New Resource: Love

I don't know about you, but I get a bit overwhelmed with how much material is out there for building effective Life Groups and how to lead a successful Life Group?  There are literally thousands of resources and hundreds of reputable leaders out there that we can all glean useful information from.  But I often find myself asking, who's right and who's wrong.  One person claims to have the secret key to building the best Life Group, while the next guy claims to have the same.  Both have diametrically opposed methods of leading, but they both have experienced obvious success or they wouldn't be passionately sharing what they've learned.

So, we adopt a theory, plan or program, implement it and start to get excited from a limited amount of success.  We plug in the numbers to the formula and anticipate getting the same answer, right?  And we do, for a period of time.  We coast along, seeing some periodic and sporadic success stories and then things get a little stale.  The mundane repetition of leading a Life Group kicks in and we get discouraged, until.....The NEXT trendy, popular and proven method comes along!  We jump the bandwagon, convinced that we've found the "answer"!  Do me a favor, will you?  When you find the "answer", let me know.  I've found dozens and  they all seem to be only temporary solutions.

Don't get me wrong.  There is a lot of great material out there by some very respectable experts in the field of small group ministry.  The problem is that when we start to follow programs and methods too religiously, it takes away from the personal aspect of Life Groups and your individuality as a Life Group Leader.  There is only one "you", and consequently, only one Life Group that is "yours".  You may take a lot of advice from others, and find some great tools to help you lead, but YOU are the one that God chose to lead YOUR Life Group, and guess what?  He wouldn't have chosen YOU if He didn't think YOU have unique skills and talents to effectively lead a group of precious people.  Be encouraged by that!  

Think about this throughout this week.  A recent study was conducted by a PhD in the area of education and small group leadership.  What he came up with was that the most effective small groups were not the ones that used the best programs, studies, or DVDs.  What he found was that the most successful leadership aspects came from the personal and spiritual health of the group leader.  Basically, it was the leaders connection with God that mattered and not the external factors.  These were the questions that he based his study on:
    
How consistently do you take time for prayer and Bible reading?
Are you praying daily for your non-Christian friends to come to know Jesus?
How many days in the past week did you pray for your small-group members?
Do you pray for your group meetings in the days leading up to it?
How much time on average do you spend in daily prayer and Bible reading?

Eighty-three percent of leaders that had a deeper relationship with God had the most success as a leader and were growing as groups in terms of spiritual health and numbers.  These leaders and groups we also more concerned with bringing new people into the group and saw more people come to Christ through the direct correlation to the groups efforts.  On the flip side, nineteen percent of leaders that had stale relationships with God and not growing spiritually, saw weak groups, sporadic success and very little growth to the group and non-believers coming to Christ.

What does this tell us?  What is my advice?  Well, basically it all comes down to a story from Scripture.  The Pharisees and religious leaders had come up with 613 Old Testament laws that they believed would keep them in right standing before God.  The Pharisees were experts at this!  For example, they were so concerned with violating the law of not working on the Sabbath, that they had laws as to how much of an angle grass could be after walking on it, because it might be considered plowing by God and hence working!  They had laws to keep them from violating laws!

Jesus had a response to this that cut through all the crap.  When a religious leader came to Him and asked which one of these ridiculous laws are the most important, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself'" (Mark 12:28-32). Think about that verse for a while.  Meditate on it and what it means to be a Life Group leader.  Think about it in terms of all aspects of life.  It's pretty simple and empowering, isn't it?  Basically, all the junk out there that we worry and stress over doesn't matter!  None of it makes any difference unless we are implementing this very simple concept:  Love God as much as you possibly can.  Put Him first above anything else.  Love others.  Love yourself.  That's it.  Everything else will fall into place under these two commands.

So, I guess should I assume this to be my last blog, since we've figured out the "answer"?