Author Archive for Bob Wood – Page 2

I Like New Groups

By Bob Wood · Comments (0)
Monday, July 23rd, 2012

 

 

 

It is important to start new groups. I believe this because of my own experience. I moved to a new town to begin graduate school and joined a new church; soon after they started a new Sunday school group. Here’s why it was a great experience for me.

I Made New Friends

My wife and I were in a new town and knew almost no one. Quickly, our best friends became couples in our new group. In fact, we’ve kept up with some of them over the years. They were a source of support during a busy and stressful time as young adults with young children.

I Found Opportunities to Serve

Unlike the existing group where leadership was established, the new group needed leaders. I served first as a care group leader and later as an outreach leader. Both were growth experiences, especially as I gained comfort in contacting people. As a substitute, I taught my first Bible study. The long-term result was me teaching more Bible studies than I could count. New opportunities to serve in a new group were opportunities for me to grow.

I Enjoyed Participative Bible Study

We moved from a large group taught by lecture to a small group with

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participative teaching. This helped me work through many connections between biblical truth and daily life. I grew in my spiritual walk as I discovered how to adjust my life to the biblical revelation.

I Experienced Spiritual Transformation

I already mentioned how the new group helped me grow through opportunities to serve and participative Bible study. In addition, because the group was relatively small, the teacher was able to invest individually in group members. The investment of that teacher has had a continuing impact on my life and ministry.

How about you? Have you grown from being in a new group? Do you need a champion for starting new groups in your church?
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Bob Wood serves the Baptist State Convention of Michigan, assisting churches to become more intentional and effective in making disciples.

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Categories : Group Life, Growing your Group, Mission, New Groups, Sunday School

Growth through Evangelism Training

By Bob Wood · Comments (2)
Monday, February 13th, 2012

I believe in evangelism training.  It’s personal for me.  For years I struggled to share my faith and was frustrated with the lack of results.  Then a pastor trained me in personal evangelism (using Evangelism Explosion) and it made all the difference how often I shared my faith and how effective I was.

As I served churches, I found the same to be true.  When we mobilized persons to share their faith through personal evangelism training, we saw many people come to faith in Jesus.  I found that that evangelism training leads to a growing church with a growing Sunday School.  Let me mention some resources I’ve found useful to disciple persons in personal evangelism.

FAITH Evangelism Strategy (LifeWay Christian Resources, www.lifeway.com/faith)

FAITH uses a memorized gospel presentation and on-the-job training with an experienced team leader and two learners.  It requires commitment, but produces persons who are serious about sharing their faith.  Someone has said that evangelism is more caught than taught.  I’ve found that to be true; evangelism training that includes on-the-job training makes the difference.  FAITH not only strengthens evangelism, it builds Sunday School.  It is designed to tie evangelism training closely to Sunday School outreach and ministry. We used FAITH in a church of 500 with good results; one semester we saw at least one profession of faith among our teams each week.

The NET (North American Mission Board, www.namb.net/thenet)

The NET is built around using one’s personal testimony with selected Scriptures.  It is simpler than FAITH, but still provides on-the-job training with a trained mentor and two apprentices.  We used the NET in a smaller church (about 50) and saw a greater percentage of conversions (converts per member) than in the larger church mentioned above.

Becoming a Contagious Christian (Willow Creek, www.contagiouschristian.com)

This is basic evangelism training for every member.  It doesn’t require going out and sharing one’s faith.  It doesn’t require memorization.  There are a number of basic evangelism training resources, but this is my favorite.  I’ve found you can use this to equip all your members with tools for personal evangelism and identify those who are ready to take the next step through on-the-job evangelism training.

Growth that makes a difference for eternity is conversion growth.  Do you want to grow your church and class by conversion?  Use evangelism training.
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Bob Wood serves the Baptist State Convention of Michigan assisting churches to fulfill their potential in making disciples.

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Categories : Evangelism, Ministry, Outreach/Evangelism, Sunday School

Enlisting Group Members to Serve

By Bob Wood · Comments (0)
Monday, January 9th, 2012

Lack of leaders is the number one concern I hear as I talk with church leaders.  Adult groups (Sunday School classes) are one of the best place to develop leaders.  When you enlist your group members to serve, you are developing new leaders.  Following are some ideas to help you encourage your members to serve.   These ideas focus on adult groups, but apply also to students (youth) and kids (with adaption).

Enlist an Apprentice

Every leader should have an apprentice.  An apprentice is not a substitute.  An apprentice is someone whom you are training on the job to do ministry.   He or she watches what you do, learns from you, practices ministry while you watch, and eventually goes out to serve by himself or herself.  For example, an apprentice teacher would teach once a month until he or she felt comfortable teaching a group of his or her own.  Whatever your place of leadership, enlist an apprentice.

Provide Places to Serve

Does your group provide places for members to serve?  Some leaders try to do it all alone and leave no place for others to serve.  Sometime we communicate that the only way to serve is as a “teacher.”  Organize your group with places for others to serve.   For example, organize your group with outreach leaders, ministry/care group leaders, prayer leaders, and fellowship leaders. (You can think of other ideas for ministry leaders also.)  When you organize your group for ministry, you give others opportunities to find fulfillment through ministry and at the same time accomplish more than you could ever do by yourself.

Know Your Members’ Giftedness

How well do you know your group members?  Do you know how God has gifted them?  Have you helped them discover their gifts?  People don’t find fulfillment by filling a slot; they find fulfillment when they use their gifts to serve God and others.  Help your members discover how God has gifted them.  Then help them find a place to use that giftedness in service.

Ask Members to Serve

Most persons won’t volunteer to serve; you have to ask them.  Don’t be afraid to ask person to serve.  People will appreciate being asked (even if they say, “No”).  Sometimes when you ask someone to serve in one area, he or she will decline that offer but volunteer to serve in another.  Often it helps to ask members to try out a place of service serve for a short time or to let them know they can resign at any time.  Remember, most persons won’t serve unless they are personally enlisted.

Encourage Members to Serve

As you lead your group, continually encourage your members to serve others.  Model service for them.  Help them find opportunities to serve.  Help them deal with issues that arise as they serve.  Celebrate service.  Make service to others a clear expectation for members in your group.  Ask them to serve and encourage them to serve.

What can you do to enhance the level of service among your members?

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Bob Wood serves the Baptist State Convention of Michigan in the areas of church strengthening and leadership development.

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Categories : 5 Weeks of Flake, Enlistment, Flake's Formula, Leadership, Sunday School

A Sunday School Class Cared for Me

By Bob Wood · Comments (0)
Thursday, September 15th, 2011

Like lots of folks, I dropped out of church in college.  My wife and I married right out of high school, went off to college, and didn’t connect to a church.  It didn’t help that we came from different church traditions.

After a couple of years, we tried a church of Sharon’s denomination, but that didn’t work well for us.  Then I started attending worship at another church by myself.  Once or twice I went to a young adult Sunday School class.  Even though I attended erratically, they kept in touch with me.   I know it was frustrating for them; I wasn’t very responsive and it took time for them to see results.

The turning point was in my senior year when they invited us to a class party at one of the other couples’ home.  Sharon was skeptical.  Her experience with Baptists was with legalistic fundamentalists.  Seems silly now, but she even worried about wearing pants to the party.

It turned out to be a great experience.  We both felt loved and accepted.  We made new friends.  We found the Christian fellowship that we knew we needed.  As a result, we both started attending the Sunday School class regularly.

The rest of the story is this.  We soon left for grad school.  Now we knew that we needed Christian friends and quickly found a new Sunday School class.  God used the class teacher and the members of that class to help me begin to grow in my faith.  My first place of ministry in a church was as a class care group leader.   During this time, I was able to hear God’s call into vocational ministry.

I believe Sharon and I are in ministry now because a young adult Sunday School class cared about us when we needed to come back to the Lord.  How has a Sunday School class cared for and reached out to you?  Who do you know for whom your class needs to care and reach out?

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Bob Wood serves the Baptist State Convention of Michigan in the areas of church strengthening and leadership development.

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Categories : Outreach/Evangelism, Sunday School

The Why and How of the Open Group

By Bob Wood · Comments (0)
Friday, August 12th, 2011

Open groups are crucial in missional Sunday Schools.  Why do you need open groups?  How do you maintain open groups?

Why You Need Open Groups

New people need a place to connect.  They want to build relationships and make new friends.  Open groups provide places to connect; places for relationships to be built.

  • Relational Evangelism – Effective evangelism often flows along relational lines.  Classes who are open to non-Christians will have success building relationships with them and leading many of them to faith in Jesus.
  • Relational Outreach – Believers who are new to your community or to your church are looking for new friends.  Classes that are open to new persons will reach them for their church. 
  • Relational Assimilation – One of the keys to keeping new people (including new Christians) is friendship.  If new people make friends, they stay.  If not, they drop out (see Win & Charles Arn, The Master’s Plan for Making Disciples, 152-153).  If new people get involved in Sunday School they stay.  If not, they drop out (see Thom Rainer, High Expectations, 45).  That’s why Sunday School is a great second step in a simple process for making disciples.  When you help persons move from only attending worship to involvement in Sunday School, you help them find a place to make friends and experience foundational discipleship.

How You Maintain Open Groups

“AN OPEN GROUP EXPECTS NEW PEOPLE EVERY WEEK” (David Francis, Transformational Class, 18).   How would your class be different if you expected new people every week?   Answer that question and you know what it takes to be an open group.  However, groups naturally tend to become closed over time.  You have to be intentional to maintain an open group.  Consider the following:

  • Curriculum (what you study) – If you expect new people every week, your Bible study will be self-contained each week.  Guests won’t feel unwelcome because this week’s study depends on what you’ve studied in previous weeks.  The study won’t require extensive advance preparation by members in order to be meaningful.  
  • Readiness (prepared for guests) – If you expect new people every week, you’ll be ready for them.  You’ll be there early to greet them.  You’ll have enough room and resources for them.   You’ll use name tags to help them learn one another’s names.  Stop and think about when you’ve been a guest in another class.  What made you feel welcome?  What made you feel unwelcome?   Treat guests like you would like to be treated.
  • Relationships (openness to new people) – If you already have all the friends you need and want, where do new people fit in?  In fact, most groups are relationally closed; the members of the group don’t have room in their lives for anyone else.  Are you willing to make room in your life for new people?  Will you make new friends in order to reach them for Jesus and for your church?

What do you think?  Why do you need open groups?  How can you maintain open groups?

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Bob Wood serves the Baptist State Convention of Michigan, assisting churches is becoming stronger and developing leaders. 

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Categories : 31 Days of Transformational Class
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