Calculated Risks?

I am preparing to leave with a team from our local church for a week in Haiti, working on several projects with a trusted missionary friend. We’ve done this type of thing several times in the past. Yet, out-of-country mission trips are among those ministry experiences that bring about risk-benefit thought processes for many, including me. Is giving up some vacation time, risking health problems, and dropping a significant amount of money worth it for making a small, but bright dent in the kingdom of darkness? Would it be more worthwhile to invest my resources in other ways to bring God’s redemptive power into another culture in desperate need of Him? Those are questions that don’t have easy answers. Sometimes all we can do is follow our best understanding of how the Spirit is leading us and regardless of our decision, give all our efforts to the Lord. And, of course, the Lord promises that our efforts for Him are not done in vain.

These types of short-term mission trip experiences are becoming more and more common for small groups to take together. Many of the members of the team I’m going with next week are also part of my small group.

Beyond all the evaluating of the cost-benefit of these trips, there almost always is a life-change factor that happens for individuals and groups that you can’t put a value on. It makes these types of experiences defining moments in people’s lives. That’s why few groups ever regret going. Even in bad experiences, God works the journey for good.

But, I think, most of the hurdles groups have in getting involved in mission experiences, is simply how they view the world they live in. Regardless of who you are, there will be things that you won’t do because of the perceived danger in doing them. Although, others will walk right into those same experiences without a second thought. I don’t believe the amount of perceived danger or risk reflects our level of faith as much as it reflects our level of familiarity. We don’t perceive as much danger in things that we are familiar with. That’s why it is important for individuals and groups to continue practicing going into unfamiliar territory--putting our faith into action, so we can become familiar with God’s ways of taking care of us and using us in unfamiliar territory. It might be birthing a group, or reaching out to new people, or going half way around the world. Although, going into unfamiliar territory doesn’t have to be a mission trip.

I read an interesting article about this idea from a business perspective. One quote from the article that illustrated this well:

“For example, driving in good weather on a 12-lane freeway in a well-maintained car is something that a trained driver would not hesitate to do. Yet it could be near suicide (or murder) for someone who had never been behind the wheel of a car, or who was driving a vehicle without brakes. What is curious about human nature is that we sometimes seem unable to translate knowledge from such everyday examples into our workaday life.”

There have been many examples, including short-term mission trips, where I had a heightened sense of danger because I was in unfamiliar territory. But once I learn I can trust God to take a risk in reaching out in a mission experience, it should help me take a risk to reach out in my everyday life as well.

The same can be true of any small group experience, including leading a small group gathering in your own living room for the first time. We should never discount the feelings of apprehension that people have when doing something for the first time, even though we don’t feel the same apprehension because we are already familiar with it. This applies to even the most routine small group tasks. Every first time experience is a big deal, but worth it in most cases, because it sets the stage for us to go more “places” with God. Let’s encourage and support those who are going into uncharted territory!

Pew Survey of America

There has been quite a bit of media attention this week about the just released
Pew U.S. Religious Landscape Survey . Of the many findings of the survey, one stood out to me. In America, researchers found near-unanimity on belief in God -- something espoused by 92 percent of Americans -- however, just 51 percent said they were both absolutely certain about that belief and view God as a person (not some kind of impersonal force) with whom they can have a relationship.

Jesus said, in Matthew 22:36-40 that the essence of how we are to live life involves loving God and loving people. 1 John 4 further talks about how loving God and loving others are inseparable -- you can’t have one without the other.

Studies show that most people’s conversation experience involved a loving relationship with another Christ-follower. And that because of that loving relationship to another Christ-follower, there was an understanding of what it meant to love God and be loved by God. One thing the Pew survey implies is that while there is a high percentage of belief in God, there is a significantly lower percentage of those who have a relationship with God. One could also assume there is also a low percentage of lost people with loving relationships to other Christ-followers.

That seems to raise some “red flags” for the church and for small groups. Perhaps one of the reasons more don’t know how to relate to God is that His followers are not relating to them? What are your thoughts? How is the process of loving God and loving others (even the lost) going in your small group? Do these survey results surprise you?

Small Group Worship

I recently sat in on Buddy Owens’ small group worship workshop at the Purpose Driven Small Group Conference . Small group worship is arguably a challenge for most small groups. Buddy Owens commented that he has led worship at a Promise Keepers event for 50,000 and it is much more difficult to lead a worship experience in a small group of 6 than it is to lead a group of 50,000 in worship! I think this is a good reason to look carefully in our small groups for those who have gifting in the area of leading worship and utilize them in your small group community (see this month’s ezine on Spiritual Gifts ).

Another way to get over the worship boundary in small groups is to start framing our paradigm of small group worship differently. There are many ways to create worship experiences in small groups beyond just singing. SmallGroups.com features new ideas every month in our Worship Works area. Also, here are several ideas that came out of our time together in the workshop:
-have a good reader read the words of an old hymn
-play a music CD and just listen, then get responses
-dedicate a prayer time to only thanksgiving (what God has done), and adoration (who God is)
-share a favorite scripture and then share why
-after sharing a scripture or song, have some quite journaling and then group sharing
-share your “story” or testimony
-do communion together as a group
-do a sing along CD or DVD, turn it up loud if your group are not great singers—it works!

What are some of your ideas for small group worship experiences?

Eliminating Dangerous Routines

Rock climbing, like small groups, is an activity that is risky enough that it should be done in community. If you are not familiar with rock climbing, typically, someone is climbing while another is holding the safety ropes. The person holding the safety ropes is called the “belay.” When the climber is ready to proceed up the rock the procedure is to communicate with the belayer. "On belay" means that the belayer is operating the belay device, ready to "catch" the climber in the event of a fall. "On belay" essentially means "I've got you, it is safe to proceed." "Off belay" means the opposite: "I am not manning the belay device, so exercise extreme caution." Many climbing accidents happen because of poor communication between the climber and belayer.

As a recent BusinessWeek article recently noted: “Can you think of two phrases that sound more alike than "on belay" and "off belay?" While they might be distinguished easily in an indoor climbing gym, put two competitive, adrenaline-filled people on a sheer cliff with the wind whistling by, a waterfall in the distance, gear clacking against the rock—and it's not difficult to see how such errors occur. Why on earth, I wondered, would climbers continue to use the terms when they are obviously not the best signals for the task? "I guess climbers have always done it that way," was their uneasy answer. The terms are remnants of a stupid routine.”

This article made me think about our small groups. How many stupid routines are we doing in our small groups that, at best, are creating ineffective Christian community, and at worst, creating dangerous spiritual situations in our groups? Things like breaking confidentiality, gossip, being more focused on curriculum than relationships, running out of time for prayer, and the like.

One way to eliminate dangerous routines is to start talking about our routines regularly, meaning more than just once a year. With Spring morphing into Summer in the Northern Hemisphere, many small groups are moving into a breaks or variations of their current routines. What better time to evaluate our routines? The BusinessWeek article suggested some questions to ask the group. I have adapted them to a small group setting:

>In the past 90 days, what were our three most important accomplishments together? Push the group to not settle for answers like "we finished the curriculum." Instead, teach them that accomplishment is about life change.

>In the past 90 days, what were the three most important ways we fell short of our potential? Here, you are tapping people's intuition about important things the group ought to be emphasizing, but isn't.

>In the past 90 days, what are the three most important things we have learned about our routine? This is the toughest one--asking people to learn and apply what they've learned to life in church community.

Media Training Helps

Media-based small group curriculum is widely available and being produced by publishers and even in-house by many churches. While media/DVD-based curriculum has been available for some time, I haven’t seen a multitude of media-based small group leader training tools...that is, until more recently. Frankly, I’m more excited by media-based small group leader training tools than I am about media-based small group curriculum, so I’m glad to see more and more media-based tools available for the training and support of small group leaders and small group coaches. Here's a few that I’ve seen lately...

SmallGroups.com eTraining – (OK, selfless plug here) introduced at SmallGroups.com over a year ago, an interactive online training experience covering basic group leadership skills

ReGroup – a DVD and participants book package that lays out a complete pathway to group process and small group leadership

Simple Small Groups – video channel on YouTube.com dedicated to training small group leaders

Leadership Coaching – a DVD and book resource to help church leaders and small group leader coaches be more effective

Not to mention the many local church websites that are putting their training online. Of course, my opinion is that media-driven training can never replace relationship-driven training, nor would I want it to, however, I’m excited by what’s becoming available to help supplement relational small group leader training!

What are some other media-based training tools that you have used?

Raise or Recognize or Both

This month’s ezine at www.SmallGroups.com explores the issue of developing small group leaders. There’s a wide variety of philosophies when it comes to “setting apart” leaders for the local church in general. In some cases, they are appointed or elected. In some cases they are apprenticed. And in some cases they volunteer without qualification based on some type of announcement. But, in the case of small group leaders, how should they be set apart? Once again the variety of philosophies varies greatly from “If they can breath, they can lead” (or if they can read a study guide or press a DVD button, they can lead) to requiring hours of training and on-the-job experience before they can lead. Regardless of the philosophy of leadership, one important aspect of leading is not how we funnel people into leadership, but what becomes of them once they are in the process. We’ve all had the experience where we’ve known a person who didn’t carry the title of leader, or wasn’t elected or appointed to the position of leader, but we would say without hesitation, “they are a leader.” If we’ve been around ministry long, I suspect we all have had that experience. The real question for me is how we get to the point where the people we elect, appoint, apprentice, or set apart, are the people which we also say, “they are a leader?” The key is figuring out who those people are early on in the process and then building our leader development process in such a way to stimulate their leadership gifts. If the people of whom we say “they are a leader” are not the people we are regularly setting apart as leaders, then I believe something is terribly wrong with our leadership development.

Does that mean we should avoid selecting unproven and inexperienced people as small group leaders? No, I believe we should be raising leaders from the inexperienced (if they can breath, they can lead), but one of the filters we use in our selection is to identify those whom are already gathering a spiritually healthy relational following. Do you agree? What has been your experience?

Online Community 2.0 (part 2)

A term that has been used to describe the current use of the Internet is Web 2.0. Web 2.0 is not a software version, rather it’s a term that refers to the ability for users to create, upload, and publish their own conversations, media, and creative ideas, rather than just download and view “expert-created” content (Web 1.0). Based on research noted in my last blog entry, the church’s use of Web 2.0 tools has been limited. The questions I raised were: Is this due to the typical technology adoption lag in the church? Or, are these tools not contributing to the making of disciples and the building of Christian community as much as hoped?

I don’t have the complete answer to these questions; however, I know that as culture is utilizing online tools, the church will need to utilize online tools as part of the strategy for carrying out our mission as time moves forward.

Interestingly, I have been seeing some online reports lately that Web 3.0 is coming. What is Web 3.0? It’s not well defined yet, but an interesting trend of Web 3.0 is that more emphasis is being placed once again on “expert-created” content. All the user created tools and technology are still there, but the ability for someone to lead, guide, and moderate the flow of content is once again expected to be emphasized more and more. What does this mean? In general, most of us may continue to use the internet more as an information source, rather than as a relationship platform. It also may mean that online community and online relationships, while very important, may not have been as effective at taking the place of face-to-face relationships as previously thought. Facial expressions can’t be completely replaced by emoticons and, body language can’t be completely replaced by avatars .

What’s your experience? What are some ways you utilize user generated information as compared to "expert-generated" content? Is your online experience better described as one way communication or relational dialog?

Online Community 2.0 (part 1)

A term that has been used to describe the current use of the Internet is Web 2.0. The Internet has evolved into a place where users can not only retrieve (download) information (a.k.a. Web 1.0), but a place where users can download, as well as upload their own information easily (Web 2.0). Web 2.0 is characterized by discussion forums, blogs, podcasts, user photos, user videos and applications where users can upload their own content with relative ease and low expense. Out of this movement came a whole group of user content created sites and social networking sites like Facebook.com, Wikipedia.org, Youtube.com and Typepad.com. The church, not always being on the cutting edge of online technology implementation, has adopted and used some of these tools, as well as, created their own tools for specific use in Christian Communities like Godtube.com, Sermoncentral.com, and theooze.com.

Despite the availability of web-based tools beyond email, there still is not widespread use of many Web 2.0 tools. For instance, according to a 2006 study, twenty-five percent of Protestant churches in the United States have virtually no involvement with the World Wide Web. Only half of all churches provide staff with e-mail, and just under half maintain a website. Relatively few Protestant churches use e-mail prayer chains, have an e-mail church newsletter, or have an online member directory (only four percent) according to Ellison Research .

The study found that church website content is usually static rather than interactive. Content usually consists of a map or directions to the church, a calendar of upcoming events, a statement of beliefs, and pages for specific ministry departments—these types of sites are not generally considered Web 2.0.

With that said, at SmallGroups.com, we have not experienced a significant demand for the free-flow of user controlled content or online community. While the overwhelming majority of the content at SmallGroups.com is user generated, we still pick and choose and edit content, rather than allowing all content to be completely user controlled. Does this mean Web 2.0 sites and technology are not useful to the church? Or, will it take more time for the church to learn and adopt such tools? What do you think?

Doing Church as a Team

I just returned from our 20th wedding anniversary trip to Hawaii. We had a wonderful time! While there, I got to spend some time with the leaders of New Hope Oahu. New Hope is noted for “Doing Church as a Team” (also the title of Wayne Cordeiro book about New Hope, see http://www.doingchurchasateam.com/). We spent some time with New Hope executive pastor Elwin Ahu. He talked about New Hope’s ministry strategy that is also described on their website as follows: “Just like paddling a canoe, God designed His people to stroke together for a purpose. He has designed each church with a special purpose, and His plan is to saturate the carrying out of that ministry with joy. In order for this to happen, God has given each of us a unique gift. The combination of our gifts working in synch should give off such a radiance that the whole world will stand up and take notice! Each of us has been given a paddle by God. A gift. A calling. And like the paddlers of a canoe, each of us has a place or a role to fill. On each paddle is our unique thumbprint, our own individual circuitry, designed by God Himself. He places each of us in a community, more specifically in a local church, with a divine purpose. He fits us alongside others who have a similar assignment and calls us a family, a team, the Church. No one person is meant to carry out this assignment alone; it wasn't designed that way. We were created to do church as a team!”

The team concept is done in a small group structural system called fractals. Fractals are relational groupings of people who work together as a team to accomplish ministry tasks. I won’t dwell on details--the book lays it all out. What Elwin emphasized to us is the Holy Spirit’s gifting in the work of the fractal team--basically allowing people to function in community by matching like passions with complimentary giftedness. And then each team member is tasked with the purpose of making other team members successful. This allows people to experience fulfillment in their ministry, rather than burnout. This requires fractal leaders to discern what experiences are like “opening presents on Christmas Day” to each team member. Not that everyone gets to do what energizes them all the time, but making sure team members do what energizes them in the context of their giftedness, within the purpose of the team. Ministries are not forced, but rather pursued as gifting allows and as teams form and multiply (or fractal). New Hope is currently helping other churches discover this process as well. You can find out more at: http://www.doingchurchasateam.com/index.html

Church to the People

Our local church has recently gone through the process of re-seeking our ministry vision. Our church, Harvest Community, uses small groups as base camps for ministry. It’s where we go for re-energizing and guidance and it is sometimes known is at the front line of “taking church to the people.” Harvest home groups very typically involve adults and their children. The home group supports group members in doing individual and family devotions, getting members involved in Life Transformation Groups (LTG), and provides one of the first connection points for new people to the church. Home group leaders are really the ministry leaders of Harvest. The group leader helps stimulate a sense of community in the group that provides the context for care and discipleship of group members, and outreach to new members. It would not be unusual to see groups taking care of one another in times of crisis and illness. You may even see a home group leader performing a wedding or funeral for group members. One of the goals of home groups is to grow, raise up new home group leaders, and multiply those leaders out into new home groups. Stories, struggles, and celebration in the home groups carry over to the Sunday big group worship in the form of prayers and testimonies and group reunion. We don’t simply have smaller groups as a side program it’s really who we are. In fact, more people are involved in smaller groups than come to our Sunday worship gathering. With this decentralized model in mind, our challenge was to have a vision that compels everyone, including those who feel strong identity to their small group, but not necessarily a strong identity to the larger group of Harvest.

The vision process involved getting everyone in small groups and big groups involved in praying for the Lord to show us a clear vision, and that the elder group would be able to see that vision clearly. The elders went away on an extended retreat. What came out of that process was a clear understanding that our focus should be to “take church to the people” rather inviting people to “come to church.” We distilled what that meant in the following paragraph:

“It is the vision of Harvest to take Jesus and the church to relationships, families, communities, and people groups… prayer by prayer, conversation by conversation, connection by connection, friend by friend, group by group. We envision every adult and child bringing God’s new life into one relationship every year, reproducing Christ’s love in all walks of life. In the next five years we would expect that everyone throughout this area could see a picture of Jesus among their personal relationships. In short, we envision taking Church to the People!”

So far, the vision has been received well. There is excitement. And, even the folks who are in small groups, but not part of the bigger group worship are starting to get it and see themselves as part of the vision. A fresh vision really does bring life and order. (Prov. 29:18)