As I’ve told training conference attendees before, “There isn’t anything ‘Sunday’ about Sunday School done right.” Sunday School done right is a 24/7 ministry that should find group members engaging with one another and their communities weekly.

“School” also may not have quite the right connotation about what happens in many Bible study groups. School is a term that may conjure up images of boring times, uninteresting subject matter, and teachers who didn’t “get us.” In many Sunday School groups, the teaching is discussion-centered and learner-centric. It is a far cry from the mental image some people have about Sunday School.

The best thing many of our groups could do is to take Sunday out of Sunday School. We should see Sunday School as a 24/7 ministry and not something we only do for an hour on Sunday morning. A few ways to do this include:

Contacting every absentee each week.
Fellowshipping together as a group regularly
Engaging in ministry as a group
Contacting and praying for one another throughout the week
Challenging group members to remain in God’s Word daily as they continue to wrestle with the truths discussed in the group’s Bible study

If Sunday School is only about Sunday, I believe it will struggle to be attractive to current and new members of our churches. It can be so much more than an hour of Bible study before or after the morning worship service. If, however, we take the “Sunday” out of Sunday School, it will become a vital part of who we are as the body of Christ. If we make Sunday School a true 24/7 ministry, its best days are still ahead.