Showing posts with label College Ministry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label College Ministry. Show all posts

Thursday, May 28, 2015

4 Keys for a Successful College or Youth Small Group

This is a guest post from Elizabeth Hobbs, a missionary kid who grew up in Poland with parents who were reaching out to European college students. These day's she's heavily involved with her local Chi Alpha campus ministry on the University of Wyoming, and applying the lessons she's learned from college ministry to all student ministry.

Not every small group will flourish. Not every Bible study will produce the results sought after. With that in mind, I have provided four focuses that every successful small group that I've ever witnessed has had great measures of. If you want to point your small groups in the direction of success, strive after Christ's purpose in these four things, and you will see growth.

1) Christ-centered, Grace-driven, Redemptive Relationship
As Paul Tripp notes in his sermon series on a Christian's walk with God, everything about the Christian faith requires relationship. We have a relationship with God, and are called to be in relationship with His creation. That's one of the primary causes to start a small group – to build relationship with God's children, and God himself.

The kind of relationship that you want to create in small groups have to be Christ-centered, because without Christ we are hopeless and life is pointless. They have to be grace-driven, because Christ died to give us grace. If we can't give others the same grace, then why do we have hope that Christ will give it to us? Our relationships need to be redemptive – just as Christ's purpose was to draw us back to himself, so our relationships should draw others to Christ.

Relationship is the single most important aspect of any small group. If you focused solely on building healthy relationship with Christ and others and did nothing else as a small group, it would probably succeed in all the other goals you could possibly set.
2) Consistency

All successful small groups have at least one element of consistency. This is not to say they are all the same every time they meet, but there is always a consistent element – the time you meet at, the place you meet at, who you meet with, what you study when you meet, etc. Without consistency it is very difficult to facilitate meaningful growth.
3) Keep the Focus on Christ

Any body of Christians that does not keep their focus on Christ and His mandate for them loses the potency of His saving grace. No matter what you do as a small group (or as an individual), the purpose is to give Christ glory, to know and love Him and His people more, and to point back to God.

This doesn't mean that every single small group has to be a Bible study with intense prayer or worship. It just means that the intention and purpose of your identity and activities as a small group need to be about and for Christ and His love if you want to keep them at their peak efficacy.

4) Flexibility, Imagination, and Insight

These three traits all pertain to one goal: keeping a diverse body of people growing together. Most small groups, even of people the same age, have different spiritual maturities, likes, dislikes, interests, and understandings of God. In order to allow everyone to grow, you're going to have to follow your curriculum or study flexibly, come up with creative questions to stimulate everyone, and use insight to determine how the group dynamics can be best utilized for growth in Christ.

These traits are also necessary for when a group starts going through different seasons. Tragedies and celebrations tend to happen spontaneously, and if your group can respond well to the ebb and flow of life, they will be more equipped to grow together.


Wednesday, May 13, 2015

College and Youth Ministry Small Group Models

This is a guest post from Elizabeth Hobbs, a missionary kid who grew up in Poland with parents who were reaching out to European college students. These day's she's heavily involved with her local Chi Alpha campus ministry on the University of Wyoming, and applying the lessons she's learned from college ministry to all student ministry.

One of the beautiful things about small groups is that there's not a right or a wrong way to do them. If you can imagine a way to get a group of people together seeking God with intentional hearts, then that is a correct way to do small groups. That being said, here's a couple common small group models and curriculums to help you get a grasp on the concept before you let your imagination run loose.

Follow a Curriculum

There's plenty of material out there to guide a small group. From books to DVDs to webseries, there's something out there that'll cover almost any topic and age group. All you have to do is choose a topic, and a quick Google search will yield a plethora of things to choose from.

For example, say your group wants to learn about prayer. You head over to Amazon and have everyone pick up a copy of something like
Sun Stand Still by Steven Furtick. Every week you read a chapter and discuss what you read. Even within this model there's lots of room for freedom. Here's some ways this model is commonly used:

- Everyone reads the chapter/watches the Youtube clip before coming to small group. You spend the small group time analyzing into the depths of what the author said.
- Everyone reads the chapter/watches the Youtube clip before coming to small group. You spend the small group time finding and going through biblical passages that give a further understanding of the topic.
- You read the chapter/watch the Youtube clip together during small group and discuss it as a group in the remaining time.
- Any of the above, but you break into pairs to discuss/find scripture, and come back together towards the end to share your discoveries.

Following a curriculum is a great option for groups of people who are just getting to know one another, especially if they are at different levels of spiritual maturity.

Make Your Way Through the Bible

While this model is more challenging for leaders than following a curriculum, in my experience going straight to the word of God allows participants to engage more deeply in a spiritual manner. As useful as it can be to have an author or speaker explain biblical principles, followers of Christ need to know how to feed themselves from the Word.

How you go through the Bible is less important than that you consistently spend your small group time reading, discussing, and trying to understand how to apply the Bible. You can go through chronologically, topically, or any other variety of ways – even if you randomly choose a chapter each week, engaging scripture consistently produces repentance and life-change.

In the coming weeks, I'll be posting Bible studies that you can use to help guide your small groups if you choose to go through the Bible, so keep your eyes open!

Other Small Group Dynamics

No matter what the bread and meat of your small group is, there are lots of toppings you can sprinkle from week-to-week to diversify your small group experience. Here's some suggestions:

- Icebreaker activities
- Worship
- Pray scripture
- Prayer-walk your community
- Take communion together
- Break into pairs to pray for one another
- Meet somewhere you don't usually meet (coffee shop, park, etc.)
- Have a younger participant lead the session
- Go serve someone together (mow lawns, shovel walks, volunteer at shelters)

Don't adhere to a model just because it's comfortable – give yourself and your group room to stretch and grow. Part of the beauty of small groups is their lack of structure and flexible nature to do whatever you need to for the group to engage with one another and Jesus.

Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Why Your Church College Ministry Needs Small Groups

This is a guest post from Elizabeth Hobbs, a missionary kid who grew up in Poland with parents who were reaching out towards European college students. These day's she's heavily involved with her local Chi Alpha campus ministry on the University of Wyoming.

Other than Christ himself, the greatest consistency among successful college ministries is a prevalence of small groups. They come in all shapes, sizes, and names – cell groups, small groups, study groups, Bible studies, core groups are just a sampling of the more commonly used nomenclature – but they all have the same basic premise. That is, by meeting with one another in groups of as small as 3 and as large as 20, we might know God and His church more deeply.

For many churches, that range of 3-20 is their entire college student population. Having small groups just seems, well... redundant. Besides, isn't that what campus ministries are doing?

Yes, small groups are the primary basis of campus ministries. However, if you don't connect and build relationships with students in the greater church while they're attending university, then why on earth would they come back to the greater church when they graduate?

Small Groups are Biblical

If you look at Jesus' ministry, it centers heavily around small groups. Jesus' core group of Peter, John, and James was a small group. So were the 12 disciples. The early church met together in their homes – I doubt you could fit a 3,000 member megachurch in a single home. I'm not advocating for abolishing large-group meetings, because the early church also met in large groups- we can read in Acts 2 how they were “devoted to the apostle's teaching.” But small groups promote something large groups cannot: relationship.

You hear all the time how Christianity is a relationship, not a religion. Does your church reflect that mentality? Most of the college students I know would not say yes, and it is because they are not getting plugged into personal relationships with the rest of the church.

The easiest way to create relationships en-masse is small groups.

Church-Based Small Group Models

You are not a campus ministry, and that's fine. You don't have to cater to college students to target students and allow them to grow and flourish in the greater church body. Besides, you have something to offer that few campus ministries have: generations. With that in mind, here's 3 different models of student small groups that you can incorporate in your church:

- Students-only. College kids meet together to build relationship and pursue Jesus.
- Student-youth. College kids mentor your youth group to create stronger ties and teach discipleship like Christ taught it.
- Adult-student. Mothers, fathers, and people knee-deep in careers meet to disciple students.

Depending on your church's vision, you might consider different models of small groups. You should pray and choose the model that promotes your goals as a church while feeding your members and allowing them to mature into independent believers.

Small groups are the perfect place to begin training and raising up a new generation of believers who will stand for what they believe in. Give college students responsibilities. Allow them to lead. Teach them with love, and allow God to work through them, whether or not they've had training. Truly, people live up to your expectations of them, so don't be afraid to set the bar high. Just remember to be gracious and encouraging if it takes some time for them to reach the bar.

What do you think? Does your church use small groups? Is your church looking at using small groups? How will you incorporate college students into your church family?