Leading or working with a small group ministry has potential of increasing your commitment to walking with God. It also can be beneficial to your church in increasing attendance and spreading God’s word throughout your community.
In 2 Corinthians 5:20, Apostle Paul calls believers “Christ’s ambassadors”. To me, that means it is part of the believer’s purpose to spread the Word. Working with small group ministries is an excellent way to fulfill that purpose in your life if it reflects your calling.
There are several resources that provide guidance to implementing and growing a ministry for small groups…
Dan Lentz authored a book titled Let’s Get Started which explains both starting a program and keeping it going.
Starting a vital small group ministry is a difficult, daunting goal for most. Keeping an existing program going is equally challenging. You'll find all the definitions, requirements, encouragement and support you need with this authoritative guide and others in the Small Group Helps series.
Go BIG with Small Groups is a guide written by Bill Easum and John Atkinson that takes on the task of repetitive reinventing the program which is vital to having a thriving ministry.
Most churches that begin small groups find that within a couple of years two things happen - the number of small groups has dwindled in size and few if any of them have birthed other small groups. So, the only way most churches keep small groups going is by reinventing them over and over, usually with the same people. The authors of this book know God has much more in store for these churches.
Bill Easum and John Atkinson have both led congregations in which small group ministry proved crucial to the church's growth. Both know the pitfalls that endanger all attempts to center a congregation's life around small groups. More importantly, they understand how to make small groups growing, self-reproducing centers of Christian discipleship.
If you need some practical ideas for groups, you might benefit from the encyclopedia Small Group Ministry in the 21st Century.
With over 600 ideas, the Small Group Ministry in the 21st Century is bursting with practical suggestions to start, lead or expand any small group ministry. Designed as a reference tool, you'll be able to look up the area of small group ministry for which you need tips and ideas, and go from there. Within the various lists you will also find cross-reference notes that link you to related concepts. 224 pages with easy-to-copy reproducibles.
If you work with youth groups, Jim Burns and Mike DeVries’s book, Partnering with Parents in Youth Ministry might be helpful in activating the parents’ role in becoming disciples in the lives of their teens.
The most powerful force in a young person's life is his family. That's why youth experts Jim Burns and Mike DeVries have written this book, which provides youth workers with everything they need to partner with parents to help them disciple their own children. This fresh approach to youth ministry has biblical roots in Deuteronomy 6:4-9, where believers are mandated to pass their family's faith legacy to the next generations. This book helps youth workers understand their unique role in helping families succeed. It provides an overview of family-based youth ministry which focuses on equipping, encouraging and networking youth workers and parents so they can nurture the spiritual growth of their children. It's also packed with practical ideas--devotion, discussion starters, small-group parenting curriculum, family retreats, parent retreats, games, forums and more--to help youth workers implement this awesome ministry in their church. This is a breakthrough book that will guide youth workers as they reach parents and their children with the message of Christ's love and grace!
It would be phenomenal if every parent took on the role of being disciples to their children, although some don’t. Some won’t and others just don’t know how. This book will help you to teach them how and it is reinforced by God’s word in Deuteronomy 6:6-9 where it says…
These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them your foreheads. Write them on your doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
This is all related to the Ten Commandments and further promotes the biblical purpose of parents in their children’s lives to train their children of God’s commands, decrees and laws.
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