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Ten Community-Building Practices

By Richard C. Meyer

Dick Meyer's new book, One Anothering Volume 2, is a practical guide to building healthy small groups around the "one-another" passages that Jesus taught. To complement his new book, Innisfree Press has reissued the first volume with an attractive matching cover to make a set. As a supplement to both, Dick has provided these "ten essentials" for group leaders which will help any group or committee become a vital community. -- F@W Editor

1. Ask Good Questions

Group questions can be divided into two general categories: discussion (or head) questions and sharing (or heart) questions. Discussion questions seek general information and are most helpful during the group's study time. Sharing questions seek personal information and invite people to talk about themselves. They also have three tenses: past, present and future. If the subject is "faith," a past sharing question asks: "When did you give all you knew of yourself to all you know of Christ?" and a present sharing question asks, "Where is it easy and where is it difficult to have faith today?" A future sharing question asks, "Who would you like to see come to faith in the future?"

The asker of the sharing question then "leads" the way by answering the question first. This gives the rest of the group an idea of how long and deeply to share when they answer the question for themselves.

2. Write a Clear Contract

When I come to a small group, I expect the group to begin and end on time, to do a study, to share prayer concerns and pray for one another. I expect people to be present unless they are ill or out of town. I expect everyone to participate. I expect to have a bathroom and refreshment break. Others who come to the group have similar expectations. Some have dissimilar expectations, and the potential for conflict over these matters certainly exists. As a result, it is important to bring these different expectations to light and agree upon how the group will function based upon these similarities and differences. Contracting or covenanting together enables this to take place. Each member signs the group contract which can be reviewed in several months.

3. Cultivate Healthy Participation Patterns

Some people are naturally more talkative than others. As a result, we may hear more from some group members than others. Some of this can be remedied by having group members take turns and share in a circle. That way, everyone has time to talk. Another strategy is for us, as the group leader, to choose our seat carefully. We can start the sharing time by going around the circle away from the talkative person so by the time it's their turn to talk, everyone else has had time to share.

Sitting next to a talkative person also helps "tone down" that person since they cannot see our non-verbal cues. However, we want to give silent members all sorts of non-verbal encouragement. If our non-verbal efforts do not get the job done, we verbally invite them to talk more.

4. Choose a Captivating Study

A good small group study wants to accomplish two things. At the end of the study, we want to know what the author thinks and believes, and we want to know how those thoughts and beliefs affect our lives. Therefore a good small group study interacts with the material to be studied and invites us to talk about ourselves in the process. To do this, a good small group study is divided into three parts: the launch, the exploration and the discovery/application.

The launch begins the study, is related to the theme of the study and invites participants to talk about themselves.
After a launch question is asked, we are ready for exploration. In this section, discussion (not sharing) questions are asked of the text or chapter.
The discovery/application section also utilizes sharing questions and applies what we have learned through the exploration section to our lives. In other words, "What am I going to do with this today or in the future?"

5. Face Conflict

Intimacy and conflict go hand in hand. We cannot have one without the other. Unfortunately conflicts do not fade away and it is critical for the leader to deal with conflict when it arises in a group. A three-step approach is helpful.

Step one is recognition. Note that something is awry. Say something like "Jim, you seem upset. Is everything OK?" or "We need to deal with this difference of opinion."
Step two is clarification. Sometimes the problem is not what we initially see, hear or think. Often we need to find out what triggered a particular response.
Step three is resolution. How can we work through this? What solutions are available? Most conflicts can be resolved within the group. When groups work through conflict, they move from a surface community of "niceness" to an in-depth community of real honesty.

6. Evaluate Regularly

Every three months a group needs to take stock of who they are and where they're going. Are they accomplishing their goals? Adhering to their covenant? Do any changes need to be made? Once a quarter the leader might ask each member of the group to write down five things he/she loves about the group and one or two things he/she would like to see changed and give each member a chance to comment on the suggestions that have been made. Members know what they like and do not like. If not given an opportunity to share these formally, a frustration with the group can grow and fester. Such "formal" evaluations enable group members to articulate frustrations before they become too big and to make small, periodic adjustments to the group.

7. Send Gracefully

Groups do not stay together forever. People come and go, life situations change, enthusiasm wanes, people grow. When it is time for someone to leave, it is important to send them off with the group's blessing. Pastor Sam Ott suggests the following three-fold process.

sharing a meal together;

remembering and rejoicing over the times shared together;

laying hands on those leaving and praying for them.

This gives people permission to leave a group without a backpack of guilt, knowing that their contributions will be valued and celebrated. Such sending reminds us that a small group is not an end in itself, but an equipping center and a support center for ministry.

8. Refrain from Fixing and Advice Giving

When I share a problem, I do not necessarily want advice. I want someone to listen to me and hopefully empathize with me. Advice giving and fixing places the advisor in a superior-sounding position, dispensing wisdom from on high. To give advice without knowing the details is potentially foolhardy and dangerous. If people want advice, they are to request it. Until they do, we simply listen and allow the Holy Spirit to do the curing. We do not have to fix the problem. That is God's job. We listen, we care, but God does the curing.

9. Keep Confidences

Few things destroy a group faster than broken confidentiality. Groups who keep things to themselves provide a safe place for people to share their hopes, dreams, frustrations and hurts. They know to pass that information along to others will destroy that safe haven. So if a confidence is broken, it needs to be addressed swiftly and directly. The person who broke the confidence needs to be confronted and assurances need to be given that such a thing will not happen again. If such assurances cannot be given, the person needs to be asked to leave. Better to lose one person than an entire group.

10. Center on Christ

If we examine ourselves and seek to discern Christ's face in our daily lives, then the map of life comes together much more easily for us. The best groups involve themselves in spiritual disciplines -- Bible study, fellowship, prayer -- where Christ is invited to bring things together for them. A group that simply shares and does not study Christian literature or pray short-circuits spiritual growth. When the Body of Christ gathers around Christ, its people grow.

Dick Meyer is Senior Pastor of First Presbyterian Church, Maitland FL and author of two books, One Anothering, Vol 1 & 2.

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