Author Archive for Darryl Wilson

Growing Your Group

By Darryl Wilson · Comments (0)
Thursday, May 19th, 2022

When you hear the words, “growing your group,” what comes to your mind? Do you think numerical increase? Or do you think maturational growth, growth as disciples? Can you have one without the other?

Growing Numerically

We should not shy away from adding more people to our groups. Making disciples of all nations gives the mandate to every Christian, group, and church (Great Commission, in Matthew 28:19-20). And what we have to offer new people is a relationship with God and a group of Christian encouragers built around helping one another meet God in Bible study and living changed, caring lives. We want numbers to increase so there is a chance for even more to become disciples.

Here are four key principles to grow a group numerically:

  1. pray and plan expectantly;
  2. add more group caregivers who will challenge and lead group members to reach out with care and invitations to members AND to FRANs (friends, relatives, associates, and neighbors) who are not members;
  3. add more groups who will naturally add add more caregivers to your Sunday School or small group ministry; and
  4. pray for, care for, fellowship with, invite, and enroll new people.

The measure of numerical success is enrolling new people. In the right caring environment, this mobilizes even more members to pray for, care for, fellowship with, invite, and enroll other new people. This is a measure and expression of maturation and growth as disciples.

Maturational Growth

We cannot assume maturational growth is happening simply because a person is attending a group. Instead, we need to look for evidence of growth. Is the focus of conversation on self, others, or God? Are they having Gospel conversations with others? Do they love God and desire to serve out of their giftedness? Is there evidence they are spending time with God in Bible study and prayer between group sessions? Do their lives exhibit a Christian worldview–is thinking and action influenced by Jesus?

What can we do to foster this kind of environment with our groups (in or outside of group sessions)? Here is a starter list of ideas:

  • seek participation by everyone in group sessions and activities (this requires more preparation, but it increases interest, retention, and ownership)
  • in groups larger than 7 people, break group session into smaller conversational groups for a portion of the time (see the previous one)
  • expect group members to prepare (ask questions, give assignments, help them understand why lessons/topics are important)
  • ask every individual to serve (find a place that is fulfilling for them and for the class)
  • follow up every Bible study session by asking what last lesson was about, what was its point, what they were supposed to do about it, and did they do it?
  • set aside extra time occasionally to study topics of relevance and need for the group, such as parenting or finances or spiritual disciplines, etc. (this might be on Saturday morning or a series of week nights for four weeks)
  • remember that leaders and caregivers appear more real and approachable when they are honest and transparent (even leaders are human and have struggles).

Evaluate Your Growth

Is your group growing? Is your growth more numerical, more maturational, neither, or both? What can you do to multiply the work by tying the two together? Lead your group to grow this year!

Darryl Wilson serves as the Sunday School & Discipleship Consultant for the Kentucky Baptist Convention. He is the author of Disciple-Making Encounters and two blogs: Sunday School Revolutionary and 28Nineteen.

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Categories : Growing your Group, Sunday School

Organize Your Group to Reach, Teach, and Minister

By Darryl Wilson · Comments (0)
Tuesday, November 9th, 2021

There is more work to do in your group than you can accomplish alone. Mobilize your group to fulfill the potential of group members and your group!

Why Is This Important?

In a busy week, the teacher must focus on the lesson. That means that reaching and ministering often get neglected–because every week is busy! Teachers need a team because the care ratio is 1:5 (one leader to five members).

In the smallest groups, teachers need outreach leaders and member care leaders. These leaders help groups extend care to prospects and members. For job descriptions, check out Important Sunday School Leader Job Descriptions. As a group grows, the addition of an apprentice teacher, secretary, greeters, and others can help maintain high levels of care and effectiveness.

Enlisting a team also grows them as leaders. A banana left on the counter too long rots. Avoid leader rot by mobilizing them for service in your class.

How Do I Enlist and Mobilize My Team?

The first step is the most critical: pray to the Lord of harvest that He would send workers (Matt 4:19). As you pray daily, begin to observe those in your class. How is God at work in their lives? As God lays someone on your heart, look for ways to spend time together (to get to know him/her better) and ask them to help you with some small tasks related to the role that needs to be filled.

When you are convinced that he/she is the one, tell them that you have been praying and observing. Share what you have seen. Ask them to pray for a few days about “joining you” in carrying out this important work. Follow up. When they accept, continue to coach them. After enlisting the team, meet with them as a team. Pray together. Set goals. Make plans. The job of the team is to get everyone in the group involved in carrying out the work of care.

A final critical step in organizing your group for care is to set aside time during group time each week for your leaders to make/check on assignments and announce plans. Establish a regular time early in your session. Keep the time allotted brief so the focus can remain on Bible teaching/learning. Doing this demonstrates how important this work is to the life of your group.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

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Darryl Wilson serves as the Sunday School & Discipleship Consultant for the Kentucky Baptist Convention. He is the author of Disciple-Making Encounters: Revolutionary Sunday School and the Sunday School Revolutionary blog.

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Categories : Learning, Organization
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Encouraging Those Making Specific Prayer Requests

By Darryl Wilson · Comments (0)
Wednesday, April 29th, 2020
four women looking down

Relationships require trust and care. Sunday School and small groups are either built upon trusting, caring relationships or these groups become very superficial. Real relationships require more than words. Our actions speak louder than our words.

Prayer is an action that is critical for adding trust and care into our relationships with each other AND with our community. But, again, prayer is more than a promise. The promise of prayer builds trust and care when it is accompanied by two actions: praying and following up.

Prayer Requests

There are some small but important ways that we can encourage those who are making prayer requests that build care and trust in powerful ways. Consider these seven steps:

  • REQUEST: ask, How can I pray for you and your family?
  • LISTEN: listen carefully to what is shared (look them in the eye; listen beyond the words; ask clarification questions when needed)
  • WRITE: write down the request (this is more critical than you think: your memory is not as good as you think and it is a visual message to the requester about how important you believe their request is)
  • PRAY IN PERSON: ask, Do you have time for me to pray for you right now? (asking says you care about their schedule and the requests)
  • SEEK CONTACT INFO: if you don’t have contact information for the person (who might be a prospect, for instance), ask, Would you share your email, phone, or text number so I can follow up on the request in a few days?
  • PRAY ONGOING: promise to continue praying–and be faithful to do so
  • FOLLOW UP: follow up on the request in a few days (ideally in person or by phone–this makes it even more personal); contact to ask (for instance), How did your mother’s surgery go?

Prayer Really Matters

When our prayer requests with members, prospects, and the community include these seven steps, people will know several things about us:

  1. we believe in a God to whom we pray
  2. we actually believe prayer works
  3. we really care and believe prayer will help
  4. we are not just saying we will pray, we show it
  5. we don’t just care at the moment but continue to care for them as persons.

When our relationships include this kind of prayer requests and prayer, care and trust are built over time with everyone. We are drawn closer to God and to others. Our care will attract more people to our groups. Our world needs more prayer and care. Won’t you take time to ask someone how you can pray for them today?

Photo by Rosie Fraser on Unsplash

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Categories : 30 Days of Prayer
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Forming Prayers Partners and Teams

By Darryl Wilson · Comments (0)
Friday, April 17th, 2020

This series has has shown that prayer is not optional for our groups. Prayer partners and teams are essential ways to display the power of prayer in individual lives, in the group, and in our world.

There are many questions that need to be answered before launching prayer partners. These include the following and so many more: Are partners two or more people? When will partnership start and end? On what will they focus their praying? How frequently will they pray and in what venue.

In the book, It Begins with Prayer, after Dwayne McCrary asks how to partner up people in the group, he asks these 7 critical questions:

Are we asking them to pray with each other weekly or monthly? How will they decide on what day they will pray? Are we expecting them to meet face-to-face, by phone, by texting, or by some other means? How will we help them understand the need for building trust and keeping things confidential as much as possible? How will we explain the value of praying with a partner within the group? How do we deal with those who decide not to participate? What is the duration of the partnership—a year, six months, until Jesus comes back?

p. 26, It Begins with Prayer, by Dwayne McCrary

Prayer Partners

Your experience may differ from mine, and that’s fine. I have seen great benefits from prayer partners including only two people of the same gender who meet twice weekly: (1) by phone at a scheduled time and (2) during group time for 2-5 minutes. After checking on each other, they should check on (and write down) personal prayer concerns and then get down to the business of praying about those concerns and any others requested by the class or church. Of course prayer will continue beyond these times.

One of the reasons why I believe two prayer partners are better than 3+ is simply that there tends to be less talking and more prayer. Prayer should be the focus. In fact, another method is simply each person praying for their own personal requests rather than sharing them. This shares the requests during prayer with the other person. Those requests will need to be written down after prayer (so they can be remembered and lifted up in prayer).

I don’t want to diminish the importance of relationships and trust during prayer. In fact, they are essential in order to be honest and open in our requests and prayer. But at the same time, prayer is the focus. Ensure that prayer receives at least half of the time together.

Prayer Teams

In my mind, prayer teams are different than prayer partners. They would meet less frequently. They would have 3-7 members who focus on one or more specifically assigned/requested topics. The duration of the teams might be shorter or the assigned/requested topics might change. These could be cottage prayer meetings monthly or bimonthly.

Why did I narrow the team to a maximum of 7 members? In my experience, it is easy for a group to allow one or more members of a group of 8+ not to talk or pray. The larger groups don’t do this intentionally, but keeping teams smaller helps this to be less likely to take place.

Which Do I Choose?

Consider the differences between partners and teams. Review the questions above. Then I want to challenge you to enlist prayer partners or teams. Then watch as prayer empowers and changes the lives of group members, the class, and those for whom they pray!

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Darryl Wilson serves as the Sunday School & Discipleship Consultant for the Kentucky Baptist Convention. He is the author of Disciple-Making Encounters: Revolutionary Sunday School and the Sunday School Revolutionary blog.

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Categories : 30 Days of Prayer, Prayer
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Meeting Online When Live Is Impossible

By Darryl Wilson · Comments (0)
Wednesday, March 18th, 2020

There is no substitute for live social interaction–even meeting online. You cannot pat someone on the back or hug them by phone, online, or by mail. Eye contact is impossible by phone, text, email, mail, and even one-way video (challenging even with two-way video).

Knowing that, what can be done when circumstances prevent meeting in person? As a nation and world, we are in the midst of the COVID-19 virus (Coronavirus) pandemic. Limits have been set on group gathering size.

That impacts churches. If worship does not happen in person, groups are usually cancelled as well. But even without a virus crisis, sometimes groups cannot meet in person. Vacations happen. Illness, family member death, and a litany of reasons occur that take members or even the leader away. My question in this day of technology is why cancel?

Meeting Online

There are tons of methods for connecting when you cannot meet in person. Consider some of the following ideas:

  • Conference calls (for groups less techno-savvy) can enable a lesson to be taught with Q&A or discussion, announcements, and prayer together;
  • Facebook Live and YouTube Live can enable the group leader to pray, share announcements, and teach a lesson; while this is one-way communication, it can be supplemented by text to receive prayer requests and lesson questions/comments;
  • Zoom, GoToMeeting, Google G Suite, and others can enable groups to see and hear each other and tend to work best for smaller groups if there will be much interaction; they offer chat during video which allows written prayer requests, announcements/reminders, and lesson questions/comments (the video link and the chat conversation can be emailed to those who missed it);
  • Facebook Groups and other social media can provide posting of lesson outlines, questions, and discussion along with announcements and prayer requests;
  • Text generally works best with really small groups (2-4) and short texts; if the group or texts gets larger, then participants won’t have enough time to read what is texted.

Again, I am not advocating online meeting in place of live meetings in person. But your class or group can meet online when special holidays or circumstances prevent meeting live in person. A small group could still meet online when a group leader or host has to travel. A D-group could still meet online when a discipler is out of town. And these ideas can also work for the sick, traveling, etc. to join when the rest of the group is still meeting live in person.

Comments?

Do you have additional experiences, resource suggestions, or ideas you could share? Press Leave a Comment to share. Don’t stop meeting just because you can’t meet live in person.

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Darryl Wilson serves as the Sunday School & Discipleship Consultant for the Kentucky Baptist Convention. He is the author of Disciple-Making Encounters: Revolutionary Sunday School and the Sunday School Revolutionary blog.

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Categories : Assimilation, Learning, Teaching
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