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Finding enough leaders is a challenge.  With the strategies I mentioned in Small Group Leaders: Finding, Recruiting, Developing, you’ll find the leaders you need.  What you do with them next is very important.  Here are some of the most important nuts and bolts of successful leader recruitment:

1. Determine your leadership requirements in advance.  It may help to think of leader requirements like a continuum with very strict requirements on one end and very loose requirements on the other end.  Some churches insist on Jesus Jr.  Some churches require some level of membership.  Others, recognizing the value of lowering the bar (to include the exponential impact of the crowd), require only that the leader/host candidate attend the orientation and fill their own group.  Simply determine where your church needs to be along the continuum and pre-determine what it takes.  Then adjust your strategy accordingly.
2. Right after developing your leadership requirements, develop a written leader recruitment  process.  Think through the process step by step.  Include every event and every communication.  Develop the letter and email templates in advance.  Script what you’d like your initial phone call to include.  Detail at this point allows you to focus on excellent delivery when you’re in the middle of a campaign.
3. Provide an accurate FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) handout.  Depending on the recruitment strategy, this can be a handout in a leader’s packet, available at the small group ministry table in the lobby, on your website, or all three.  The key is to think through and include the questions that need to be answered.  Here is one that I developed for our One Month To Live campaign.
4. In addition to the FAQ, communicate thoroughly and promptly every step along the way.  That means send a letter (and email) confirming their sign-up and follow up the letter with a phone call.  Over communicating is an essential practice.  A great way to provide first contact with an assigned coach is for the coach to make the call.
5. Make attending the New Leader Orientation a requirement.  I’ve detailed where the orientation fits in the HOST and Connection strategies.  Where it fits depends on the method you’re using.  It’s important to require attendance for several reasons.  (a) It’s a hoop that you control, (b) you can always waive the requirement for exceptional candidates, and (c) it provides a face-to-face meeting.
6. In many cases you will want to include a questionnaire (application) for the prospective leaders to complete and turn in.  Here’s an example of one that I’ve used.

These are some of the most important nuts and bolts of effective leader recruitment.  But…it’s not an exhaustive list.  You need to develop your own process.  Debrief after every use and adjust accordingly.  Remember, there is no problem-free method.  Wise leaders simply choose the problems they’d rather have.  The key here is to leverage these ideas (and your own) to provide a better experience for leaders (and members).

How do you get the word out about recommended resources and upcoming events?  How do you stay connected with the small group leaders and coaches in your ministry?  Where do your small group leaders go to get information about next steps?

The answers to these questions say a lot about whether you’re living in the past…or taking advantage of developing technology to communicate.  Sure…there was a time when the combination of office hours and a printed handout at the small group table in the lobby was about all anyone could expect.  But those days are thankfully gone!  There’s so much more you can do to resource your leaders.  Blogs, Facebook, and even Twitter can make a big difference…and you can do it!

How To Use Social Media To Resource Your Leaders

First, let’s talk about using a blog to provide an “always on,” 24/7 resource. You may point out that you have a website page that has information about how to find a group, become a leader, or even a listing of approved studies…but that’s not the point.  One of the best parts about a blog is that you (or even a few members of your team) can update it.  It’s easy, super easy, to get one started.  There can even be free!  Here are some advantages:

• Easy to get started.  Simply choose a platform (Blogger is free, TypePad is very inexpensive, WordPress has both a free version and an inexpensive pay version.
• Easy to learn how to use.  These basic programs are so easy to learn there’s really no excuse.  You can be up and running in less than an hour.  Instead of waiting for your webmaster or the CMS company to update your webpage…you can do it right now!
• Your leaders can be notified every time there is an update.  This is a huge advantage.  Think about it…when you update the blog with information about an available study or an upcoming training the blog will automatically let your leaders know.
• Recordings of your new leader training can be posted online.
• You can provide links to recommended small group studies so your leaders can preview them.  You can even allow your leaders to rate them after they’ve used them.
• Here are two examples: Allen White and Brookwood Church uses Blogger and provides great content for his leaders.  Eddie Mosely at LifePoint Church uses the free version of WordPress is another good example.

I launched my first blog in 2005 on TypePad (on a technicality…I was on Xanga for about a week).  TypePad was easy to use.  It was an inexpensive solution ($4.95 a month) and it allowed me to run the blog with my own domain name (i.e., www.strategycentral.org).  Free services like Blogger tack on the .blogspot.com to your site name.  I’ve since moved to WordPress to provide great flexibility and a better look.

Second, take a look at Facebook as a way to connect with your leaders. If you’re not already on to this, a very large percentage of your adults are using Facebook as a way to connect with friends and family.  Many of your leaders are already on there!  Why not take advantage of a free way to provide an always on connection?  Here are some keys:

• Easy to add links to highlighted curriculum.
• Leaders and members can access the latest news.
• You can update Facebook from your cell phone.

Twitter is a surprisingly easy way to connect with your leaders. It’s free.  It takes two minutes to set up.  Small group leaders who connect via Twitter can set it to update them with a text message.  You can easily set Twitter up to update your Facebook page and Facebook to update Twitter.

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I’ll provide a detailed “how to launch a blog” article next week.  If you want to be sure you don’t miss it, you can sign up to get the update right here.

One of the most pressing challenges in developing a pervasive groups ministry is finding enough leaders.  It may be the #1 challenge (just ahead of finding enough coaches).  Let me say two things.  First, it is a challenge.  Second, your success will be determined by the answer to a few questions.  Here they are:

1. Are you willing to recruit leaders from outside the core or your existing group structure?  This is a key question.  Many group systems struggle to recruit new leaders because they have a requirement that you have to be in a group before you can lead a group.  Although it seems like a way to ensure culture continuity, there are several problems with this requirement.  The biggest problem is that it depends on your ability to persuade existing group members to leave their group to lead another.
2. What are the requirements to lead (or host) a group?  Obviously, the more stringent your requirements, the more difficult it will be to find enough leaders.  Thinking about it in terms of a continuum should help.  The question you must ask yourself is, “What are the minimum requirements to produce the environment we feel good about?”  Remember, you can set criteria that determines where their members come from, what material they use and how to pick it up.
3. Where will the group members come from?  This is a very important question.  If you’re going to advertise the group on your website or send members via a sign-up, you may feel like you need to pre-qualify new leaders by running a background check or having leader candidates complete an application or questionnaire.  Additionally, you may require them to be members or attend an orientation.  At the same time, if new hosts are inviting their own friends to join their group, if the group isn’t promoted on the website or catalog, you may feel fine with the requirement that they attend an orientation, complete a questionnaire, and establish contact with a coach.  Where their members come from is often a key to who can lead or host and it is now common practice to have a range of options in the same campaign (i.e., anyone can pick up the curriculum to start a group with their own friends but if you want to be on the website you’ve got to be a member, attend the orientation, etc.).

There are other questions.  The key to recruiting enough leaders is to set the qualifications at a level you are comfortable with…and accept the consequences.  If you set the bar very high, it is unreasonable to expect unlimited leaders.  If you lower the bar, you’ll need to establish a set of support features that will reduce your anxieties (i.e., attend orientation, use preapproved curriculum, connect with a coach, fill your own group, etc.).  Like everything else, there is no problem-free solution.  Wise leaders simply choose the set of problems they’d rather have.

One of the most common questions in small group ministry is how do I find enough leaders? Right on it’s heels are two other very common questions:

• How do I recruit leaders (once I’ve identified them)?
• How do I develop leaders (once they’ve been recruited)?

(All three of these questions were well represented in my recent survey on the questions you are asking.  Click here to take it yourself!)

How Do I Find and Recruit Enough Leaders?

This is a very common question.  I’ve asked it.  You’ve asked it.  Here are a few of the best ways to find leaders:

1. The easiest way to find leaders is the Connection strategy.  You’ll find a four part series on how to do it right here.  The key to its effectiveness is that the Connection identifies leaders at the event.  Especially in a growing church or church with a lot of new or unknown attendees, this is a huge advantage.  In my experience, once a church is larger than about 300 adults it reaches a stage where there are attendees that are recognized by sight (maybe even by name), but their ministry experience, work experience, and leadership potential is unknown.  The Connection strategy will help you find the leaders you need.
2. The HOST strategy is another great way to find potential leaders.  Best used with a church wide campaign (like One Month to Live, Live Like You Were Dying or Life’s Healing Choices), the HOST strategy allows you to recruit potential leaders from beyond the core.  If your whole leader identification strategy has been to tap the usual suspects…you need to shift your focus to the people you don’t know as well.  HOST will help you do that.  Important: Many churches believe they have tried the HOST idea, but unless you’ve made the ask this way you’ve only used an unreasonable facsimile.
3. Ask your existing groups to consider taking a small group vacation.  Many small group systems or strategies have an apprenticing concept built in (i.e., every leader needs to be developing an apprentice who will one day leave to start their own group).  There are a couple challenges with the apprenticing idea.  First, it instills the notion that it happens over time.  If you need leaders now, strategies that might produce more leaders in 18 months are little consolation.  Second, many groups are full of people that really ought to be leading a group.  Identifying one as an apprentice allows the others who ought to be leading to breathe a sigh of relief as they all point to the apprentice!  The essence of the take a small group vacation idea is that the whole group agrees not to meet as a group during a church wide campaign.  Instead of meeting together they pair up and help launch multiple new groups.  Read more right here.
4. Well down the list of strategies to find new leaders is the turbo group idea.  This has been around for years and is essentially an invitation for potential leaders to join a group led by an experienced leader with the expectation that at the end of the study they will each launch their own group.  It works best if there is some exclusivity to the invitation.  That is, the turbo group is led by someone it would be appealing to rub shoulders with.  Additionally, this is a limited duration group (8 to 12 weeks) that uses a study chosen as a way of modeling how to lead.  Once the group begins, members of the group take turns leading the group under the supervision of the leader.

In the next article I’ll cover several strategies for developing leaders.  If you’re not set up to automatically get the update…you can do that easily right here.

Do you have what it takes to be really effective at small group ministry?  Like anything else there are a number of ingredients to this kind of effectiveness.  I really think you’ve got to be a learner.  You can be an introvert but it really helps to be a relational person.  After all, it’s important that you’re modeling what you want others to reproduce.  It makes a big difference to be strategic.  There really is a good, better and best time to do everything.

Those are just a few things you need to be really effective at small group ministry.  It’s not just one thing.

In fact, I think there’s one more thing that is really, really important if you want to be effective at small group ministry.  I think you’ve got to be at least a little bit of an innovator.  I don’t mean that you have to come up with ideas like the small group connection or the HOST strategy.  That kind of crazy, extraordinary innovation is only in a very few brains.  But you do need to be an innovator.  Here’s what I mean.

An innovator looks for ways to improve the performance of whatever they’re doing.  That happens when you’re observant and ready to thoughtfully tweak the ordinary pattern.  Let me talk about both.

Be Observant

Albert Einstein said that “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”  Great line.  A very true line.  And yet…aren’t many of us guilty of running a strategy the same way over and over again and remaining disappointed in the results?

Being observant comes into play when you watch what happens and note the results.  You might even jot down the specifics of your promotion, the set-up of the room, the exact personnel that you used to pull off the event, and the follow-up you used.

Once you’ve accumulated all of this information you might even pull together a small team to thoughtfully sift through the data looking for any angles that could explain what happened.  Be sure to write down their observations.  This is the time to gather insight.

Thoughtfully Tweak the Ordinary Pattern

Once you’ve carefully examined what happened last time (what Jim Collins referred to as an autopsy without blame) it’s time to make a tweak or two of the normal pattern to see if you can improve the outcome.  Don’t be content to repeat the event the same way.  Instead, look for ways to innovate and improve it.

The Secret to Being an Innovator

The secret to being an innovator is to do the above…and then repeat the process.  Much like shampoo, rinse, and repeat…becoming an innovator is a continual process.  It’s an every time process.  And you can do it.

What was the last book you read that was a little outside your field? What was the last conference you attended or talk you listened to that was not quite on the topic of choice? Who’d you buy coffee for last that has an expertise that’s different from yours?

If you’ve been reading, if you’ve been listening to podcasts, if you’ve been buying coffee for people you could learn from…then you’re probably a learner. If you had to admit that it’s been a while since you did any of those things…you’re probably in trouble and don’t even know it.

Of course, the truth is that you’ve got to be some kind of learner or you wouldn’t be reading this! But if you’re reading here, then I’m assuming you’re interested in sharpening your group life skills and understanding. Still, I want to encourage you to read broadly, listen broadly, and rub shoulders broadly.

Whether curiosity killed the cat or not I don’t know. What I do know is that only curious people are learners and only learners have breakout and breakthrough ideas.

How To Get Started

If you answered no to my questions above, here are some ideas that will help you jump-start your learning engine.

• Pick up a book like Chief Culture Officer by Grant McCracken, Linchpin by Seth Godin or The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive by Patrick Lencioni. Need more ideas? Take a look at my reading list from StrategyCentral (where I blog about strategy and purpose) .
• Add a podcast to your iTunes that’s new and different, that will stretch you. I learned about Radiolab from Seth Godin. Crazy, engaging, and the best produced podcast I’ve ever heard. If you’re not already listening to Andy Stanley’s Leadership Podcast, it is a must add. I’ve learned a lot and had my curiosity provoked by listening to the Stanford Entrepreneurial Thought Leader podcast. Very nice and all free.
• Make a date to meet for coffee with someone who’s not involved in your ministry. Could be a nearby group life person from another church. You can find them by checking out the Purpose Driven Small Group Network. Better yet, keep your ears open for people who have jobs you know nothing about and meet for coffee or a coke.

Here’s the key: In everything you do, whether you’re reading, listening to a podcast or talking with someone you’re just getting to know…be a learner. Jot down insights, thoughts to follow up on later, other books to read or talks that are mentioned. If you keep your eyes open, you’ll begin to notice ways that ideas from outside your expertise will suddenly appear relevant.

If you haven’t heard about The Summit: A Convergence of Small Group Experts, now is the time to jump in and register.  This FREE 90 minute online event features many of the most recognized small group names including Lyman Coleman, Bill Donahue, Steve Gladen, and Carl George.

Thursday, February 18, 2010, 10:30 a.m. to Noon Central Standard Time

You can find out more or register for this free event right here.  I want to encourage you to take advantage of his online event.  I learn from these experts every time I’m around them.

What are you training your coaches to do?  Have you trained them?  Or is it every man for himself?

I’ve found there are four key questions that every coach should be asking.  Here they are:

1. What is the best thing that happened in your group meeting this week? (Praise) Notice that it’s not a question about numbers.  It’s not a quantitative question.  It’s a qualitative question.  It encourages a conversation.  It’s a question that helps spark opportunities for the leader to be commended for their service.
2. What’s the worst thing that happened in your group meeting this week? (Problem) This question allows the leader to grumble a little; sharing the things that aren’t working.  This is a great opportunity for the coach to use diagnostic follow up questions or prompts like, “Why do you think that happened?” or “Tell me more about that.”
3. What are you going to do next? (Plan)  This question allows the leader to talk about next steps for their group or what they plan to do about what’s not working.  It’s not necessarily a time for the coach to be directive.  Instead, it encourages the leader to think out loud about what they should do.
4. How can I pray for you? (Prayer)  This is the key question among the key questions.  More than anything else, this question helps establish the coach as someone who genuinely cares about the leader, about their family, their job, their relationship with Christ, etc.

Keep in mind that actually listening is very important.  In fact, I recommend that every coach keep a simple journal with notes from their conversation.  Whether you have 3 groups or 10 groups it will pay off to be able to look at those notes before your next call or cup of coffee and refresh your memory!  I’ve also found it very helpful to keep post-it notes on my desk so that I can jot down prayer requests and have a visible reminder during the week.

Another really helpful practice is to call and follow up on things like health concerns, job interviews, and family challenges.  Paying attention to the concerns and challenges of your leaders speaks loud and clear about your genuine appreciation for them.

Finally, these four questions can also be used during huddle time at a leader’s meeting.  Here’s a downloadable copy of a form I use to generate discussion in the coach’s huddle time during a leader’s meeting.

I need to thank Brett Eastman for this idea.  His, along with Carl George, Lyman Coleman, Jim Dethmer and Bill Donahue, are some of the broad shoulders the rest of us stand on.

One of my goals here at MarkHowellLive is to provide answers to basic small group ministry questions.  Although I provide a full range of consulting and coaching options, I’m hoping it helps to be able to find a lot of what you need online, right here, or at one of the websites/blogs in my blogroll.

It will help me to know a little bit about who reads my articles and what questions you have about small group ministry.  Would you take 2 or 3 minutes and complete my 5 question survey?  Here’s the link.  Thanks for your help!

Great conversation continues to come out of the comments generated by my response to Randall Neighbor’s article over at SmallGroups.com.  If you missed out, be sure and read them to catch up.

Today I want to expand the discussion on a potential strategic difference that a crowd-to-core strategy brings…that is not present in the cell group strategy.  Here it is:

Who you encourage (or allow) to host a group absolutely determines the outreach potential.

Take a moment and let that statement sink in.

Now let me unpack the idea.  What I’m suggesting is that there is a strategic advantage in allowing those who are newer to the congregation (who might even still be part of the crowd) to host a group.  I am acknowledging that there will be problems, but I pick up a key strategic advantage by not insisting that group leaders come from the core.

What’s the advantage?  Newer participants still know more people outside the congregation.  The longer a person has been involved in the core (or part of a closed group) the more likely it is that their closest friends, their best connections are also members of the core.  Newer participants don’t have that issue.  Ask new participants who their 10 best friends are in the community they live in and they’ll almost always identify 8 to 10 people who have never even been to the church.  I wrote about this phenomenon right here.

That’s a big advantage from an outreach standpoint.  Huge even.  Do you run risks when you lower the bar of leader requirements?  Absolutely.  But those risks can be controlled (see yesterday’s article for more) and lowering the bar opens up exponential opportunities.

Contrast this with the more customary pattern within the cell group concept where next leaders develop as apprentices and then one day enable the group to birth.  One reason that Mario Vega writes about the need for personal evangelism within the cell strategy is that it must be intentionally promoted as priority for the cell idea to work.

What do you think?