I hate to tell you this, but you don’t understand the first thing about discipleship. I was the same way. I had taught and written about discipleship for thirty years, and discipled many people both one-on-one and in small cadres. But recently I realized that my primary assumption about discipleship was wrong. What am I […]
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4 Reasons Why Praying Leaders Have Faster Growing Groups
One of the most significant findings from my research involving over 4000 small group leaders is that praying leaders have faster growing groups. I’ve always been intrigued by this. Why does something that no one sees—the leader’s personal time with God and their prayer for their group—impact a small group’s growth so significantly? I think […]
3 Ways to Get Your Small Group Out of Its Rut
By Jim Egli on March 23, 2013 in Eating Together, Outreach, Small Group Meetings, Small Groups, Uncategorized
Even great small groups like yours can easily get into a rut where things are too predictable and routine. If your group is in this situation now and you need to mix things up to create more fun, outreach and relationship, here are three things you can do to get out or stay out of […]
How to Do Great Small Group Leader Meetings
To have a thriving small group ministry, you need leaders that are envisioned, encouraged, and motivated. The main way that you give your leaders the vision and encouragement that they need is through great small group leader meetings. Unfortunately many churches struggle to do these meetings right and consequently their leadership meetings have minimal impact […]
Learn the principles of the Small Groups Big Impact Book
Some churches’ small group ministries thrive and grow, while other churches—that try just as hard—have group ministries that struggle and stagnate. Why? Jim Egli and Dwight Marable set out to answer that question. They wanted to help churches across the country and around the world grow vibrant small groups that continually multiply leadership and reach […]
Pray Weekly, Eat Monthly
Our small group’s outreach is going exceptionally well right now and I thought I’d share with you what seems to be working. It’s pretty simple, really. We pray weekly for our friends that need God and we do a cookout or potluck each month. Pray weekly: This is really very simple and doesn’t take long […]
Preparing for Small Group
This may not be very exciting but I thought I’d tell you how I get ready for small group. I have an old flimsy nylon briefcase that is my small group briefcase. I keep my small group stuff in it. Right now it has songsheets, the Outflow book, and outflow DVD in it. I toss […]
Kids in Small Group
We want a kid-friendly small group but are still figuring out what that will look like in this new group. There are so many variables when you want a kid-friendly group—the number of kids, the age of the children, the needs of the adults and kids, the configuration of the host home. Last night we […]
Encouraged & Supported
My small group coach—Dave Thomas—called me earlier this week and asked to have breakfast with me. We met at the Original Pancake House this morning, the morning after our first meeting. He asked how our first get together had gone. He asked helpful questions like, “Do you have an intern yet?” What I really liked […]
Our First Small Group Meeting
We launched our own small group tonight. Just as always I drove to group feeling very unprepared. Yes, I had prayed. And I had also prepared my lesson, but lots of other things were foggy in my mind. What icebreaker should we use? Is anyone we invited going to show up? I ask my wife […]