In Star Trek the Next Generation, the Borg says, “Resistance is futile (1).” But, when it comes to your small groups, it’s not about resistance, but resilience.
Resilience is to show toughness, the ability to recover quickly from difficulties. It’s the ability to spring back from internal or external pressure. Boy, does that describe the road that small groups have traveled these past months.
Never has the ministry of small groups been more important. And yet, at the same time, never has there been greater pressures put on small group leadership, organization, and people.
As things get even more difficult, keeping your small group ministry alive and growing becomes all the more important. But it also becomes all the more difficult. To remain faithful, you need to put resilience in place right now.
Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God.
Revelation 3:2 NIV
Here are six things to consider when you move to strengthen your small groups towards greater resilience.
- Financial resilience. Continually balance short and longer-term financial needs to weather drops in giving and accelerating costs.
- Operational resilience. Able to adjust to meet changes as well as remain stable in the face of disruption. And the hard part is to do this without sacrificing quality.
- Technological resilience. Continue to enhance and harden your strong, secure, and flexible infrastructure. You will be hacked, so you need to continually be on the lookout for cyber threats and to avoid technology breakdown.
- Organizational resilience. Foster an environment where everyone feels included and can perform at their best. Deliberately recruit and train the best talent equitably.
- Reputational resilience. Continually communicate and align your values with your actions and words. People are increasingly looking to see if you are keeping your promises.
- Creativity resilience. Becoming stale will just kill creativity. Be innovative, encouraging self-starters to try new things.
During times of crisis, the resilient small group leaders will place strategic bets to grow their direction, structure, and support. My first small group leader had a very important saying.
“If you’re not changing, you’re not growing.”
It’s time to be about our Father’s business, and building resilience is part of His business as we depend on Him each and every day.
- https://youtu.be/rtEaR1JU-ps?t=11
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Chet Gladkowski is the Founder of GLAD Associates, Inc. (A) and author of “Have Yourself a Merry COVID-Christmas”(B). He has also launched National Day of Hope(C). His latest books, Hope is Like Steamed Crabs (D) and Hope is Like Barbeque Ribs (E) are available through Amazon.
- https://chetglad.org/
- https://www.amazon.com/Have-Yourself-Merry-COVID-Christmas/dp/B08J1WLXNS
- https://www.nationaldayofhope.net/
- https://www.amazon.com/Hope-Like-Steamed-Crabs-Gladkowski-ebook/dp/B09GWBMK3Q
- https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09PZ9LVFS
