I have served at my church for over eight years. During this time, we have grown our small groups from the 30s to now 125+ and we’ve added an additional campus. At each measurable season of growth, the importance of delegating care has been increased. In this time we’ve watched other ministries, studied our wins and losses, and seen trends in five areas that help us better our care of those within our church. These are five habits we practice to grow in the way we care for others as a church.
CONSISTENTLY TRACK DATA
Know what you care about and measure those areas. Salvations, baptisms, needs met during crisis, etc. These are all areas of care that point people and volunteers play major roles in. It is vital to measure these spans of care in order to know how effective your team truly is. These areas of spiritual formation are vital to growing our span of care.
ESTABLISH A TRANSPARENT CULTURE
One of the first stories I share during our New Leader training is one of my failures in my group. I want them to know failure will happen and that it is ok. When caring for people, circumstances can get messy and everything will not work out like we plan. I want leaders to feel comfortable to share these missteps with other leaders, coaches, and our team in order to receive assistance and to grow. This isn’t as likely if perfection is perceived to be expected. Point People and group leaders must lean on one another to properly care for those within the church’s groups.
RESOURCE, RESOURCE, RESOURCE
I typically set aside an hour or two each week to browse the Small Group Network Blog and other ministry resources to empower our leaders with. I then share those resources with our leaders. It’s important for us all to be growing and to be equipped in caring for those within our group care. Sharing is caring!
SHARE OWNERSHIP
I want our Point People and SG leaders to know that our church and groups are just as much theirs as they are our pastors or mine. Sometimes, it is easy for me to tell a newer leader from an older one by the way they take ownership of their group. Veteran leaders are a lot more proactive and creative in caring for their members. The sooner ownership truly happens, the healthier the span of care within groups will be.
CELEBRATE WINS
Remember the previously mentioned areas to measure? As point people, it is important that we share those areas that have seen growth! I also like to share a story of a leader taking a risk or stepping out in faith. Sometimes it isn’t a huge success (it may be an all out failure), but I want each leader to know their transparency is needed.
As we have grown in our practice of each of these habits, we have grown in our ability to better care for our groups.
