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Multiply Your Leaders: Pray

By Darryl Wilson · Comments (1)

Saturday, August 17th, 2013

In many of our churches across the nation, there is a leadership crisis. Many adults are saying “serve me” rather than following Christ’s example and asking, “How can I serve you?”

In addition, many churches have relaxed (or dropped) expectations for the adult class teacher to enlist a team. There are several negative repercussions:

in a busy week, the teacher focuses on the lesson and neglects prayer, member care, outreach, and class growth,
disciples and leaders are not developed through giving them class roles and assignments,
frequently this leads to an implosion as care and ministry is reduced, and
the church suffers because class leaders are not developed and prepared for other church roles.

Focus Your Prayer

To break this negative cycle, prayer is essential. We cannot do this work in our own strength! How can you pray for multiplication which impacts class, church, and the Kingdom? Consider these focus areas for your prayer:

pray for sensitivity to the Holy Spirit and His stirring in your life and those around you,
seek God’s perspective,
pray that God will send workers into the harvest (Matthew 9:38),
pray for a vision for growth and multiplication of leaders,
pray for spiritual and numerical growth of disciples,
pray for others to join you in praying for leader multiplication,
ask God’s leadership in discovering those you are to apprentice,
pray about how you can best lead apprentices to be leaders that God can use,
pray about counsel, training, modeling, and assigning through which you will invest in the leaders, and
pray for new groups which will be started; the people they will reach and disciple; and leaders they will enlist, apprentice, and mobilize.

Enlarge the Prayer Circle

Regularly invite people to join you in praying for leader multiplication. Ask your class to pray when you gather. Give them prayer assignments, individually and as a group. Set aside special seasons of prayer or prayer times. Focus one or two of the bullets above. When appropriate call for reports of prayer experiences.

Call the Sunday School to prayer for group and leader multiplication. Call the church to join you in prayer. Keep it before the people. Call them to prayer in specific ways.

Pray for More

Join me in praying for more. Pray for more understanding of God and His plan. Pray for more compassion for the people in our class, church, and community. Pray for more teachers/leaders enlisted, apprenticed, and mobilized into service. Pray for more people to accept Jesus as Savior and Lord. Pray for more disciples developed. Pray for more classes started. Pray for more missionaries sent into the world. Join me in praying for more!

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Darryl Wilson serves as Sunday School & Discipleship Consultant for the Kentucky Baptist Convention. He served as Minister of Education in five churches in Kentucky and South Carolina and is the author of The Sunday School Revolutionary!, a blog about life-changing Sunday School and small groups.

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Categories : 31 Days of Extreme Sunday School, New Groups, Prayer

Show Them the Apprentice, Part 3

By Darryl Wilson · Comments (1)

Friday, March 1st, 2013

WHERE CAN I FIND SPONSORS FOR MULTIPLYING GROUPS? A sponsor is someone who will pray for, invite to, and fellowship with a new group. The pastor, educational staff, Sunday School/small groups director, and other leaders may be sponsors. Sponsors can also be individuals, Bible study groups, and the congregation as a whole. Finding one or more groups to pray, invite, and fellowship can greatly strengthen the new group launch.

Pray. Inviting people to pray for the new group prepares hearts and minds for the new group. Prayer sensitizes eyes and ears to others. We are more likely to be able to see God at work around them and to hear what God wants them to do when we are praying. Ask people to pray for leaders, people who will be reached, and lives that will be changed.

Invite. A month prior to the launch of a new group, ask other groups and the congregation to invite people within the target of the group that will be launched. Provide printed invitations. Mail invitations to all recent worship guests who are in the target range of the group. Set up a registration table. Share a testimony by the new group leader. Invite multiple times and ways.

Fellowship. Prior to and following the group launch, plan times of fun and ministry for the new group. Invite potential members to participate. Work to connect with guests and get contact information for follow up. Other Bible study groups may want to sponsor these fellowship times initially to encourage the new group.

Gathering a team of sponsors is also a way of multiplying leaders. It creates a culture of new group expectation and support.

HOW CAN I BUILD MULTIPLICATION INTO MY GROUP? There are several things you can do to instill multiplication into the DNA of a group. Consider the following ideas:

Talk about it. Talk about passing on faith to children, your community, and our world. Make it natural. Remind the group regularly about the need for more groups and more shepherds in order to reach and care for more sheep. Talk about it during regular and special group gatherings.

Don’t do it alone. Enlist people to help. Give tasks and ministry away. Enlist leaders to carry out group roles and functions. Apprentice, release, and continue to coach.

Expect every group leader to multiply. Regularly ask who your group leaders are praying for and enlisting as their apprentice(s).

Gather your team. Gathering your leadership team can (1) identify insights into potential apprentices, (2) prevent multiple leaders from focusing on the same potential apprentice, and (3) reinforce multiplication steps.

WHAT IS YOUR NEXT STEP? Without focusing on others, group members will tend to keep Jesus to themselves. Without additional leaders, the group leader will tend to focus only on teaching and neglect the reaching and caring aspects of group life. Without apprentices, new groups will not be started when needed or with confident prepared leaders. Finally, an apprentice is a concrete reminder for the group that there is more work to do and more people to reach. Show them the apprentice!

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Darryl Wilson serves as the Sunday School & Discipleship Consultant for the Kentucky Baptist Convention. He served as Minister of Education in five churches in Kentucky and South Carolina. He is the author of The Sunday School Revolutionary!, a blog about life-changing Sunday School and small groups. This series is a part of Be A Catalyst: Start New Groups, available on your Kindle for 99 cents.

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Categories : Be a Catalyst Start New Groups, Enlistment, Leadership, New Groups

Show Them the Apprentice, Part 2

By Darryl Wilson · Comments (0)

Wednesday, February 27th, 2013

WHAT APPRENTICING CURRICULUM SHOULD I USE? The teaching plan for training your apprentice starts with your life and group leadership practices. Invite your apprentice to join you in both. Investing in an apprentice will appropriately begin with a time of getting acquainted. Then it is important to assess what the apprentice’s knowledge, experience, and need may be. Prayer together is essential!

Beyond introduction and evaluation, asking many questions will help greatly. Addressing basics is important. Encourage quiet time practices. Demonstrate yours. Help him or her develop the ability to evaluate priorities. Other issues that will need to be addressed are lesson preparation, teaching, fellowship planning, making contacts and visits, organizing the group ministry, and mobilizing people into service. Affirm progress. And don’t forget to spend time focusing on multiplying the new leader!

Hand off responsibility in increasing amounts. Follow this pattern of progression:

I do, you watch.
I do, you help.
You do, I help.
You do, I watch.
You do, someone else watches.

Debriefing after each assignment reinforces the learning and allows for adjustments along the way.

In your weekly interaction, consider reading and discussing helpful Sunday School books and articles, like the following books by David Francis:

The 3D Sunday School: A Three Dimensional Strategy (focus on inviting, discovering, and connecting)
I-6 Invite: A Six-Lane Strategy Toward an Inviting Sunday School (focus on inviting)
The Discover Triad: Three Facets of a Dynamic Sunday School Class (focus on discovering, teaching, and learning)
Connect3: The Power of One Sunday School Class (focus on connecting)

Note: These resources are available as free downloads from lifeway.com/davidfrancis.

Avoid focusing only on one aspect, such as teaching. Keep your apprenticing balanced. This will keep both of you effective.

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Categories : Be a Catalyst Start New Groups, Enlistment, Leadership, New Groups

Show Them the Apprentice, Part 1

By Darryl Wilson · Comments (0)

Monday, February 25th, 2013

When I finished a training event in a church for teachers and leaders of adult groups, one of the teachers told me he finally figured out why his group did not believe him when he said they were going to start another group. He said it was because he had not shown them an apprentice.

They will believe you when they see you enlisting and training an apprentice!

WHY IS LEADER MULTIPLICATION ESSENTIAL? Jesus gave us the mission of multiplication when He commanded us to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19-20). This is bigger than we can accomplish alone. Jesus recognized this when he said that the harvest is abundant but the workers are few (Matthew 9:37).

Paul understood the mission when he instructed Timothy, a young pastor, to commit to faithful men the things Paul had taught him so that those men would teach others also (see 2 Timothy 2:2). Three generations of multiplication were involved in Paul’s directions. It is not just a matter of multiplying ourselves. Rather it is about multiplying ourselves into others who will multiply themselves.

The fact is that one shepherd can only lead so many sheep (John 10:12-13). More shepherds are required to reach and care for more sheep. Rick Warren quoted a Gallup survey which indicated that churches might have five times as many leaders serving if potential leaders were asked or trained. The lack of additional shepherds is the number one reason more new groups are not started today.

HOW DO I ENLIST AND TRAIN MULTIPLYING LEADERS? Jesus taught and modeled ministry (Mark 1:14-15) and prayed (Luke 6:12) before He called the twelve apostles (sent ones). After Jesus called them (Mark 3:13), He prepared them by continuing to teach and model ministry with them before sending them out. They were sent out in pairs (Mark 6:7) to do what He had been doing. Then He called them together for a report time (Mark 6:30).

Since people have varying abilities and previous experiences, multiplying leaders will usually require between six and twelve months. Consider these apprenticing steps:

Pray. Ask for God’s leadership in discovering those He wants you to apprentice.
Observe. Spend time watching what God is doing in the lives of those in (and around) your group.
Take them with you. Invite potential leaders to join you for life and group activities. Go to a ball game together. Make a visit. Have a meal. Plan a fellowship. Give them growing assignments.
Debrief what they did. Ask questions. Listen. Affirm strengths and gifts. Offer suggestions for the future.
Ask them to serve. Following God’s leadership in prayer and observation, formalize your apprenticing efforts by asking them to join you in ministry. This will heighten their attention to your training efforts from that point for-ward.
Increase the training pace. In anticipation of releasing the multiplying leader to serve, give an increasing number and mix of opportunities for leadership expression. For instance, move from one teaching Sunday to teaching every other Sunday prior to releasing them to serve.
Set a launch date. After prayer and observation, determine a date to start the new group. Communicate the date with the apprentice and with the group. Hesitate to send the apprentice out alone. Remember, Jesus sent them out in pairs. If you are leaving the current group in the apprentice’s hands so you can leave to start a new group, let the group know what you are doing and express confidence in the apprentice as he or she takes over the group’s leadership.
Celebrate the launch. Remember to praise God and affirm those who have helped launch the new group. Celebrate with sponsoring groups, the new group, and in the congregation.
Lead them to choose an apprentice. Help your apprentice become a multiplying leader by leading him/her to prayerfully enlist and begin investing in an apprentice.
Continue to coach. Following the launch of the new group, continue to encourage the new group leader. Coach him/her through challenges toward fruitfulness.

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Categories : Be a Catalyst Start New Groups, Enlistment, Leadership, New Groups

Sunday School in a Transformational Church

By Phil Stone · Comments (0)

Thursday, September 20th, 2012

This is article three of a ten part series. Click here to view the previous article.

How Small is Small?

Jeremiah prophesied thusly, For my people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn themselves cisterns – broken cisterns that can hold no water. (Jeremiah 2:13) Well, I’m no Jeremiah, but I believe that Baptist have committed a sin or two when it comes to Sunday School. Just yesterday, I had a Sunday School Director call me about her Sunday School. She shared with me some information about several of the classes and asked, Why aren’t we growing? Enrollment in these classes had topped 40+ and they had either plateaued or declined. When I suggested that these classes needed to reproduce, she immediately shot back, Oh, we can’t split those classes. The members would stop coming; we’d have anarchy, for sure. This Sunday School had dug cisterns which had become broken, and the fountain of living water had been replaced by the Dead Sea. Our role as Sunday School leaders is to keep the fountain flowing; to remove as many barriers as we can to making disciples and transformation and to create an environment in which the Holy Spirit can do His work.

In the Simple Church Rainer and Geiger encourages the church to develop a simple disciple-making process that connects people to God, to other people, to the lost in the community. Sunday School is that second step that connects people to other people in a transformational small community. Any barrier that keeps the Sunday School from connecting people with people should be removed.

My favorite quote in Transformational Church is, We’ve got to move from sitting in rows to sitting in circles to going out and changing the world. Ed Stetzer. Next Sunday in worship try looking at the backs of the heads of people in front of you to see if you can tell who they are. Can you learn anything about a person by looking at the back of his head? Not very much! But when you look him in the eyes, you can see expression, emotion, and response to you. The eyes are indeed the windows to the soul. Stetzer contends that transformation takes place best in small communities among friends both old and new. Therefore, for transformation we’ve got to move from the sanctuary, sitting in rows to a small group, sitting in circles where we can connect with others and provoke one another to love and good deeds and then to going out to change the world. In fact, I take it a step further. In our Sunday School classes we need to move to even smaller learning groups where interaction takes place around the Bible study. In my Sunday School class of around 9-12 people, we are usually in three learning groups of 3-4 each. Sadly, too many of our Sunday School classes are still sitting in rows or either in large semi-circles where people must communicate across a crowded room. Try it. Next Sunday, move out of those rows or that semi-circle and arrange your class in small learning groups of 3-4 each. Let them connect, share stories, and interact with the biblical truth. Create an environment for connection and transformation. For more information see Transformational Bible Study.

I shared with the Sunday School Director on the phone the following principles that help to eliminate barriers and create an environment for making disciples:

When a class reaches maximum enrollment/attendance the class is less motivated to reach potential disciples, ministry diminishes, and growth subsides. Solution: Reproduce – start a new class.
When member / leader ratio exceeds recommended limits ministry and class interaction diminishes; Solution: Reproduce or enlist leaders.
When space is filled to 80% capacity members are less motivated to make disciples – Solution: Reproduce

These principles are based on ideals and of course we must work with what we have and make progress toward the ideal. These principles can help eliminate barriers to transformation and will assist in developing a culture of disciple-making through the Sunday School ministry. They have the potential for changing those broken cisterns we’ve developed and transforming them to fountains of living water for the renewing of minds. Can we follow these principles, eliminate barriers, and still not be a disciple-making, transformational ministry? Absolutely! Everything depends on how transformed and mission-oriented our hearts are. But, you can bet that life will not flow into a dead organization unless we do follow time-tested principles that remove the obstacles to transformational ministry. We can’t just talk about it; we’ve got to do something about it under the direction of the Holy Spirit. Use the chart below to evaluate your small group ministry:

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Phil Stone is the State Sunday School Director for the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina.

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Categories : Growing your Group, Leadership, Learning, Ministry, Mission, New Groups, Organization, Small Groups, Sunday School, Teaching