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.

The Willow Creek Association has provided a link to some great new web-based training opportunities.  Here’s part one of an 11 part series by Mindy Caliguire, founder of Soul Care and author of Simplicity.  This is good stuff!

Most of us have been on the way somewhere and suddenly had doubts that we were going the right way.  You know the feeling.  You're driving and the Google map directions don't make sense so you keep going even though you don't come across the street you're looking for.  And then the street dead ends. 

Sound familiar? 

How about in your spiritual life?  Ever suddenly realize that you must've gotten off the path along the way?  Or that you've not really moved in the last year (or 10)?

What do you do?  If you're like me, you might decide that it's time to be more disciplined about your morning devotional time or maybe even reaffirm your commitment to find an accountability partner.  You might break out your memory verses or rededicate yourself to a daily discipline of silence and meditation.

What do you do?

The Apostle Paul was wrestling with a related concern when he wrote that he didn't consider himself to have
arrived (Philippians 3:13-14).  He went on to write, "But one thing I
do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." 

I've used this diagram for a couple years to describe the idea of helping your small group ministry get to there (where you dream of it being).  It's a very helpful way of looking at ministry design.  But it's also really great for helping individuals think about spiritual growth and development.

There are six keys steps to understanding the diagram:

1. The Present: Attitudes and behaviors you have right now along with your struggles and your victories…are represented by the present in the diagram.
2. The Probable Future: If nothing changes in you, if your attitudes and behaviors remain the same, it's easy to see who you will likely be in 10 years (or 20).  After all, Albert Einstein said, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results."  Well said.
3. The Possible Future: If you took the time you could begin to imagine all that's possible in the way of character, behavior and attitudes.
4. The Preferred Future: The character of Christ is what we aspire to be.  Right?  What are those attributes (attitudes and behaviors) that make up the kind of person we'd like to be (and need to be) if we're going to become like Christ?
5. Getting to the Preferred Future: Getting to there will require a set of actions that move us onto a new trajectory.
6. Staying the Course: Disciplines can be used to keep us moving in the direction we want to go.  Andy Stanley says that, "Path, not intent, determines destination."

Do you have a path?  One of my core assumptions is that if you want something to happen in the lives of the members of your groups, something will have to happen in the lives of your leaders first.  It follows that if you want something to happen in the lives of your leaders…it will have to happen in your life first.  And in mine.

Do you have a path?  Does your small group ministry have a path?  Is it designed to make disciples?

Thoughts?  Can you see how this concept could help your effort to make disciples? 

The optimal environment for life change is a small group. 

We’ve all heard that line for years.  Most of us have said that line so frequently that it is now an automatic response when we hear a counter opinion.  And yet…is it really true?  And if it is true, is it a given?  Or does something have to happen to cause the life change?  If it is true, what are the conditions that make it true?

These are your questions too, right?  If you’re the small group expert at your place, aren’t these questions at least bubbling up from time to time when it’s really quiet in your office?  I know this has been a steady inner dialogue for me over the last years.

Don’t get me wrong.  I believe that the optimal delivery system for life change is a small group.  You can read a little more right here about what I think.  I just have gotten to the point where I’m very pragmatic about the steps that lead to life change.  See…I’ve found that it’s not automatic.  There are some ingredients that must be present to produce life change.  You know it too.  Here’s one of the most important ingredients:

Whatever you want to happen at the member level, must be part of the experience of the leader.  Another way that I say it is that "whatever you want to happen at the member level you have to do to and for the leader of the group."  Here’s what I mean.  If you want the members of your groups to feel cared for, then the leader of the group will have to know how to care for them and actually do that.  After all, a person can only give away what they already have.  Does that make sense?  Here’s another.  If you want your members to experience loving accountability, then the leader of the group will have to know how to do that and actually do it.  How will that happen?  The leader will have to be experiencing that in their own life.

Are you tracking?  It’s a no-brainer, right?  Makes sense, doesn’t it?  Whatever you want to happen at the member level, you have to do to and for the leader of the group.  The leader can only give away what they have.

And what follows naturally is this question: How will the leaders of your groups experience what you want them to be able to give away?  My contention?  Somehow you will have to do to and for your leaders whatever you want them to provide to the members of your groups.  End of story.  How will that happen?  The obvious answer is, "some kind of coaching or mentoring solution."  In that obvious answer is a whole series of posts.  But here’s the point for starters.  Whatever you want to happen at the member level must begin in you.  Ultimately, it begins with you.  If you’re running on fumes, if you’re only what you need to be on the very surface of your life, that’s what you’ll have to give away.  And that my friends is at the core of the life change question.

Thoughts?  Anyone?  Anyone?

Several years ago at
Willow’s Leadership Summit I was introduced to Robin Mark and Revival in Belfast.  I came home singing Jesus, All for Jesus.  This song says it for me…

I believe that if you want anything to happen at the member level, your leaders must experience it first.  The way I say it a lot of times is that, "Whatever you want to happen at the member level you have to do to and for your leaders."  I really believe that if we aren’t full of God, if we’re dry, we are crazy to believe that our small group leaders could be any different.

When I make that statement I know that it begins with me.  If I’m skimping on my own devotion and growth I’ll have nothing to pass on.  If I’m dry…well…I’ll have nothing.  And since I have a long-standing dream of  helping my leaders to experience what it is to know God deeply and to experience him deeply, I look for ways to give that to them.  With that, if you haven’t seen and heard the Healer video from the new Hillsongs recording, This Is Our God, then you need to stop what you’re doing and watch it.  Want to order your own copy?  You can do that RIGHT HERE.