SG² Steve Gladen on Small Groups

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

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

Welcome to SG squared. Glad you joined us for this episode. In this particular one, we're going to be talking about how small groups just aren't a program in the church, but they are a powerful discipleship tool that your church has. As you know, we talk about temple courts and house to house and the house to house movement is your discipleship engine. Now we're going to cover so many things about the transformational power of small groups, but the important thing  to understand is that it needs to happen in your own group. And as we go through this material, I want you to start thinking through, okay, how does this pertain to where my small group is?

And what am I doing in my own group? Now, as we talk about a number of things in this episode, make sure you download the resources at the top of the show notes and understand that that material is there for you to take this from just being a podcast that you listen to, but something that can transform your small groups and help you make them a discipleship engine.

I want you to enjoy as we take a little flashback on this particular episode, but it's great content that will help you make the discipleship tool powerful in your small group.

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 guests Mark Grunden and Ron Kelleher to talk about 5 Steps to Creating a Workplace Ministry:

1 Cast a vision
2 Create a leadership team
3 Convene a launch event
4 Compile study resources
5 Continue with training

Shownotes:

saddleback.com/workplace

worklifebiblestudy.org

Mark Grunden / markg@saddleback.com

Ron Kelleher / RonK@saddlebackvolunteer.com
5 Steps to Starting a Workplace Ministry at your Church

1. How do you handle unclear or wrong communication?
2. How do you handle worry?
3. How do you figure out who's after you?
4. How do you handle failure?

7 Lessons Learned from Face Plants
1. Think through your response and LISTEN
2. The response is always done with humility
3. Everything we do is being watched by the world
4. We must make sure our impact matches our intent
5. We can be creative without being offensive
6. When dealing with upset people, pray with them and have them pray too
7. TEACH -  True, Encouraging, Age Appropriate, Culturally Honoring, How would Jesus respond?

You can download your planner HERE and the church planner HERE
Check out the videos referenced in the podcast HERE

Everyone's got excuses... and here are 5 of the most common. But if you are hearing one (or all) of these excuses in your small group ministry, how should you respond? Listen to Steve's talk from the Purpose Driven Small Groups conference to get prepared for the next time you hear an excuse.

For more great resources check out https://smallgroupnetwork.com
And to connect with Steve Gladen as well as other small group pastors from around the world, check out https://go.smallgroupnetwork.com

1. How do you handle unclear or wrong communication?
2. How do you handle worry?
3. How do you figure out who's after you?
4. How do you handle failure?

7 Lessons Learned from Face Plants
1. Think through your response and LISTEN
2. The response is always done with humility
3. Everything we do is being watched by the world
4. We must make sure our impact matches our intent
5. We can be creative without being offensive
6. When dealing with upset people, pray with them and have them pray too
7. TEACH -  True, Encouraging, Age Appropriate, Culturally Honoring, How would Jesus respond?

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 Christina Dawson to talk about 7 ways CRM can Improve Discipleship. In this episode we break down the following: 

• High Level Perspective
• Personalized Service
• Central Repository of Information, accessible and sharable
• Data Insights
• Time is Our Most Precious Commodity
• Continual Improvement – adapt or die
• Soul Food – nurturing relationships that foster growth and positive impact

SHOW NOTES:

1. High Level Perspective:

 - We're all in sales - it's just a question of "what's the product?"

  - Clear vision & benefit statement - don't make people guess

  - Concise, positive, fun, high energy, memorable

Everyone's favorite subject: Themselves!! The more you know about them, the more impactful & engaging you will be.

•  God's tool to move them beyond themselves-Small Groups (our product) - to fill the spiritual void they have from a broken relationship with God. Small Groups bring back (read Acts 2:42-47) community, Biblical knowledge, personal development (Discipleship), serving, evangelism and worship

2. Personalized Service

•   Our world demands real time interaction with deep personalization
•   Personalization = You Care / You Understand Me = Credibility
•   Credibility is critical in a noisy, misguided world

3. Central Repository of Information, accessible and sharable

•   A good memory is great but it isn't transferable or scalable (institutional Knowledge)
•   One source of information for all team members to access
•   Requires thoughtfulness on the required fields vs. optional fields
• Start small, think in terms of the bare essentials or Minimum Viable Product
• Too Much Information or Layout / Architecture = can drown the initiative
• Shared information shows competence, increases confidence & greatly improves customer experiences

4. Data Insights

• Ability to spot trends - very powerful in driving outcomes
• Move from reactive to proactive - address issues earlier 
• Cohorts & Patterns - ability to compare outcomes & experiences over time
• Increase personalization and value to customers / people
• Competitive advantage - data can bring knowledge & knowledge is gold

5. Time is Our Most Precious Commodity

•  Use it wisely & maximize impact
•  Don't waste other people's time - they will reward you through avoidance
•  Learn through data analysis how to improve time management - adjust regularly
•  Serve people with the method they prefer, it's not about what you want or like
•  Focus on building the perfect day & week (activities done every day / week)
   Don't let things slip - if a day is subpar, make it up the following day

6. Continual Improvement - adapt or die

•  Static approaches die no matter how great they are
•  The world is changing, people are changing and the approach has to stay current Data analysis will spot trends, help reveal required adjustments and highlight areas of application (who or where I need to apply the adjustments)

7. Soul Food - nurturing relationships that foster growth and positive impact

•  People are attracted to ideas & other people that have a positive impact on them
•  Align the interaction to provide value / positive impact with every touch
•  Feedback is essential and needs to be regular from a diverse group
•  Try to score or grade user experience or engagement - If you don't measure it, it's very difficult to monitor performance and spot changes (good or bad)

Listen is as we go back to February 2021 and the 3 Areas for Your Groups to Shine in Today’s Culture. We still find that this will be relevant in your group's setting today!

7 Civilities 

1. Listen with your eyes (don’t roll your eyes) acknowledge their view
2. Sleep and hungry—know the right time
3. Social media news vs. Good news
4. Neither side may trivialize or dismiss the concerns of the other.
5. Neither side should define the “other” according to one single characteristic or identity marker.
6. Both sides should aim to help each other understand their own experience and perspective using a type of speech (words and tone) that can be heard by the other.
7. Both sides should accept the fundamental ground rule of life in a free society: the essence of liberty is the right to be different and to act wrongly in the eyes of others—you will need to agree to disagree.