Small Group Stories

This month's episode features a panel conversation between Steve Gladen, Dave Enns from North Coast, Rick Howerton from Lakepointe Church, and moderation by Carolyn Taketa. Join us as we listen in to their discussion on their decades of small group experience while at the Lobby Gathering small group conference and retreat in San Juan Capistrano.

Do you need more small group leaders? How would you like to see an exponential increase of volunteers stepping up to serve in your church? Steve Gladen, Global Small Groups Pastor at Saddleback Church, pulls from his 25 years of small group ministry experience to encourage and equip listeners to lead healthier, growing and more effective small group ministries. In this episode, Steve shares his timeless and commonsense keys to building healthier small groups. In this episode titled "Think critically: accomplish more with less," Steve shares 8 ways to accomplish more with less in your small group ministry. You are not going to want to miss this episode!

Today's episode comes from a small group conference at Saddleback Church. The session speaker is Dr. Bill Donahue as he shares about how to create an environment for spiritual growth in small groups.

Dr. Donahue is one of the most well respected and accomplished speakers and small group practitioners, having written several books and taught at the collegiate level. He also is a coach and leads cohorts at the small group network.

To learn more about small groups, or to share your own small group ministry experience, find Steve Gladen and others at https://smallgroupnetwork.com, our facebook group, or join our community at https://go.smallgroupnetwork.com

Steve Gladen, pastor of small groups at Saddleback Church visits London to interview Nicky Gumbel, Vicar, Holy Trinity Brompton, and Pioneer of the Alpha Course.

Nicky and his wife Pippa have impacted millions throughout the world with the Alpha course. Steve talks through what goes into an Alpha course and what makes it effective with Nicky.

To learn more about small groups, or to share your own small group ministry experience, find Steve Gladen and others at https://smallgroupnetwork.com, our facebook group, or join our community at https://go.smallgroupnetwork.com

The episode features Steve Gladen who, leveraging his extensive experience of over 25 years, offers insights on leading small group ministry in churches. He addresses the common misconception of people fearing evangelism, emphasizing how the experience fundamentally transforms when done as a group. Gladen shares practical strategies to equip small groups in spreading the gospel, growing the church and leading people to Jesus. He also underscores the importance of sharing starts with caring and the role of curriculum strategy in successful evangelism.

Do you need more small group leaders? How would you like to see an exponential increase of volunteers stepping up to serve in your church? Steve Gladen, Global Small Groups Pastor at Saddleback Church, pulls from his 25 years of small group ministry experience to encourage and equip listeners to lead healthier, growing and more effective small group ministries. In this episode, Steve is joined by co-host Derek and special guest Mike Hinkle - author of the new book "Treasure Hunt." Mike shares his timeless and commonsense keys to building a successful sales career - all of which will be relevant to you as a small group ministry leader! You are not going to want to miss this episode!

SHOWNOTES

www.michaelhinkle.com

To enter the contest, leave a comment about this episode on this post: https://www.facebook.com/groups/SGNContact/posts/6772166222879217/ 

You can download your planner HERE and the church planner HERE and the full workbook from the conference HERE
Check out the videos referenced in the podcast HERE

In this session, Steve shares one of the biggest sources of excitement for Saddleback as a church. And in each group. Evangelism.  Steve is going to begin the session by addressing the concerns of the typical small group member. Which is that they feel like they might not be a good evangelists.  

Well, once they find out how different of an experience it is when done as a small group, rather than on their own.  Evangelism and seeing a friend or loved one's life changed by the hope of the gospel.  That is an incredibly powerful moment in the life of that small group.  Steve will get us through the journey of equipping small groups to share the gospel. To grow the church. And to lead people to Jesus.  Join us in today's episode. How to move from making friends to reaching friends

Do you need more small group leaders? How would you like to see an exponential increase of volunteers stepping up to serve in your church? Steve Gladen, Global Small Groups Pastor at Saddleback Church, pulls from his 25 years of small group ministry experience to encourage and equip listeners to lead healthier, growing and more effective small group ministries. In this episode, Steve is joined by co-host Derek and special guest pastor William Johnston of Saddleback church  who shares his top tried and true keys to creating a healthy ministry and staff culture. You are not going to want to miss this episode!

Learn more about getting pastor buy in at https://smallgroupnetwork.com/pastorbuyin/

Will's Notes

1. Introduction
2. Our secular work culture has largely influenced our workplace interactions
3. Secular work culture shapes us in certain values
4. Escapism: Working for the weekend. My real life starts when I leave work.
5. Individualistic Results: My personal results are the upmost sign of success.
6. Passive responsibility: I am just going to take care of what I need to do. We hand over ownership and leadership completely to a senior leader because we do not want deal with something or we are just lazy. The buck never stops with us

      C.  Quickly provide alternatives

1. God wants our whole life to reflect him and flow together. While we can turn off our ministry as work minds. We live on mission for Jesus in all facets of life.
2. We often do not know how to measure success well in church because it is challenging to quantify but our goal is for the Church, the Body of Christ to flourish, for people to meet Jesus, grow to spiritual maturity, serve other and live on mission for him. If it becomes my niche ministry or idea taking off, then we’ve missed it.
3. Lastly, in the body of Christ we all have responsibility to each other and to live as God has created us. We have interactive mechanisms in our body that course correct when we are sick or even when we trip on shoe. It is the same in the body of Christ

    II.  One of the symptom of these values is challenging or decaying staff cultures 

1. A large part of our jobs are people and the largest portion of time is spent with our staff.
2. We are all different people with different personalities, strengths and weaknesses, hobbies, and work ideals.
3. There is nothing new about people not getting along.
4. Even Paul and Barnabus reached a point where they were like “Ya, I think I’m good”

       B. We all want to enjoy our place of work.  We all want to enjoy the people we work 

with but it is hard.

  III.    Who is to blame?

1. If you are waiting for someone to make your workplace enjoyable, you are 50% of the problem. If you are sitting back, waiting, and complaining about what other people are not doing for you without doing anything about it, you are part of the problem.
2. “We want our lead pastor to set the tone” “We want the denomination to do this” “If the board of directors said this”
3. We think of certain people in authority as the one with the sole responsibility for our staff dynamics instead of thinking about our staff as something we have an equal part in. If your staff culture is poor, you are a piece of that pie.

IV.  How do we course correct when we are not in the head chair?

1. We need to reflect on: What do we want in a workplace? and What are steps I can do to help us get there? 
2. What things would you enjoy in your workplace and begin doing them?

       B. There are some simple questions that I believe lead to crawl steps in building a 

staff that turns into a family. If we as ourselves this set of questions weekly, our 

staff culture will begin improving immediately.

1. How can I make this time more fun, memorable, intentional?
2. How much time am I spending with each staff member?
3. When was the last time I ate a meal with each staff member in a setting of 4 or less people?
4. When was the last time I asked them about their family?
5. How much time am I in communal spaces or around other staff?
6. When was the last time I followed up on something we talked about recently?
7. What does each staff member want from our relationship? 
8. When was the last time I encouraged each staff member?

       C. Walk Step Ideas

1. Have an onboarding strategy for new staff.
2. Taking them out to eat or bringing lunch in
3. Every week checking in on questions they have
4. Inviting them and their spouse over for food or a game night
5. Know everyone’s favorite drink
6. Know their bdays and their family members Bdays
7. Individualized BDay gifts
8. Show up to something that matters to them

      D. Run Steps

1. Relationship study about the correlation of long lasting relationship and unique joint experiences
2. Grand openings
3. Community Events

V. Building Trust with a Supervisor

1. The Basics
2. I typically hear people who want trust or an in with their senior leader to share challenges
3. We don’t think they are doing something correctly
4. They are not taking our ideas

      2.   We do not begin with the right intentions.

1. We connect because we want something
2. This is never a ploy! If someone takes any of the next steps for their own gain instead of enjoying the people God has placed in your life. It will not be successful. These things done without a heart that sincerely wants to know the other person will probably leave you in the same situation.
   1. This is the difference between leading up and sucking up
3. Trust with a senior leader begins with a basic friendship

I.  Well that is easy. And the answer to that thought is yes it is easy

1. It is interesting that most people in our churches desire time and closeness to the senior or lead pastor but when we get on a church staff and are a couple chairs down the table we stop taking initiative and believe everything should be initiated by that senior leader.
   1. So we sit back and wait for our senior leader to initiate and then become frustrated when our relationship does not look the way we want it.

B. Making Changes

1. In the conversation about building good staff relationship I gave clear next steps
2. I believe a healthy and sustainable relationship with your senior leader is more about posture.
3. Questions that lead us to the right posture
4. When was the last time you prayed for your campus pastor?
5. When was the last time you asked about their kids?
6. When was the last time you asked them out for dinner?
7. When was the last time you asked if there is something you could take off their plate?
8. When was the last time you just talked with no agenda?
9. When was the last time you texted them about something happening in their life?

 C. Hard Conversations

1. People are probably thinking “ok, now can I have a hard conversation with 

my supervisor?”

2.        We always need to ask ourselves a set of questions before a conversation 

with a superior where we want to express concern, frustration, or 

Do you need more small group leaders? How would you like to see an exponential increase of volunteers stepping up to serve in your church? Steve Gladen, Global Small Groups Pastor at Saddleback Church, pulls from his 20+ years of small group ministry experience to encourage and equip listeners to lead healthier, growing and more effective small group ministries. In this episode, Steve is joined by co-host Derek and special guest John Shin (One of the Connections Pastors at Saddleback Church) who shares his 8 Steps to Successful Recruiting. You are not going to want to miss this episode!

https://smallgroupnetwork.com

Notes: 
8 Steps to Successful Recruiting

1) Write down your pain points (your needs for ministry volunteers)
2) Think beyond the norm and get creative
3) Pain Levels from Easy, Need, and Pain (and describing each level)
4) Special Tip—Think about behind the scenes ministry (no interaction with people and ministry that involves lots of people engagement. You should try to recruit everyone and anyone to your ministry)
5) 4 Step practical plan to recruit
- Talk to people you know
- Find out what they enjoy and don’t enjoy
- Focus on their passion (No matter what they say here, get them to serve with you. Make up a role for them)
- Recruit person for 1 time help or opportunity
6 Always say thank you to your volunteers (cards, gifts, meals). Show appreciation
7 Don’t let them get bored. Create a development pathway. Some volunteers maybe can take on more responsibility and leadership roles.
8 Set a deadline to recruit. Nothing happens without deadlines