Thursday, November 14, 2013

Failing to Prepare is like Preparing to Fail

"By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail." - Benjamin Franklin

When it comes to small group leadership, preparation is key.  I've met countless leaders who believe small group leadership is a simple thing. In some ways they are right.  It's not crazy complicated, but I've seen a lot of leaders end up disappointed and disillusioned at the end of their group's season and most often it can be traced back to this one thing...they failed to prepare.

Planning Pitfalls:

Playing it by ear.   Many small group leaders impede their success because they choose to "play it by ear."  For instance, I've seen many leaders pick a book to read and discuss.  They simply title their group by the book's title and then pick a day, a time, and  a room at the church and just go for it!  More often than not, the group gets bogged down with discussion and the leader allows the group to spend too much time or even too many weeks in one area of the content.  This forces the group to speed up in order to wrap up or even tack on more gatherings.

Partial Planning.  I have also seen many leaders fail their group by only partially planning their group gatherings.  They often plan the first couple of sessions in order to have a good launch but make the mistake of thinking they'll have time to plan the rest later.  Take the time to fully review your material and create a well designed plan before you begin. 




3 Keys to Preparing a Plan.

Create a calendar.  Map out the dates and number of small group gatherings you intend to host.  Be mindful of other national holidays, school and other local events that may pull people from involvement in your group gathering. (click here to download winter weekday Life Group planning sheets)

Create Consistency.  Be sure to pick the same day and time.  People seem to attend gatherings and events that have a consistent "rhythm" as to when the group meets.  Along with a consistent day of the week, you should also consider where and what time the group will meet.  Consistent places and time of day are important factors for keeping the group alive.

Create Content.  Decide what your group will study, learn, and experience together. From there, determine what  part of the study will take place each session.  Consider "titling" each session and writing a short description of what the goal of the study will be.  Next, place the title of the session on the your calendar.  From there you can begin fashioning a session outline for each session you intend to host.  Consider including the following elements: food, and relational time, icebreaker questions, content, activity, discussion, prayer, testimonies, and worship.

The bottom line... if you will take the time to plan your gatherings you will reap the rewards.  Your clearly communicated plan will result another key to success as a leader:  CONFIDENCE.

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