My wife and I just finished a season of leading a small group at our local church. We learned a lot in the seven years we led the group, and let me tell you: we were not the best at it. It was our first time leading a small group as a married couple, and then as parents of young children, and we definitely could have been more effective than we were. We are leading in other areas in our church now, and we are eager to get back to leading a small group in the future.
Today I want to share with you five responsibilities of every small group leader. I learned the importance of these responsibilities the last decade or so, even if I didn’t fulfill all of them perfectly. Of course fruitful small group ministry can happen without fulfilling every single one of these responsibilities perfectly, but these responsibilities are solid pillars that can serve as support columns for effective small group ministry.
1. Pray for your group daily.
We must not look over the importance of praying for our small groups! I get it. It’s so easy to get into rhythms and routines of life that sometimes make it feel like we just stumble from one commitment to the next. I’ve been there, trust me. But we have to remind ourselves that leading a small group is not simply a one-night-per-week commitment. Leading a small group is a commitment that really permeates our everyday lives.
However and whenever you pray, make it a point to pray for your small group amid your other prayers. Take prayer requests at group each week. Pray together during group. Add specific prayer requests to your own prayers each day. God hears our prayers. He really does. Let’s lead our small groups like we believe that is true. By taking our small group to God in prayer each day, we can feel empowered by the Holy Spirit to lead each week, no matter how we’re feeling as the weekly gathering approaches.
2. Lead the people, not just the gathering.
For a number of years, small group met on Tuesday night. Likewise, in that same period, Tuesday was routinely my busiest day at work. It goes without saying that I would often roll into small group on Tuesday night mentally exhausted and interested in doing almost anything except leading a gathering of people to have intentional conversations about faith and life.
Have you ever felt this way? I’m sure you have at least once, if you lead a small group.
Eventually I came to recognize that it was my responsibility to lead the people in the group as much as it was my responsibility to lead the group gathering. Of course, a robust group gathering is important for discipleship, but I became a better small group leader when I started to see Tuesday nights as an opportunity to love and lead individual people instead of another opportunity to organize a gathering.
As you lead, consider each individual person in your group. What are their hurts? What are their doubts? How might they need to hear the gospel afresh? Asking questions like this can help fight back the dread that can sometimes come with the prospect of leading each week in seasons of busyness and stress.
3. Create space for change, not just conversation.
Having regular, meaningful conversations with trusted friends is one of the most wonderful benefits that comes with being part of a small group of any kind. In our day of constant internet connection, deep interpersonal connection can sometimes feel scarce. But while we are encouraged, sharpened, and convicted through intentional conversation, we shouldn’t stop there. This conversation should till the soil for real, gospel change, rooted in the goodness and grace of God.
We are not saved because we live differently, but when we know we have been saved, we should live differently! This requires change. It requires us to recognize where we fall short of Christlikeness, how we sin, and how we can repent, turning from what we want and embracing what God has for us. This change is best done in community, not alone. We should create space in our groups for this kind of change.
4. Develop your replacement.
Developing new leaders in our groups matters both for replacement and multiplication.
All leadership is interim leadership. The sooner we leaders learn this, the better, regardless of whether we’re leading as unpaid volunteers or paid staff members. When we recognize all leadership is interim leadership, we shouldn’t be driven to some kind of discouragement, thinking our leadership is inconsequential. Rather, we should take hold of the opportunity we’ve been given by God to lead while also keeping an eye on others we could develop to take our place when the time inevitably and eventually comes for us to step aside.
Multiplication is a cause for celebration, and multiplying our groups requires leaders to be developed. Leadership development only happens with intentionality and the specific discipleship of individuals, even outside of the weekly group setting.
If our discipleship ministry is going to reach as many people as possible, our small group leaders need to be developing people to replace them or to be sent out to start new groups.
5. Point your group to look beyond itself.
One of the bigger temptations of small group leadership is to focus so much on the dynamics and needs of the group itself and the people in it that we neglect turning our groups’ eyes toward people, needs, and other opportunities beyond the group. Some groups are either so large or so full of brokenness and other ministry needs that it can be hard to think outside the group, and that’s understandable, of course. But if and when we’re able, as small group leaders, it is good for us to find ways for us to lead our groups to think beyond the bounds of the group.
What does this look like?
One clear way to do this is to find a way for your group to serve your community. Our church assigned each small group a teacher at a local school that had serious material needs. So each year, every small group in our church had the opportunity to provide school supplies and fulfill other needs in their classroom and throughout the school as a whole. That’s just one example.
However you can, try to find a way to get your group to think outside the walls of the group, serving the community or otherwise ministering to people.
The Bottom Line
Being a small group leader is wonderful, and it can be difficult, often all at the same time. For small group leaders, the bottom line is this: let’s show up for our groups each week to share about and show the love of Christ to people. We will not be able to fulfill all of these responsibilities at all times, to be sure, but at the very least we can show up and love them like Jesus.
