What No One Told Me

Team D (that's Josh, Maegan, Will, and me) are working on a little project: What No One Ever Told Me About Leading a Small Group. We are in "training mode" of Operation Kaboom, where we are trying to think about training modules that need to be developed, and we are trying to think specifically about important lessons that no one ever thought to mention when training us.

Will has already posted a list of 50. Some of his actually stretch into other areas of leadership beyond small groups.

Here is my list. I obviously have more to learn:

1. People might not show up on the first Thursday of group meeting. Or for two months of Thursdays of group meetings.
2. Community is messy.
3. Everyone is not as excited about group as I am.
4. Groups don’t like to multiply. They resist it. They avoid it like the plague.
5. There will be nights when the last thing I want to do is go to my small group.
6. Everyone’s normal till you get to know them. I stole that from John Ortberg. And it makes me think of a group I once led in Nashville.
7. The most meaningful conversations are not found in the workbooks.
8. The primary role of the small group leader is to spark the right questions and not give the right answers.
9. Change doesn’t happen overnight. We’ve got to be committed for the long haul.
10. Jesus said go make disciples, not find them. That means we can’t just look for a potential leader; we have to make them.
11. Small group leadership begins with leading yourself well.
12. The bigger your level of influence, the bigger the target on your butt.

I'll be blogging about some of these over the next few weeks.