A Happy Meal?
Help Darryl decide whether his group should continue eating dinner together.
| Topics: | Connecting, Fellowship, Food, Problems |
| Filters: | Group Leader, Host, Lead |
| Purpose: | Fellowship |
| Date Added: | September 15, 2009 |
Darryl's group meets every week, and he's been excited about the depth of intimacy and community everyone is experiencing. Darryl believes this has a lot to do with the group's practice of eating dinner together each week before the group meeting—all the members have really jelled well as a result and formed some particularly strong bonds.
So, in some ways the meal is a great thing for the group. But in other ways it has been a real drag—particularly for Darryl's wife. She started out cooking for all of the meals, but that quickly became too large of a burden. Now the group has a rotation for the main course, but Darryl and his wife still provide the salad, drinks, and dessert. This has put a bit of a dent in the family budget.
What is most frustrating, however, is the amount of time Darryl's wife spends getting the house ready, cooking the dessert, setting the table, clearing the table, and washing dishes—she is simply burned out on the whole process. And to make matters worse, last week one of the group member's children knocked two plates off the table and broke them while roughhousing. That was the final straw for Darryl's wife, and she asked him the next day to eliminate the weekly meal.
What should Darryl do?
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Darryl needs to distribute the responsibilities of the weekly meal between all of the members of his group evenly. As the meeting is being held at Darryl's home, their family should only be responsible for providing a venue for the group to meet (and eat) and for hot beverages. The other members should be given a rotation to supply cold drinks, and the other parts of the meal, this way no one person or family is stuck with the a financial or otherwise burden. Also, it would be wise for the group to use disposable dishes and cutlery so no one has to do dishes or worry about breakage.
As a group leader, it is easy to start out being "co-dependent" and doing everything for the group, and then over time resenting them for it. I have learned from experience that it is better to start at the beginning with rotating everything, hosting, food, child care, etc. That way everyone is contributing and no one is getting taken advantage of. People who don't want to contribute can find another group to be part of (and be served by!) but those who stay will grow and taken ownership of the group--a much better situation than burning out the hostess! Please don't give up the meal--help your group grow by helping!
I agree with Matthew . Once the strong bonds have been established in the group, guests can eat at home , then just have coffee/tea and cookies - Darryl makes the coffee and the group members take turns bringing cookies ( keep to fingerfood desserts that require only paper napkins)... OR each person bring his/her own bag lunch.. Or make this an evening for fasting ... Perhaps Darryl should discuss the problem with the members and have them come up with a suitable solution.
Perhaps they should have sign ups where people would sign up to do part of the jobs. If a couple people showed up early to helpw ith set up and prep and then a couple people stay late to help with clean up it should help lighten the burden for Darryl's wife. Also have each person in the group bring a piece of the meal - Darryl's family should not have to host AND provide salad, etc.
I am a part of a small group that meets twice a week and our situation was similar until we fixed the problem. All they need to do is switch the location.
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