Leadership Gathering review

Wow. It was exciting to have so many of you at our leadership meeting last Monday night! I enjoyed meeting many of you for the first time and hearing what God is doing through your small groups and the other places he’s using each of you. For the sake of those who couldn’t make it (and for people like me who can be a little memory-challenged at times), here’s a quick review of what was discussed, plus links to the resources that were presented.

Betsy kicked off the meeting by sharing the importance of keeping momentum within the small groups during this time of transition. Small groups are the heart of the church, so now is the time to meet more, not less and truly become pastors to the people in our groups. She challenged the leaders to invite people to their groups and to work to have at least 10 people involved with each group.

Betsy also said this was a good time to consider meeting more often. If a group is meeting twice a month, they could consider meeting every week, taking one week off every month, quarter or semester.

She encouraged groups to take on a project to serve within the church and community during the upcoming quarter or semester. Serving gives groups a chance to give back and fulfill God’s call. It also draws members closer as they serve together.

Betsy wrapped up her time by sharing the plans for Glenkirk’s Walk Through the Bible campaign that will run during 2007.

I shared a little of my background and personal experience with small groups. Those experiences led to a discussion on three core values for small groups. A lot of people stress models of how groups should look. I think that instead, we should look at values. If we incorporate these three things into our groups, we should see the fruit of transformed lives!

For more information on each of these areas, click on the About section in the sidebar of this site.

Here are links to the websites we discussed (I’ll write more about eBible and Kiva on this site soon):

Connecting to God: eBible.com

Connecting to each other: Doodle
(Click here for a more in-depth review of this site)

Connecting to the world: Kiva

At the end of the meeting, leaders took some time to get to know each other in groups and shared what was happening in their small groups. So many people enjoyed the opportunity to connect and recharged that they requested that we hold similar meetings quarterly. We’re working to find ways to provide that opportunity!

- Jon