Growth

November 18, 2020

November 9, 2020

Ten Ways to Welcome Seekers into Your Group

By Reid Smith

The best groups are high in health and impact for God’s Kingdom. For both to be true, a small group leader must be prepared to welcome people into their group’s life regardless of where they are at in their commitment to Christ and His Church. We reflect the beauty and greatness of our God when we accept one another just as Christ accepted us (Romans 15:7).

The more small group leaders know how to welcome and encourage people who are seeking truth and reaching out to God (whether they realize it or not) the more effective they will be with engaging them with the gospel in transformational ways. To that end, here’s ten recommendations for how you can welcome spiritual seekers, build relationships with them, and inspire everyone to grow in their relationship with Jesus!

Don’t assume. Consider newcomers as seekers until you learn otherwise. Believers who are new to a Christian gathering tend to convey something about their faith/church commitment up front. If they do not, chances are they either do not have a relationship with God or may not have a strong one. It’s important to avoid making assumptions about what your guests believe. Rather, look for ways to affirm the truth God has already started to impart to them as Paul did in Athens (Acts 17:22-23, 28-29).
Be a connector. Warmly introduce seekers into your small group and connect them with a few people as they come in, helping them to strike up conversations before your study begins. If possible, learn a little about them before they show up to their first meeting as this will help you to introduce them to others in a more personal way. Do your best to remember facts they share about who they are, their family and friends, and how they found your group. Use what you know about them to ignite conversations with other group members. The likelihood of seekers returning increases by at least 50% if they experience a sense of belonging through connection with others.
Empower them. Find out what subjects your truth-seeking guests have an enthusiasm or expertise in and talk about that! People like to talk about things they know about. Seekers will feel more empowered and comfortable talking about things of interest to them. If you listen with interest, you will show that you are interested in them as people and they won’t feel like a project.
Introduce your group. Take a minute on the front end to say what your small group is about and invite input from others so that guests can get exposure to some of the other personalities present. In a small group situation, most people prefer to get a good feel of the dynamic before jumping into the discussion. The more free people feel to participate, the more likely it is they will return.
Include and affirm. Prioritize seekers in your small group time by making it a goal to help them feel safe and a valued part of the gathering. Look for ways to include them socially and affirm any contribution they make to the conversation. One of the simplest ways of helping a newcomer feel ‘at home’ in your small group is to repeatedly call them by their first name. Express appreciation for their input. When seekers say something that does not harmonize with Scripture, don’t be surprised or correct them. Rather, be positive and say something like, “Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us!” Discipleship happens through trust-filled relationships that develop over time.
Break it down. Use relational terms to explain theological concepts in your Bible study. For example, salvation is having a relationship with Christ or being friends with God now and forever. Redemption is Jesus helping us to connect with God and know Him. Do your best to stay away from Christian jargon.
Don’t over-accommodate. Most newcomers like to be acknowledged but may not like to stand out or be spotlighted in front of a group…so don’t focus on them. If you keep things normal, your small group will feel more natural and comfortable to them. You can be sensitive to your small group’s form without changing its function. Be yourself and allow the group to be itself. Don’t hesitate to pray or worship in your group if seekers are present. Sometimes this is exactly what God uses to gather lost people to Himself (see Acts 2:46-47.) If somebody needs prayer, pray for them. If you are planning to worship, just do it. Don’t attempt to explain it for seekers. They likely want to see things how they really are and would rather not have you disrupt the flow of what you do on their account.
Talk about being difference makers. Healthy groups have regular conversations about how they can be Jesus’ hands and feet and impact our world with His love and message. Don’t miss the opportunity to demonstrate to seekers in your midst that you genuinely want to show God’s love to people and make a difference in your community. Have that conversation spontaneously or just say you would like to talk about it next time. This allows you to revisit your group’s commitment to evangelism and shows spiritual seekers that your group is…
- Outward-thinking and it’s not all about those in your small group—this actually helps guests feel safer because it makes the communal nature of your group feel less cultic and more caring.
- Serious about making a commitment to share God’s love and grace to a waiting world. People want their lives to make a positive impact on others. This helps them to see that your small group can help toward this goal, making group time a worthwhile investment of their time.
Have a soft landing and end on a high note. When you have truth-seeking guests, leave plenty of time for people to socialize at the tail end of your group. Newcomers tend to be interested in being more personal toward the end of a group than the beginning. This will give time to connect your small group members to guests further and have fun and relaxed conversations. Also, studies show that when something ends positively the entire experience becomes a good memory for people, and one they are more apt to repeat. In private, let newcomers know how much you appreciated them coming and that you really hope you get to see them again!
Don’t hesitate to follow-up. Let your guests know you hope to see them again! If a seeker came with somebody, encourage their friend to welcome them back. Sometimes small group leaders hold off from following up in this way because they are afraid of being intrusive or coming across as pushy. Most guests appreciate this act of kindness and it makes your small group more inviting overall. If you do not risk the remote possibility of coming across as intrusive in your follow-up, newcomers may feel like they are intruding. Revisit prayer needs when you follow-up with them by naturally weaving them into your conversation. This shows you were listening and that you care.

You want group members to have more than permission to invite their friends…let them know you WANT them to invite their friends. This attitude is one of the greatest contributing factors to a small group making an evangelistic impact. Small groups can and should always serve to encourage personal outreach.

A small group that has an open home, open hearts, and open hands is a group that is replete with life-giving possibilities. By following the ten recommendations above, you will create an environment where the hospitality of biblical community will receive and reach many spiritual seekers for Jesus Christ!

Reid Smith has been equipping leaders in churches of all sizes and stages of growth for effective disciple-making since 1996. He lives in Wellington, Florida where he serves as a Groups Pastor at Christ Fellowship. You can find more of his helpful resources at www.reidsmith.org.

Group Leadership

September 28, 2020

Three Ways to Improve Your Bible Reading

By Group Ministry

By Susan Hill

Charles Spurgeon said, “Nobody ever outgrows Scripture; the book widens and deepens with our years.” Sadly, biblical literacy is on the decline. A poll in Christianity Today revealed that only 19 percent of church-going Christians read their Bible every day.1 Tape-recorded readings of the Bible have proven that an individual can read through the entire Bible in seventy-one hours. That means it would take no more than 15 minutes each day to read through the Bible in less than a year.2 Perhaps you already engage in Bible reading every day and want to make the most of your time in God’s Word. Or maybe you’ve not been in the habit of spending time in the Scriptures, but would like to start. Here are three suggestions for getting the most out of Bible reading.

Pray before you read. The Psalmist wrote, “Open my eyes so that I may contemplate wondrous things from your instruction.” (Psa. 119:18) One of the roles of the Holy Spirit is to illuminate the Scriptures for us in a way that helps us understand them (1 Cor 2:14). When I approach the Scriptures, I want to learn things that I couldn’t know apart from the Holy Spirit revealing them to me. So before beginning my Bible reading, I often pray, “Holy Spirit, I pray you will teach me things I could not know apart from you.” Also, as I come across things in the text that I don’t understand I ask God to reveal the meaning. The answer doesn’t always come right away, but I’ve learned that if I continue to pursue the meaning of a text and pray for guidance, the answer comes.

Meditate on the text. There’s a time and place for reading large sections of Scripture in one sitting, but it’s also beneficial to read a small section (perhaps a chapter or two) and choose a key verse upon which to meditate. Unfortunately, many Christians in the West have abandoned the practice of meditation because it has become associated with Eastern religion. But meditation is a thoroughly biblical concept. Psalm 119:15 says, “I will meditate on your precepts and think about your ways.” Meditating on Scripture will increase our understanding of the text. People often claim they don’t know how to meditate, but that’s not true. If you are capable of worrying you already know how to meditate. To meditate is to turn something over and over in your mind and to think about it from every possible angle.

Interact with the text. As we read the text it’s crucial that we ask ourselves, “What did the original author intend to convey in this passage?” It’s important to take note of the context and look at the surrounding verses. Be sure to ask questions of the text. What is God revealing about Himself in the passage? Does the passage contain truths about God that prompt you to praise Him? Are there imperatives in the text that motivate you to pray for the grace to obey? Does the passage lead you to confession because it sheds light on your sin? Incorporating God’s Word into your prayer life will bring vitality to your prayers like nothing else. Hebrews 4:12 says, “ For the word of God is living and effective and sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

As Christ-followers we are called to be people who study and obey the Word of God—and in doing so, we’ll come to know the Author. There’s nothing more satisfying than pursuing a relationship with Christ through the study of God’s Word, so let’s be people who are immersed in the Scriptures.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2014/october/biblical-illiteracy-by-numbers.html
Donald S. Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines For the Christian Life, (NavPress, 1991, 33).

Susan Hill is a writer, Bible teacher, and full-time editor at LifeWay. She is the author of Dangerous Prayers: 50 Powerful Prayers That Changed the World, as well as numerous devotional books. She and her husband John live near Nashville, TN with two unruly Golden Doodles.

Start New Groups

September 24, 2020

Three Signs It’s Time to Start a New Group

By Dwayne McCrary

As we begin to regather, creating more Bible study groups will be essential if our churches are to impact our culture. Here are a few things we as leaders can look for so we know when it is time to give birth to a new group.

Discussion is a challenge

Discussion can be a challenge no matter what size of group we lead, but this is especially true of larger groups. God created us as relational beings. Not being able to interact with others creates short-circuits our minds were not made to handle. We want to interact with others. Some of us have found ourselves talking to neighbors we would have avoided prior to March of 2020 simply for face-to-face interaction during the pandemic. Here is the issue when it comes to groups: the larger the group, the less likely substantive discussion will occur during group time. We will know it is time to start a new group when people hesitate or measure their words during discussion in a way they did not before.

There are no open chairs

Most leaders love a full house. We feel successful in our roles when all the spots are filled. But a full room works against involving more people in the Bible study. A full room may make a leader feel satisfied with less urgency to reach out to potential new members. No empty chairs may lead a first-time attender to feel they were not expected and give the impression they are an intruder. On the other side, the group itself may stop inviting newcomers for fear of losing their spot or feeling crowded. Open spots remind us to keep inviting people to join in Bible study. Creating a new group leads to room for more to be involved.

The group has been together for more than 18 months

Staying together for too long is not exclusive to ongoing groups. Groups that are reshuffled every year or six months will often have people who work around the system and find a way to stay together. Leaders may accommodate these arrangements since we would rather people be in a group than be working against us from the outside. Yet, the longer a group is together, the more difficult it is for an outsider to break into the group. A person in the group loses his job and the others rally around him during the transition. Another person has a medical crisis and the group walks beside that person through some deep valleys. These types of experiences create connections and identity within the group but people who join the group after that experience may have a hard time catching up. In this way, the group becomes functionally closed. While we strive for these types of connections, it is important that they do not become so ingrained that no one else is welcome.

We have reviewed only three signs that it may be time to start a new group. What other signs do you look for that tell you it may be time to start a new group?

Dwayne McCrary is a team leader at LifeWay, adjunct professor at Midwestern BTS, and a BIble study leader in the church he attends.

Group Leadership

August 20, 2020

Challenging Paradigms

By Group Ministry

By Reid Smith

All of us come to the table with our own experience, biases, and presumptions about what works best with starting and multiplying healthy groups in a church. Over time, paradigms (or ways of thinking) about groups formulate in our minds, which in turn influence the culture of the community being built. This is natural, but should be challenged so that the culture of community in your church is being shaped strategically around informed convictions instead of unchallenged paradigms.

One of the best ways of challenging paradigms is by asking questions. As you search God’s Word and your heart, your paradigms might change or be further solidified. These inquiries are meant to be thought-provoking and are good to process with other trusted leaders whether or not you’ve launched groups in your church yet.

Are you ready to begin building a strategic culture of community in your church? Clear your mind and honestly grapple with these 10 questions:

Do you think of groups as a “ministry” of your church or as the building blocks of every ministry area of your church?
Is there a clear vision for groups? What language does leadership intentionally use to support this vision?
Does your church put more emphasis on joining or starting groups? What are the pros and cons of the language leadership uses to support this emphasis?
Do you consider it to be more advantageous to have a broad/open-ended or narrow/specific definition of what constitutes a “group” in your church? Explain.
What is the primary motivation of getting people in groups (retention, member care, increasing engagement in church activities/volunteerism, spiritual maturity, mission, etc.)? Are other critical things being under-communicated as a result of this emphasis?
On a scale of 1-10 (with ‘1’ being “if I have time and feel like it” to ‘10’ being “a vital spiritual habit I prioritize weekly”), how important do you think your average church member views their personal involvement in a group? Explain.
What are the qualifications for serving as a group leader? Would you consider yourself to have a high or low bar? Explain.
Do you have an ongoing rhythm of equipping leaders once they get started? Describe any gap you see between what this looks like now and what you hope it will look like.
What does success look like to your group leadership? How is it measured and celebrated?
How is growth and multiplication built into the way groups are communicated and stewarded in your church?

It is actually a good thing if you’re walking away from this exercise with more questions than answers. Take time to figure out how the Lord wants you to plant, prioritize, and prune your group life so that Christ-centered community can grow healthy and strong.

If you’re not the Lead/Senior Pastor, then find a way to process these questions together, agree on responses, and document them. This will establish and maintain a strategic culture of community that will start and multiply healthy groups throughout your church moving forward.

Group Leadership

August 6, 2020

Leadership Investment Rhythms

By Group Ministry

By Reid Smith

Intentional investments made over time into developing group leaders will empower them to create healthy environments where biblical community can grow. This requires meaningful touchpoints in different ways with enough frequency that leaders feel known, loved, included, and challenged and they continue learning and growing.

Different leaders need different kinds of care. This care will look different for each leader based on their experience in leading groups. There are repeatable investment rhythms you can easily put into motion to build relationships for healthy leadership development. A group leader will fall somewhere on the spectrum of new to experienced. For simplicity sake, we will only look at these two general categories:

New leaders typically want time to interface with you in person and be connected with other leaders. They are helped by a higher frequency of touchpoints that are more personalized. You want to love on these leaders and provide ample attention and direction, especially within the first few months as they begin leading.

Experienced leaders typically prefer a lower frequency of touchpoints that don’t require as many in person meetings. They need to know you’re there and care, but they don’t need the same level of engagement as new leaders. Keep these people in the loop and show your appreciation for them.

NEW	EXPERIENCED
Pray for them regularly Call or text 1x/mo* Meet in person 1:1 or group format 1x/1-2 mos Send email or note 1-2x/mo Visit group twice in first 6 mos Be available as needed	Pray for them regularly Call or text 1x/mo Meet in person 1:1 or group format once per semester Send email or note 1x/mo Visit group 1x/yr Be available as needed

* Weekly frequency during their initial training & up through their first study

The concept of “span of care” applies as the scale of your group leadership grows. For example, let’s say you have eight group leaders. You’ve built relationships with them over time and have been able to provide the necessary care, but you want to do more. About this time, four new leaders emerge out of these groups who are eager to launch their own groups.

You quickly realize that you can’t maintain the same level of care with your first wave of leaders and also pour into the next wave. To meet this growing demand, you select one of your most capable and available leaders to function as a “coach” and invest into half of your experienced leaders (4) and half of the new leaders (2). Instead of your span of care becoming unmanageable at twelve, you equally divide care for the whole group of leaders between you and your new coach resulting in a 1:6 span of care.

Keep in mind that span of care is an elastic concept in practice. For example, coaches with greater margin and leadership competency can care for a greater number of leaders. Yet, it is important to continually assess what level of care leaders need because even the most experienced leaders face personal crises and challenges in group life that will require greater investment at times.

Occasionally, you and your coaches should plan to substitute an in-person touchpoint with a half-day retreat or conference that will develop your leadership community. There is an array of top-notch content available on demand for this type of setting. Adding variety into how you invest in your leaders will help guard against these rhythms falling into ruts.

The table above can serve as a rule of thumb to help you determine what healthy investment rhythms should look like in your church as you assess the maturity and specific needs of your group leadership.

Group Leadership

July 30, 2020

Three Ways to Overcome During Difficult Seasons

By Deborah Spooner

What does it take to be an overcomer?

As you launched your groups at the beginning of this year, you likely had certain goals set—solid ideas of what success would look like and hopes for conversations, relationships, or service opportunities that your group would progress toward as meetings continued. Then, challenges—as they always do—arose.

Yet, the challenges of the past several months have exceeded even the typical trials of life. A pandemic is causing chaos. Many are dealing with the long lasting economic consequences. Churches are facing difficult decisions for reopening and are seeking how to best serve as the body of Christ. Groups are facing childcare challenges amid social distancing. Mental health is a growing concern. Relational dynamics are being pushed to their limits.

Yet in the midst of this difficulty, we all have opportunities to overcome. As your group members work through external challenges that often pose internal struggles, here are three ways you can step in to help.

Ask Core Questions

As circumstances around us reveal deeper realities transpiring within us, you have the opportunity to have crucial conversations with members of your group. They might realize they are struggling in particular areas: relationally, emotionally, or spiritually. Questions they’ve grappled with beneath the surface about God, purpose, or their identity might now be on the forefront of their minds. Asking questions such as “What are you learning about God in this season?”, “What sin is God revealing to you during this time?”, “What thoughts and questions are taking up a lot of your time?”, or “In what areas of your life do you feel defeated?” can lead you towards Christ-centered conversations, gently helping your leaders dive deeper into how the truth of the Bible can help us overcome weakness.

Remember Brokenness

Many group members may feel discouraged, defeated, overwhelmed, purposeless, or tractionless during this time. In a lot of ways, many of us are coming face-to-face with the simple reality that we are not in control. Even though we might have believed we could control our next hour, day, week, or year, it has been made clear that so much is beyond our grasp. This can make us feel helpless and broken, unable to succeed in loving others, in our jobs, or in our ministries as we once did. However, we can remind our group members that this brokenness is human and points us to the Perfect One—Christ. He can show us the way to overcome. Instead of focusing on our failures and brokenness, we can overcome through turning our eyes to the truth of what Christ says about us and how He enables us to face each day.

Pursue the Overcomer

Even when much seems out of our control, we can still choose how we spend our time and where we fix our thoughts. Encourage your group members to overcome the challenges of this time through pursuing the Overcomer by spending time in the Word and in prayer. Challenge them to join with one or two other group members (even if virtually) for prayer, Bible reading, and accountability whenever possible. Encourage them to memorize key verses that can fill them with hope and strength throughout the day. Challenge them to set reminders on their phones to stop and pray throughout the day for their own situations and for others in their group. The best way to overcome is to consistently seek out the Overcomer who sought us first.

Even though this season is challenging, there is hope. Overcoming is possible. Through whatever means possible, encourage your group not to lose sight of this.

If you’d like additional resources on core questions of who we are and how to Overcome (where some of these ideas are expanded), check out the two Bible study resources below. These are available as DVD kits with teaching sessions for group use or as digital video sessions for group or individual use.

Overcomer Bible Study

Many people feel they are less than who God says they are. We get our identity from our careers, our political positions, our roles in the family, and a number of other lesser things. However, when we understand who God is, we more fully understand who we are. This small group study uses clips from the film Overcomer to examine how we determine our identity and how we can find our true identity in Christ (5 sessions).

Defined Bible Study

When you introduce yourself to someone for the first time, you have an opportunity to define yourself. You disclose your name, profession, and interests. These factors help our culture define us, but are those answers enough? There are bigger answers our culture can’t answer: Who am I? Why do I matter? And before asking, who am I? You must first answer, who is God?

The Scripture teaches that we are all made in the image of God. We do not define ourselves–the Creator does. We were all created to be known and loved by God. Once the answers are clear, we can move forward and discover all God has called us to be (8 sessions).

Group Leadership

July 20, 2020

Five Reasons We Need Unchurched People in Our Groups

By Dwayne McCrary

After the Spanish flu pandemic, believers expressed a renewed interest in Bible study groups. We can certainly see why today! We miss the community found in the company of other believers. Talking through a Bible passage and listening to how others receive the truths found in that passage encourages us to process the passage further and gives us food for thought. We come to understand that our questions and doubts may be close to normal. The value of these groups is seen further through time spent praying with one another in person.

However following the Spanish flu, some began to see Bible study groups as places for believers to be nurtured and moved away from groups built for all people including the skeptic, searcher, and non-believer. People who are not yet believers need to study the Bible and we need them to be in our groups. Here’s why.

We need the dialogue. The longer we live as a believer, the more likely our friends will be believers. We begin to talk in “believer” terms and lose our “unbeliever” dialect. Losing some of that language is a good thing, but we must still find a way to communicate with unbelievers. We are called to share the gospel and we need contact with unbelievers to do so. Keeping our Bible study group open to all people puts us in a position to share the gospel more readily.
We need the accountability. In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul called on them to imitate him as he imitated Christ (11:1). The Corinthian believers needed someone to show them what a follower of Christ looked like and Paul was willing for them to examine him. By placing himself on this pedestal, Paul was making himself accountable to all who were looking to him as an example. We need to know others that need an example and we need the accountability to be such an example.
We need to remember. The longer we live as a believer, the more likely we are to forget the guilt, the search, and the sense of lostness that comes with being separated from God. Losing that sense impacts our gratitude for the cross and the salvation Christ provides us. We need to always be mindful of the grace granted to us.
We need to be challenged. We sometimes get comfortable with our beliefs and rarely revisit them. Being around unbelievers will lead us to explain why we believe what we believe. Doing so will help us refine and sharpen our beliefs, while keeping us from becoming complacent about what we believe and why.
We need to learn to love. We are directed to love our neighbors, all of them. The best way for breaking down a “them” and “us” mentality is spending time with whomever we consider to be “them.”

The believers in Bible study groups that purposefully remain open to all who join gain a great deal from the presence of unbelievers. Believers need those who don’t yet follow Christ to be in our Bible study group just as much as they need to study the Bible for themselves.

Dwayne McCrary leads some teams that create ongoing Bible study resources at LifeWay including Explore the Bible (goExploreTheBible.com). He teaches two groups in his church (one for empty nesters and one for three year olds) and is an adjunct professor at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City.

Group Leadership

July 16, 2020

8 Keys for Building a Community Culture

By Group Ministry

By Reid Smith

Culture is something you feel. Every group of people and organization has a distinct culture. It’s the water in which you swim when you’re hanging out in an environment or with a group of people. It’s what you experience through all your senses when you are gathered with others who are included in it.

You, for example, are experiencing more than just coffee when you sit inside a Starbucks. There is a culture that has been intentionally and artistically created to entice customers to return and build brand loyalty. Although our motivations differ, church leaders want people to return and consistently engage in community life for infinitely more important reasons.

Pastors love it when people say their church feels like family. It’s always a win when folks say they feel like they belong and enjoy connecting with others each week. However, most leaders are not conscious about all the factors that contribute to this. The DNA of culture must be deliberately molded, and just like a potter with clay, it is best to do this at the very beginning of a new work.

Regardless of where you consider yourself in building a community culture in your church, here are eight keys I’ve discovered along the way that will help in this process:

Discern God’s plan for building community in your church and reaching your surrounding community with the power of the good news. It’s safe to assume the Lord is already at work building His church where you minister and your primary job is to figure out how that’s happening. Invariably, it will be a community of two or more people pursuing Christ together. So how is God already moving in your midst to reach the lost?
Decide together with your core leadership team how everyone will prioritize community and relationship-building. How will each one live it and lead it? The involvement of pastoral leadership in a church’s community life is the linchpin to the ongoing growth of biblical community. There is no substitute for what the most influential and visible people in the church model and advocate, particularly on the weekend.
Don’t allow groups to be viewed as another ministry program/department of the church or as something that good Christians do. A programmatic paradigm can be lethal to the life of organic community. It is not groups that we’re after ultimately…it’s what happens in groups. Biblical community empowers believers and churches to function as the body of Christ should (Rom 12:4-5; 1 Cor 12:21-27).
Dedicate resources towards building community. Invest time, energy, and money into the leaders and resources that serve as the life source of community in your church. By virtue of resourcing this area of your church, you will be enhancing all areas. There is no shortcut to healthy ministry that flows out of healthy relationships.
Discover who is gifted in communications and beat the drum of community every chance you get. You want to show and tell people what you believe about the importance of biblical community in their spiritual growth and well-being. Use all forms of communication: platform, print, digital, visual, and stories to convey what God is doing through the community life of your church.
Design a community life calendar and include no less than three church-wide opportunities per year for people to get plugged in. Present new ways for people to get connected in new types of groups. Feature existing groups and new group startups in your weekend announcements, website, social media platforms, slides, etc.
Determine that every event you host or program you run will be used as an opportunity to help people take their next step toward greater engagement in your church’s community life. Churches tend to pour a lot of time and energy into planning events but the next step for people to take is an afterthought. Flip this. When events are built around a clear next step, more people are inspired to actually do something and you’ll see measurable fruit from your organized activities.
Devote yourself to building a community culture. The journey will be filled with successes and setbacks, but stay with it. Study churches that do it well and read books by leaders who are community building champions themselves. Attend groups conferences and take staff and key volunteers with you. In other words, be a learner and take others along with you. Never settle.

This is all worth doing wholeheartedly because healthy spiritual relationships are essential to a growing relationship with Jesus Christ (Hebrews 10:24-25; 1 John 1:7, 3:14, 4:20). Furthermore, when spiritually lost people come to a loving community, they tend to come to Christ (Acts 2:47; John 13:34-35; 1 John 4:12). Building a community culture is not optional for a church that wants to advance God’s mission in the world and these keys will help you and your team in the process.

Church Leadership

February 28, 2020

6 Ways to Overcome the Imposter Syndrome

By Group Ministry

By Aaron Earls

Most church leaders can recognize the damage prolonged doubt can have on their ministry.

It’s hard to lead people in following God when we’re struggling with significant doubts about who He is and what He has done for us.

However, many church leaders wrestle with doubts about God while not recognizing it as such or even seeing it as humility.

Many of us deal with “imposter syndrome,” which is feeling like a fraud who doesn’t belong in your position or have the competency to continue there.

We believe we are completely inadequate, and we just hope no one else notices.

Yet we fail to see such feelings as doubting God’s sovereignty in placing us in our current role—be it senior pastor, church staff, small group leader, or simply an influential member.

God’s role in situating individuals is not limited to Esther being made queen “for such a time as this.”

The same sovereign God placed you where you are. No amount of imposter syndrome can change that.

But as you sense those feelings stir in your mind, consider these tips for overcoming the imposter syndrome.

1. Recognize who deals with it.

The most basic lie associated with the imposter syndrome is that you and you alone are feeling this way.

Everyone around me seems to have it all together, but I’m struggling to get through the day.

In reality, virtually everyone feels like a fraud—at least occasionally. Some researchers have estimated 70% of the population confronts such feelings.

2. Note when it most often occurs for you.

Different situations are more likely to spark feeling like an imposter more than others. Keeping this in mind can help you better prepare for it.

Maybe you often feel like an imposter in the middle of success. For some, it may grab you right after a failure. Embarking on a new assignment may spark it in others.

3. Remember past victories (and failures).

More than likely you’ve achieved success in a related area in the past. You’ve probably also failed before.

Yet you’re still here and someone has enough confidence in you to place you in your current situation.

It’s important to remember how God has used you before and been faithful to you through those tasks, regardless of how well you did.

4. Clarify expectations.

You may feel overwhelmed but having a better grasp on what’s expected of you can help alleviate fears that fan the flames of the impostor syndrome.

Ask questions to determine exactly what needs to be accomplished to prevent your mind from running wild with expectations that may be impossible to meet.

5. Talk to someone.

We can be our own worst enemies. Talking to someone else can grant us better perspective.

Sharing our mental burden with others is biblical and beneficial. Simply turning those thoughts over in our own mind often allows the imposter feelings to fester.

Those we talk with can remind us of many of the previous steps in dealing with feelings of inadequacy. Others deal with similar feelings. We’ve faced similar situations before. Our imaginations are running wild.

6. Rest in God’s grace.

Church leaders can spend a lifetime teaching about God’s grace to others while failing to internalize the message themselves.

In fact, church leaders are often the most likely to miss out the freedom God grants them for the tasks He has given them.

As we approach kingdom responsibilities, we can feel the weight while forgetting that Jesus promised His yoke would be light.

We don’t have to be perfect. Christ has already accomplished that. We can move on to simply walking in obedience.

Ultimately, God has sovereignly placed you in your current situation for your good and His glory. Even if you mess up, even if you feel like a fraud, He will never leave you or forsake you.

Aaron Earls (@WardrobeDoor) is online editor of Facts & Trends. This article was originally posted here.

Three Ways to Improve Your Bible Reading

6 Ways to Overcome the Imposter Syndrome

2. Note when it most often occurs for you.

3. Remember past victories (and failures).

4. Clarify expectations.

5. Talk to someone.

6. Rest in God’s grace.

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