Take Action: Find Stories That Connect

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Nothing helps convince unconnected people see the value of connecting like a great personal story.  You can make all the announcements you want about how to get connected to a small group.  You can preach all the sermons you want about how being in a small group is biblical and God’s plan for all of us.  You can make it easy to connect and put a small group finder right smack in the middle of your home page and a small group kiosk dead center in the middle of your lobby.

And you need to do all those things.  Those are the right things to do.

But none of those things are as convincing as a great personal story about “how important my small group is to me.”  Nothing helps convince unconnected people about the importance of being connected like the story of how my group came around me when I really needed them.  Or a story about how my group makes me feel like I’m part of the family.  or a story about how doing life together helps me know that God is always with me.

If you’re not gathering stories you are missing the main chance to help unconnected people get connected.

Here’s Your Assignment:

  1. Ask your current group leaders to think about who in their group has a good story about the importance of being in a group.  Tell your group leaders that you’d like to talk with the people they identify.
  2. Follow up with each person asking them to tell you their story.
  3. Ask each person at least these three questions: (a) When you were thinking about joining a group…what were you afraid of?  (b) What do you sense that God has done in your life as a result of being in a group?  (c) What would you say to the people that aren’t in a group?  What are they missing?

How To Take Advantage of Personal Stories:

There are at least three ways to leverage the power of a great personal story to convince unconnected people to take a group test drive.

  1. Ask them to share their testimony.  Have them write out their answers to the questions above and share their story during a service.
  2. You can interview them during a service.  Simply ask them the questions and let them respond naturally.
  3. You can video them answering the questions and put their responses together in a video that can be used in a service.

Here are some additional articles I’ve written:

Don’t miss this opportunity to capture some stories that will help your unconnected people to respond to the invitation to join a group.  Find great stories.  Get them ready to use.  Taking action now will help someone tomorrow.

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