Blog | Childrens Ministry Online

Group Culture: Defining the Win

Aug 23, 2017 | Ideas, Leadership, Volunteers | 0 |

Building the healthy small group culture we have today wasn’t rocket science, but it wasn’t completely obvious either. I’d like to say that we knew exactly what we were doing every step of the way, but that wouldn’t exactly be true. Things would happen that we didn’t expect and we would adjust the process. More often than not, our biggest obstacle in building something better was the human element. Go figure, right? It was often behavioral and engrained mindsets that we often didn’t anticipate. Regardless, we adjusted and pushed through. Our success truly did revolve around these three pivot...

Group Culture: Shifting Perspectives

Aug 22, 2017 | Ideas, Leadership, Volunteers | 0 |

Small groups is actually a thing (10-15 year ago, not nearly as much). Most of the curriculum you could buy for your ministry assumes that you’re already doing small groups. At least they provide questions and resources for small group time. Doing small group and having a small group culture, are in fact, two different things. Many churches offer small groups each and every week, but few churches have thriving groups because of a relational culture that was intentionally cultivated. Our transition to a healthy small group culture revolved around three specific pivot points: Know the Bullseye Shifting Perspectives Defining...

Group Culture: Know the Bullseye

Aug 21, 2017 | Ideas, Leadership, Volunteers | 0 |

Building a healthy Small Group culture is quite the undertaking. It was a journey that took much longer than I anticipated. Although we haven’t yet “arrived,” we have managed to build a thriving culture for small groups. Looking back on the process, I can clearly see three specific pivot points that were crucial to the transition. If I was helping you transition your ministry where small groups were central to success, I’d walk you through these very same pivot points. Know the Bullseye Shifting Perspectives Defining the Win For this post, let’s take a look at the first pivot...

Building Healthy Small Group Culture

Aug 20, 2017 | Ideas, Leadership, Volunteers | 0 |

A few years ago my parents came to visit for the holidays. Feeling nostalgic, I decided to pull out a “family fun activity” that brought back childhood holiday memories – the classic 1000 piece puzzle. Convinced that everyone would be as excited as I was, I staked my claim to the kitchen table and dumped out all 1000 pieces of this Thomas Kincaid-like puzzle. I set the box top on the corner to serve as our guide and got to work. My parents were amused. I toiled over the puzzle for hours while they’d graciously stop by for a...

The Missing Pieces

Aug 18, 2017 | Ideas, Leadership, Volunteers | 0 |

Show me a healthy substitute list and I’ll show you a healthy small group ministry. The two go hand in hand. Here’s the scenario that plays out almost every week at churches everywhere. You cast a vision for a small group ministry and recruit amazing small group leaders. Okay, you have some amazing small group leaders, some good small group leaders and who are good when they show up. That’s a different blog post altogether. Regardless, you have small group leaders who don’t show up. Some get sick. Some are out of town. Some went to the lake and...