The Crossline Community Groups Podcast

The Art of Crafting a Vision-Driven Community Group

• Jordan Gash • Season 1 • Episode 1

Share episode

When I was attending a community group, leading a community group was the last thing on my mind. Yet here I am, sharing lessons on the nitty-gritty of leading a vibrant community group, drawn from personal experiences and biblical examples like the apostle Paul. Paul, much like a community group leader, knew the importance of understanding the unique needs and context of the groups he led, and I can't wait to share my insights on this with you.

Diving into the dynamics of small groups, I discovered the beauty of Acts 242 - the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, breaking bread, and prayer. It's a delicate dance between catering to individual preferences and finding a middle ground that benefits the entire group. It's not always a smooth ride, but the payoff is a tight-knit community where every member takes ownership of their group. 

Creating a vision for your group isn’t as complex as it seems. It’s about blending your convictions and your group's feedback. This episode demystifies that process, showing you how to create a small group that reflects your shared vision. From content creation to prayer requests, and even seemingly mundane details like scheduling - everything serves to uphold that vision. As we close, I leave you with an uplifting message from Philippians 1:9-11 and the encouragement to embrace the leadership journey God has set before you.

Support the show

Speaker 1:

Well, hey, everyone, welcome to the Crossline Community Groups podcast. My name is Jordan Gash. I'm the Community Life Pastor at Crossline Community Church and this is an attempt for us to be able to equip all of the leaders that we have here at our church doing community groups, and so we are excited about that. But we wanted to make it available to anybody and everybody that might actually glean some new information for that. So that's what we're doing. That's the whole purpose of this podcast. We're having fun. We're gonna see if it works. That's what we're all about here is trying things out. I wanna affirm everybody that is listening to this podcast, because if you're listening to this, maybe either A you are a community group leader, or B you are somebody that is overseeing community groups or small groups ministry A lot of different names. They have community groups, small groups, cell groups, discipleship groups, whatever the groups are at your church. You might be that person that takes care of that stuff. So I just wanna affirm every single one of you and saying you're doing a great job. Keep up the good work. This is an amazing ministry where God does just incredible things. I've just been doing this for the last five years, full time, really into community groups and I've just seen so much blessing from this journey of learning how leaders are doing phenomenal things and their groups all over the place and they constantly lead me with great stories. So I wanna affirm you in what you're doing Today, on episode 1.01, the very first episode that we are doing we are gonna really be talking about knowing what you're doing.

Speaker 1:

Knowing what you're doing if you are a community group leader and really helping you build a vision for your group that will guide you through all of the things that you do. So why don't we get started? Let me tell you my story about how I really got involved in community groups in the first place, because this sets things up for us in our conversation. You know, when me and my wife were newly married we were youngins 22, 23 years old we jumped in here, actually at Crossline Community Church, and we wanted to jump into some great community and I had done little Bible studies here and there but never been officially part of like a small group kind of thing, and we wanted to do that. We wanted to be a part of it and we immediately met an amazing couple and their names actually were Matt and Jordan and they were incredible people here at Crossline and we loved them and built a great friendship and learned that they had a small group and they invited us to their small group and we were pumped. Bunch of young couples, newly married couples, and we built friendships with these people right away and we were growing from the Bible studies that we were doing, the conversations that we were having, and it was a really cool time.

Speaker 1:

Now that cool time didn't last actually too long before things began to change, because we had learned that Matt and Jordan wanted to go start another group kind of closer to where they lived, and they had been praying and hoping that they would be able to find somebody that could lead the group that they were leading, that we had joined. And so about three months in that's when they had their first conversation with me and my wife, alex and said, hey, would you guys be interested in leading this group? Now I wasn't really feeling that at the time. I just wanted to have some friendships. I wasn't really looking into jumping into leadership, and so I said no. I said the whole reason we did this is because we want to be a part with you, matt and Jordan, like you guys are so great, so we don't really feel like we want to lead, but we can continue to pray about it and we'll think about it. Now we kept on going. Another three months later, six months in, they come and they ask us again and this time we really see their heart and we want to accommodate kind of what we believe God was doing in their life. And so me and Alex decide, okay, we will lead this group. So that leads me into really my first moment of small group leadership, and I had to figure out what the heck I was doing.

Speaker 1:

And let me tell you kind of some of the process that I started with back then and I still stand by it today. And this is what I want all of our community group hosts and community group leaders to really know and to understand where you begin with a small group, because you have to begin with discovering your personal convictions and gaining feedback. Your personal convictions and gaining feedback that's gonna be the two key things that we're gonna talk about today as the first steps in leading a group, and so it's one of those things that, as you get feedback and you start to kind of understand what God's called you to, it gives you guidance into where you want to go and what you want to do. It's one of those things where you I wouldn't want to go to the store and buy all the ingredients for a cake and really start building into the process of making a cake to find out that my wife wanted pie. I mean, you kind of have to understand where you're going first and what you're really trying to do first before you just jump into it both feet. You mean, get a little bit of an idea of what you're trying to do, and so that takes understanding your personal convictions and getting some feedback from your group leaders or your group members.

Speaker 1:

I should say it's a lot like kind of how the apostle Paul did it. You talk about the apostle Paul and he was a guy who went and traveled all over the place and met a lot of different types of people and he contextualized and addressed the needs of each people group that he interacted with. With each region that he visited. He made it his own and he made it special. He was still committed to his primary calling of bringing the gospel to the Gentiles, but in each area it was a little bit unique Whether that meant he was going into the depth of teaching in the Hall of Tyrannus in Ephesus or if he's hanging out with the prayer ladies out by the river in Philippi. He made it special in each place, based off of the groups that he was interacting with.

Speaker 1:

It's him that said in 1 Corinthians, 9, 22 and 23,. He says I become all things to all people to win as many as possible, and he does it all for the sake of the gospel so that he may share in its blessings. This is kind of the hope here is that we, as group leaders, we understand the people that God has brought to us and the calling that he's placed on us and we lead out of those convictions and those understandings. So that's really the first step. So the very first thing, very first thing, you decide you're going to be a group leader, and if you're a group leader already and you haven't done this, then you could even do this now. But what you should do is you should ask yourself why are you doing this? Right? That's always a good place to start. Why am I, why did I even say yes to this Like? Why am I doing? What's really my hope in all this? What's my heart?

Speaker 1:

What do I want to see happen in a group, and then what you do is you take and you write all of that stuff down. You write it in a journal, you write it in your laptop or wherever you're going to kind of see it regularly, write it down and understand what you're really trying to do and why you're doing this. And then if you're co-hosting with another leader or if you're doing it with your spouse, then you want to have conversations with them as well. You know what some of their desire, what some of their input into all this story, and so you want to have some real conversations about that and, again, write it all down so that you can kind of catalog and understand your own thoughts. You want to be thinking these are a couple of examples that you might be thinking of.

Speaker 1:

You know, as you think about what am I called to? Why am I doing this? You might be thinking, okay, do I want to have a group that's really oriented around service and spurring on one another towards loving good deeds, and do I want to be a multiplying group that really is evangelizing and regularly inviting new people into the group? Or do you want to keep it tight and you want to go deep into discipleship with a great group of friends. I mean, these are questions that you have to think about, about why you're doing this.

Speaker 1:

And then you compare it to, maybe, the giftings that you have. You know, if you want a group, that's super social, that's all about fun, but maybe you're not the most best party planner, I mean, or you're not, you know, the game person or whatever it might be. Maybe you need more help. So you need to kind of think about okay, when you compare things with your giftings, you know you have to say can I implement what I'm trying to accomplish, like, can I actually do this based off of how God's designed me and who I am, or do I need help? And that's totally okay. You know you can bring in help from the other members of your group. You don't have to be a one man show. It could be a joint type of thing where you work together and maybe that's something you do with your spouse and maybe your spouse is a little better about that. So you compare it with that and then you start kind of moving forward.

Speaker 1:

And what's interesting about this is we at Crossline, and maybe you at your church or wherever you're at we have an orientation that really helps people understand the purpose around the church and inside of it domination we can why we do groups and it talks all about I'm not going to go into depth right now, maybe on another episode but it talks all the depth around really what was the biblical design of small groups and how can we understand that and why did it work out in that way, where people were meeting in the temple courts and then from house to house, and why did God do it that way? And it's a really cool element and it might be the reason of why you're saying I want to be a host or why I want to be a small group leader, and that's pretty cool. So that's the first step. That's what you're going to do. You're going to kind of ask yourself talk to yourself self, why am I doing this? But then the second thing you're going to do is you're going to have a conversation with your group members and get some feedback about what they hope to gain from the group and you want to get all the information to help you really formulate your thoughts around this.

Speaker 1:

What I've noticed in leading some of the groups that I have over the years and it's kind of like clockwork is. You look at Acts 242 and it talks about really what the disciples were really dedicated to. They were dedicated to the apostle's teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer, as it says in Acts 242. And what you find is every single person that's participating in a small group usually has a bent a little bit more one way or the other, to one of those things or some of those things. Some people, it's all about teaching. I want to be into teaching. Let's get into the Bible. Why would we waste time talking or eating appetizers? Let's just get into God's Word. And that's what they want to do.

Speaker 1:

Now, some people are the total opposite. I'm really just looking for some support. Man. I am raising a bunch of young kids. I'm literally drowning and I need help. I need to kind of get away for a second so I have some time to hang out with friends and that might be what it is, and so this is really a support group for me. But I do want to engage in what the Bible says, but it's really predominantly all about hanging out and knowing each other and being known and sharing struggles and encouraging one another. I mean it could be that. I mean it could be. Again, you talk about the breaking of bread. That's more of the social aspect that you have a group of friends that you go out to dinner or hang out with and go do that.

Speaker 1:

And then there's those people that also it's all about prayer. I have an in my group. We got to get named David man. I love him to death but he dude, he could pray a long time. I mean I'm one to talk though, jordan. I mean I got, I got I pray a lot too as well.

Speaker 1:

But there's people that that's all they want to do. They just like why don't we just come together and pray for two hours? Now, some people that would drive them insane, like they would not be able to handle that. But that's the thing is, you can't understand the dynamic of your group unless you talk to them and finding out kind of what they're hoping for, what they're desiring. And then you have to take all those pieces and kind of really put it all together and really be able to kind of formulate your vision and your hope and your desire of what you're trying to do with your group. And so, and you can't do that unless you understand the people, and it's and it will be challenging because you will most likely have people in your group that have different bends towards different things. So you kind of have to kind of look at, okay, what's the majority of what people want and how do I find a happy medium in all of that. And so these two actions are vitally important. I would encourage you, if you are just starting to lead a group, or if you've been leading a group and you haven't done this, to do these two steps, to think about why are you doing this, what's your personal convictions around this, and then what is the feedback from your group. Because once you build that vision and your strategy, it's something that you can adhere to week to week. Because that's the thing Groups.

Speaker 1:

The thing about community groups and what I've learned in doing this ministry is groups are not at all cookie cutter. I mean there's not a absolute template for the perfect group. I mean community groups is a ministry. It's the wild west of ministries. It's so unique and it's so kind of different and kind of messy sometimes, because it's led by all sorts of different types of people, filled with all sorts of different types of people. So I can't just say this is exactly the way that I want you to lead the group, because that might not be the perfect way for group B or group C or group D. You have to take it and know the individual, know the person. But it's also one of the reasons why it makes community groups and small groups so fun, like because you can see incredible things happen, because people are taking ownership and they're feeling equipped and they go based off of what the Holy Spirit is guiding them in.

Speaker 1:

And so my job, and maybe your job, if you're a pastor in this role or a director in this role, is to help guide people's energy towards what God's called them to do. Because the reality is for me, I'm not a very good someone else. You know you're not a very good someone else. You are the best when you are you and you are leading based off what God has called you to do. And so you wanna understand how you're doing that, and that's what's cool about community groups.

Speaker 1:

And when you think about kind of your own convictions and leadings and you're clear about that, and then you've talked with your group and you understand kind of their feedback, then you want to build your vision and I will say that you need both. You need both. You need your personal convictions, you need the feedback. You can't just operate on one, of just one, because if you just go off of your own convictions or your own leading, you might be in that place where you're building the cake when everybody wants pie, and you might find that your group's really not vibing, it's really not connecting. Even though you have this vision, you have this desire, it might not be connecting with them because that's really not where they are in life. That's not really what they're seeking the Lord for right now, and so you want to be able to understand that.

Speaker 1:

Now, though, if you go the complete opposite direction and you only go based off of what they want, what they desire, and you ignore your whole conviction, then you're kind of getting budding up into an obedience issue to the Lord. I mean, if you're being called to do this, you should have a leading from the Lord, and if you're just doing what everybody else wants, then you're leading for the people. You're not leading around what God's called you to do, and so you do have to have both as you do that, and then, once you've kind of gotten to this place and understanding what you're trying to do, then I want you to go and vocalize it to the group. You want to write it down and print it out. If you want, if you're that type of person, print it out, give it to the people in your group, kind of hand it to them and say hey guys, this is kind of where I'm thinking in, where I want to lead our group and where I want to do with our group, and I just wanted to share this with you so that we can all be on the same page and it can make sense as I lay things out and timing and schedule and all of that of what we're trying to do. And that's where you're gonna see it.

Speaker 1:

There's really three areas of where you're going to see your vision reflected and the three areas that you're gonna see the vision reflected are in time allocation, in the study you do and in the group actions that you do outside of the group. Time allocation is the easiest way and the most obvious, apparent way to see kind of how, what you're valuing and what's important to you and what vision you have. So time allocation I will admit I don't know about you guys here in the room, but I'm not the best at time management. That's not my gifting. I get very into relationships. I get very into kind of, if it's a Bible study and I lose all track of time. It's not my gifting, but I do wanna make sure that we are staying structured and that we're moving in the right direction.

Speaker 1:

And so that was constantly a story, sometimes when I was leading, like I really wanted to get to the study and it was important to me, and then by the time that we had gotten to the study, we have a two hour group, mind you, kind of. That's kind of how what we were running. We'd have like 15 minutes left for study. I'm like, oh my gosh, where'd the time go? And like we just got an hour and a half in prayer requests, like we just talking prayer requests. It's cause I wasn't focused and we really didn't accomplish what I was trying to accomplish.

Speaker 1:

So you want to have to have the right time allocation around what's important to you. If you want to be all, if you really want to focus on teaching, then maybe you need to make sure that you have the right amount of time that you're giving to that or do it first. A lot of people they make the thing that's most important to them, the first thing that they do, so they make sure that they get it done. That's another idea that you can do. But I would say, kind of get an idea of how much time you want to spend doing each things and then set a timekeeper that can help you be on top of that. Somebody that is all about the clock we have a couple of people like that in our group and they are on it. It's like they have the chime on their phone tells us okay, time's up for prayer requests. Sorry, as like somebody's right in the middle of like sharing, like this deepest grief, like sorry, time's up. No, we figured that out. We give it a little extra time for those kind of moments. But it's important.

Speaker 1:

And early time. This is how time is used, usually in groups. If you don't understand, you probably already do know this, but the predominant ways that time is spent in groups is socializing, prayer requests and prayer study time. And then there's the element of scheduling and logistics. Sometimes, if you are a group all about if you want to make sure you're doing service projects, or if you guys have some things about holidays coming up or what it might be, you have to have those conversations. Well, that's also part of it, and so you'll see different moments, minutes being dedicated to that, based off what's important to you. So that's gonna be important. That's what you see in really the time allocation as one key thing. That's a part of the vision reflected. The second thing that you could see in what reflects your vision is the content and the discussion Right now at our church, at Crossline, as many of you guys if you guys are Crossline listeners you know that we utilize right now media, which has amazing amounts of video studies that are available to our groups.

Speaker 1:

We don't make anybody do those studies, but it's available to them. And on right now media you have all sorts of things. You have apologetics, you have marriage, you have anxiety, you have Bible studies around specific books of the Bible. You have anything and everything under the sun, curse, cultural issues that are happening, and people can kind of search and discuss any of those things and talk about those things, and those are all great things. They're amazing studies. We're excited about our partnership with the right now media, but we also have books that we've created ourselves. We recommend books that we've gotten from. Here and there we just have people that ask us how do we just open up the Bible and just start talking about the Bible. It's a variety of different things, but that will show what you're choosing and when you're choosing, it kind of will reflect a little bit what's important to you and your vision.

Speaker 1:

So if you guys have a vision to really become better parents, if that's a key part of your vision, you really want to have this group be a support network to help you be a more Christ-centered parent, then you probably wanna see some of your studies reflect parenting and how that all connects, or having those kind of conversations in your discussion time. How are we teaching this to our kids, or what does this mean to me as a dad? I mean, those are things that need to happen. If you're all about really growing and your biblical knowledge, then you might wanna be doing more Bible studies or find out ways that you could just open up the Bible. Me and my group have had the moments where we got rid of all the studies and all the videos and we literally opened up the Bible and we just tried to go through books of the Bible. And it's not always easy, but it's great. It's always really great because it just allows us to have really raw and real conversation and ask the hard question. So that's another way that you can see kind of the vision of your group being reflected in the studies that you choose. So if you need help with that, you can talk to us and if you come to Crosshine you can talk to me and I can help guide you into what studies are good for what you're trying to accomplish. Or if you go to another church and you might wanna talk to your pastors and find out what the best options for you are as well.

Speaker 1:

The final thing that will reflect what's important to you and what's part of your vision is your group actions that happen outside of the group. These are the questions of are you serving at a food pantry? Are you having play dates with the kids? Are you doing a mission trip? Are you sharing your faith? These things take planning and they take purposeful and intentional choices to do. People have to go and find organizations to work with or learn about that neighbor that needs help or whatever it might be. How much you do of those and what you do outside of the group will be a reflection of what's important to you. And again, it's important to you If you're not serving in a food pantry or evangelizing doesn't mean that you're like a bad group.

Speaker 1:

If you're just hanging out just to build friendships, that's awesome, that's great, it's incredible. We need that, we need the friendships, we need the love, we need the support. So don't feel bad if you're not doing all these quote unquote spiritual things Like fellowship. That's one of the key things that the apostles and the disciples were dedicated to and maybe there's a sense of as it talks about Hebrews 313, it talks about how we wanna encourage one another because actually it helps us to not be led into the deception of sin and be hardened by sin's deception. It's part of it. So there is this connection, there's a fellowship and that might be part of it. So, but what you're doing outside does communicate something of what you're trying to do in the group. That also means, like Matt and Jordan. Going back to the beginning of the story, matt and Jordan were actively looking in their neighborhood and they were looking around where they were about. Okay, how are we keeping our eyes open to new opportunities of multiplication here and there? And that also was a value. That was actually really cool about Matt and Jordan and I learned a lot from them about that.

Speaker 1:

But kind of wrapping a little bit of this up, I do wanna remind you we're saying a lot of words right here, but I wanna kind of remind you that you're gonna be doing the best when you're listening to the spirit and following where he's leading. You really gotta be in tap. As a small group leader, a community group host, you really need to be listening to the Holy Spirit and to be praying about what God wants you to do, because you are a shepherd in your own way. It's not just the pastors that are up on the stage or those that are leading the ministries. When you have a small group, you are a shepherd of a flock and that's a high calling and it's an important calling, and God calls you to do it diligently. And so you wanna be listening and you wanna be praying, you wanna be engaging, really setting that example. And I will say as well and this is an important disclaimer that I want you to hear, as we talk about vision, this is definitely a fluid vision.

Speaker 1:

Over the last 16, 17 years that I've been leading groups, visions change regularly, and that's okay, because it evolves with the people that come to the group, as people leave and people come into your group and then it changes with time and where you're at and your stage of life and what's important for you guys as a group, and it might change around the leadings of the church. Maybe your church is going in a direction and you wanna join with them in that direction, and so there's that fluidity of vision. Again, it goes back to the beauty of community groups, that is, the wild west of ministries, that there's organic and neat and special, and so it's okay If you feel like you need to readdress that, and we do that as a group every year. We have a day every year that we talk about our vision and say is there anything that needs to be new and fresh and different as we move forward? So well, that's what we got for episode 1.01. That was fun, I liked. I mean, I like talking. So, anyways, I don't know if you enjoyed it, but hopefully you did and hopefully this helps and gives you some guidance into ways that you can be leading your group.

Speaker 1:

I do wanna encourage you. You are doing a great job. You're doing a high calling that God has for you. So be encouraged. I'm encouraged, I'm praying for you, and actually what I would like to do and how we'd like to end every episode is we wanna bless you, and we wanna bless you specifically from Philippians 1, verses 9 through 11. And this is what it says, and I wanna send you off, and this is my prayer, that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes from Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. Great job, be blessed. Talk to you guys later.