I have made it a regular, ongoing practice in my ministry as a small group pastor to ask our leaders, "What do you need? How can we help you most in your ministry?" If I were to sum up their typical responses in one line, it would sound something like an old Carpenter's song:
"What a small group leader needs now … is love sweet love."
No matter how much I do, how many classes I teach, how many awards I give, or what structure I have in place, they need love more than anything and everything else. "It's the only thing that there's just too little of!"
That is why, last summer, we transitioned our small groups ministry to a more relational paradigm. I have written about this transition in the July and September 2004 issues. Rather than revisiting all the reasons for this transition and how we accomplished it, I would like to spend time in this article discussing the question of "What does the small group leader really need?"
Of course it starts with relationships. Small group ministry is by nature a relational ministry, so I want my support system / structure / leadership community—whatever you want to call it—to be intensely relational in nature.
Allow me to editorialize for just a couple of paragraphs. I believe that perhaps we have been emphasizing the wrong thing in many of our small group ministries. Back when I was just starting to get involved in small group ministry, many church-growth gurus who had studied the phenomenal growth of churches in America and other countries were writing books and conducting seminars to help churches build organizational systems and strategies to bring about that kind of growth through groups here in the United States. Churches, searching for some way to jumpstart growth and get their hands around the concept of small groups, bought the books and seminars and bought into the principles whole hog.
Here is what I believe has happened: small groups have become a program in the local church. We have taken a very simple, natural, relational concept, and we have institutionalized it. I am trying—at the church where I serve—to deinstitutionalize small groups. At the same time, I am trying to esteem and value natural, relational, creative ministry that can happen when we give people the freedom and support to do ministry.
What do small group leaders really need?
First, they need freedom to do the ministry that God puts on their hearts. One of my jobs as a small group pastor is to create an environment where people sense that they have that kind of freedom—freedom to be creative, freedom to experiment, freedom to fail. For this to happen in the church, I have to start by releasing control. I must surrender my need to manage everything that happens. Ephesians 4 tells me that Christ is the Head of the Body (v. 15). I am not. My responsibility is to "equip God's people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ" (v. 12, NLT).
Second, as we see in Ephesians 4, people need equipping to carry out their ministries successfully. God provides them with the passion and the calling to do his work. He has called me to train them to carry it out.
Third, they need relationships in which to serve. They need a community that encourages them, validates them, keeps them accountable, and keeps them going when things are tough. They do not need a "structure" or a "program" for this. They need loving relationship, and, I believe, they do not need for us to impose a set of new relationships into their lives. That is why we nixed our coaches, huddles, 5X5 structure, and the Jethro system. Now, we simply make sure each of our leaders is in what we call a "Peer to Peer" relationship with two or three other leaders with whom they already have a relationship. In this way, they build their support and encouragement into the relationships they already have.
What do leaders really need? We have developed a simple acrostic to help us remember what is really important:
Support—Leaders need prayer support, and they need to know that someone cares. Every one of our leaders has a shepherd who prays for them daily and is always available—through a phone call, email, or visit—for any kind of support needed. Shepherds never call meetings with their leaders or demand anything from them. They are there to serve the leaders.
Encouragement—Leaders need lots of encouragement to keep going.
We schedule luncheons throughout the city several times a year just to encourage leaders in their ministry, but encouragement is a lot more than lunch. I have found that, no matter how many leaders we have in our ministry, I must work very hard at developing and sustaining relationships with our leaders. No, it is not easy with so many leaders, but now that I do not have a heavy structure to maintain and a layer of coaches to manage, I have considerably more time.
Resources—Leaders need for us to provide good resources for them. That means curriculum, of course, but it also means a variety of other resources that will help them to do their ministry. I am always looking for resources that will help. Many churches provide these resources through their web site. However you avail them, resources are important.
Validation—Leaders need to know they are valued. Many churches validate only what is programmed by the church. We try to validate anything and everything that is ministry in community. This means getting out of the typical "churchy" boxes where institutional ministries often find themselves.
Equipping—Leaders need good training, both upfront—before they begin to lead—and ongoing. We provide both, and we do everything we possibly can to provide the best, most creative, most dynamic training we can. We provide food at most training events. We provide child care when we can. We make the times convenient. If someone cannot come to "my" training event, I will take it to them—in their home, to their workplace, in a special session with a few leaders at church, whatever. I am here to serve them.
What do leaders really need? Yes, they need love, relationships, freedom, etc., but the way I provide these things is by serving them. Maybe that is the thing there is really too little of!
