By Allen White Are you tired of your leaders not showing up for training? This was a problem we had to face a few years back. What we had discovered was that people hate meetings. If you can’t get them together for a meeting, then how do you train them?
Training by Video.
What are your leaders’ common questions? Don’t assume. Ask your leaders about what they’re dealing with. This could come through coaching, surveys, or casual conversations. Take frequent topics that your leaders need help with and make a 2 minute video. The videos don’t need to be fancy. Use your phone and upload them to Youtube. Then, send the videos out to your leaders. They will pay attention to short videos that are emailed out to them. You’ve got to push it out! Don’t wait for them to come to the meeting or surf over to the website. You’ll be waiting for a long time.
Training through a Coach.
I have blogged for about a month on the importance of coaching. This is your front line for training. As your coaches develop relationships with their leaders and check-in on your new leaders regularly, they will hear about the issues and problems going on in groups. The great thing about coaching is the question can be answered on the spot — in the teachable moment — and no one had to go to a meeting!
Training through Resources.
Put a book in your leaders’ hands. Years ago, I bought 2 cases of Making Small Groups Work by John Townsend and Henry Cloud. I gave one to every one of my leaders. It’s a great resource. I am a little partial to my book, Leading Healthy Groups: A Guide for Small Group Leaders. Either way, give your leaders a ready reference for when they are dealing with an overly talkative group member, group members debating politics, or low attendance at their group meetings.
Annual Retreats
We cut our meetings down to 2 meetings per year. Two! Every Fall we rallied all of our leaders together for a big kickoff. Then, every January, we booked a speaker and a retreat center to take all of our leaders away for a weekend. The leaders paid for their lodging and some of their meals. I budgeted for a speaker. The best part was that they training stuck! Since the weekend was “set apart” from our leaders normal routine, the training stayed with them for a lot longer than we expected. The most important thing about training is that it needs to be something your leaders want. How do you know what your leaders want? Ask them. Don’t give basic training to experienced leaders. And, don’t lose new leaders by going over their heads. Think about your training. What is training to you and your leaders
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By Allen White In conversations with small group pastors from some of the largest small group ministries in the country, I’ve learned that many have completely given up on coaching group leaders. Others are on the other extreme and hire coaches. Whether your approach is the “phone-a-friend” method or the metachurch model, here are some reasons coaching is significant.
More Group Leaders Will Quit BEFORE a Study Begins that After.
From the moment someone offers to be a Leader/Host/Friend and start a group, they need a coach. I have seen more potential group leaders stall between the invitation to lead and the start of the study than at any point in the process. Most groups who actually do the first study or first semester will continue on, but groups that fail to start tend to not continue. It is mission critical for a leader to have a coach from when they say “Yes,” until the end of the study. You may ask, “But, what about the rest of our group leaders?” Here’s the deal, if your other groups have survived without a coach, put that on the back burner and start coaching your new leaders now.
People Hate Meetings.
You’re probably frustrated that your group leaders don’t show up for your training. The short of it is people simply hate meetings, especially when the topics don’t affect them. How do you train your leaders if they won’t come to meetings? Coach them. Rather than coaches being your spies or your report-takers, have the coaches train the group leaders on what the leaders actually need training on. It’s not cookie cutter. It’s customized to what the leader is currently facing. If you are answering the questions your leaders are asking, then they will become very interested in training. But, what is training? What if training, especially on-going training, is not a note sheet and a PowerPoint presentation? Training could be a short video emailed out to your leaders. Training could be a short conversation. Training could be solving a current problem. Training should come from the coach. But, if the coaches do the training, what do small group pastors/ directors do? Train the coaches and build a small group team. By working at a higher level in your small group structure, you can have a greater impact and get much further faster.
You Can’t Successfully Coach More than 8 Leaders Yourself.
Why eight? That’s my number. I tried to coach 30 leaders once. There’s wasn’t much coaching going on. What I discovered is eight is great. In a church under 1,000 adults, your eight might be your coaches or small group team. In a church over 1,000 adults, your eight is definitely a small group team. Just follow the pattern Jethro gave Moses in Exodus 18. Let’s face it – most small group pastors/ directors wear more hats than just small group ministry. If that’s the case with you, then you certainly can’t coach all of your leaders by yourself. Consider your best and brightest leaders. Could they coach? Let them give it a try. But, there’s a much bigger reason to invest in coaching – you won’t always have as many groups as you currently have. You’re going to have more! How are you going to serve your group leaders when you have twice as many as you have now? It happened to me in one day! Plan for where you want your groups to grow. Recruit coaches even before you recruit leaders! Coaching will make all of the difference in both starting and supporting group leaders. No doubt building a coaching structure is the hardest work of small group ministry. The only thing harder is not having one.
By Allen White People hate meetings. Meetings are inconvenient. People are busy. So, we really need to ask the question: What is training? Training can be a blog post. In fact, that’s how my blog at allenwhite.org got started. I would answer one of my leader’s questions each week and send it to all of the rest. Training can also appear in your video-based curriculum, if you are developing your own. By adding weekly training to the video, leaders have what they need when they need it as they go through the materials. Training can be sent by video through an email. Any small group pastor/director with a smartphone, a tablet, or a laptop can record a 2 minute video (not longer) and send it out to his/her small group leaders each week. This is even better than training delivered with video-based curriculum, because you can answer timely questions as they are asked rather than anticipating what questions they might ask. Yes, we still need initial training to get a group started. This could happen between services or even during a service, but we need to rethink small group training. If leaders are learning through blogs, books, articles, or video emails, then that IS training. One day I was talking to a pastor who came from a career in corporate training. As we talked about delivering training to group leaders when they needed it, he said, “You know, considering my background, this is going to sound funny, but the best training comes from the person who is proximate to the group leader when he or she is facing a problem.” Rather than creating a seminar on common group issues and rounding everybody up at the church on Tuesday night, a conversation with an experienced leader or coach at the right time produced more meaningful training. Group leaders are best served when the training meets a current need as they are facing it. Leaders aren’t concerned with difficult group members until they have one. Leaders can be trained and prepared to a certain extent, but chances are they won’t remember what’s given to them if they are not currently facing the problem. One Sunday morning a group leader who was a former member of my small group came up to me in the church lobby. She was concerned about an overly talkative member of her group and how to handle the situation. I had to laugh to myself because this former overly talkative member of my group was asking her former overly talkative group leader about a problem she was having with an overly talkative person in her current group. Ironic, huh? In just a few minutes, I gave her a couple of tips on how to handle the situation. She thanked me. After the next meeting, the problem was solved. The over talkative group member felt insulted and never came back. Okay, that’s not true. The group member received the message loud and clear and cooperated from then on. This group leader didn’t need to wait for the next training to come around, she came directly to me. She didn’t need to take copious notes from my training, it stuck in her head. Why? Because I gave her the training she needed when she needed it. Those are the lessons that stick. While there is certainly a place for centralized Basic Training, the best training comes from the coach when group leaders need solutions to their problems. Rather than conducting meetings, develop relationships. Blogs and video training can certainly supplement what the coaches are doing, but the coach is the primary trainer. Small Group Pastors and Directors should invest their time in training coaches and developing their Small Group Team rather than overshadowing their coaches and micromanaging group leaders. The world of training has changed. Online courses are replacing university campuses. Crash courses in some fields are all someone needs to build a successful career. If centuries-old educational institutions can innovate how they train and equip the future workforce, then it’s time for the church to innovate as well. Training tools should be developed for individual leaders through digitally, interactive technology. Groups of leaders can be trained online, but meet individually with their coach in person. Mobile devices, social media, and voice mail have made it possible to literally “encourage one another daily.” Excerpt from Exponential Groups: Unleashing Your Church’s Potentialby Allen White. Published by Hendrickson Publishers. Copyright (c) 2017 by Allen White Consulting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
By Allen White Recently a small group pastor asked me, “Where do you stand on the Hosts versus Leaders Debate? People grow in groups, but you don’t have to know anything to be the leader??? I feel like I need to train more but no one wants to sit through training.” This are very important issues. Let me break down this question and offer a few thoughts. The Hosts versus Leaders Debate I don’t believe a Hosts versus Leaders Debate is necessary. It’s like a Children versus Adults Debate. At one point in our lives we are children, and then we become adults. Back in 2002 with the launch of 40 Days of Purpose, Rick Warren and the team at Saddleback Church introduced us to the term “Host.” The thought was that most people wouldn’t say they were “leaders,” so the invitation was changed to “host a group” by brewing a pot of coffee and being a “Star with your VCR.” What we discovered were a few problems, but a ton of new leaders who would have never called themselves leaders. “Host” was a great way for people to self-identify as a leader, even if they didn’t know that’s what they were doing. A host, in turn, becomes a leader. Usually churches will “lower the bar” to allow anyone to host a group. I prefer to say “delay the requirements.” Every church must decide what the minimum requirements would be to allow someone to test drive a small group. If the hosts enjoy leading the group, then they are invited on a pathway to become official small group leaders. This is when the requirements come back into play. But, there is an important loop hole here. Some people are content to be hosts. They don’t want to become official. Does the church require them to become official? The church could. But, the cat’s already out of the bag. The host doesn’t need the church in order to continue. They just need another video-based curriculum. At that point communication breaks down, and the hosts operate outside of the group system and coaching structure. This doesn’t need to happen, if the church is patient. The hosts should be given a choice whether to become official or to wait for the next church-wide campaign to come around. It’s not perfect, but it may very well be more than what they were doing before. Some leaders are children. Others are teenagers. Most become adults. But, all leaders follow that pattern. “People grow in groups, but you don’t have to know anything to be the leader???” Years ago I started teaching theology and practical ministry classes at a Bible institute. I was a little intimidated about teaching in my first semester. I felt I needed a better understanding of the subject. I didn’t want to appear foolish. And, I certainly didn’t want to embarrass myself in front of my class. A veteran teacher coached me, “You just have to be one week ahead of the students.” Granted I had earned a B.A. and an M.Div. I knew the subjects. I just hadn’t taught the subjects. I held the veteran teacher’s secret dearly. I just needed to be one week ahead of my class. And, that’s exactly how I taught at the Bible institute for the next 10 years. People grow in groups. I absolutely agree. New leaders also grow in groups. They don’t need to have a lot of training to get started. They just need to get started. As issues come up with the group, the new leader should have a coach to turn to. The new leader’s problems become teachable moments. Those lessons will stick with the leaders forever. Put an experienced leader in the life of the new leaders and most of the training will take place on-the-job. “I feel like I need to train more but no one wants to sit through training.” I used to feel the same way. Seminary prepared me to lead training meetings. Then, I discovered real ministry. I would carefully plan my training meetings and advertise them well in advance only to stand in an empty room questioning the call of God on my life. Training with centralized meetings didn’t work for me. I had to stop and ask myself, “What is training?” What I discovered was that training could be a two minute conversation in the hallway or a two minute video sent out to all of the group leaders. (If you need topics and content for your training videos, check out the training section of my book, Exponential Groups, on pages 178-200). Training can be a text message or a voice mail. The best training comes in the relationships between leaders and their coaches. There is a place for formalized training. A one-time basic training event could be held after each six week campaign to give the new leaders or hosts instruction on how to lead a group at your church. Beyond this, the leaders will gauge what training they need regardless of what small group pastors like me think they should have. I finally reached a place where I only held two centralized training events per year. I gathered all of the group leaders each Fall to introduce them to the new curriculum and to recruit coaches from our established leaders. In the book, I refer to this as the “Sneak Peek.” The second meeting was often a group leaders’ retreat early in the year. We would choose a place that was an hour and a half or so away. (In California, this retreat was in Monterey, so if you have that option, take it!) The leaders would pay for their lodging and some of their meals. I would budget for the speaker. This became a very popular event for our leaders. The best part was the leaders could articulate things they learned at the retreat six months after the retreat, because the training was set apart from the normal routine of life. Closing Thoughts I appreciate honest questions like this. I don’t believe the hosts versus leaders thing needs to be an either/or. I see it more like Stage 1 and Stage 2. If people don’t respond to an invitation to lead, then an invitation to “host” might do the trick. Personally, I think the term “host” is a bit dated at this point. There are other ways to invite people to lead without using the word “leader.” Training is not a dinosaur, but the form of centralized training might be. Someone asked me once why I thought their leaders didn’t come to their training. Having no knowledge of this person’s training, I said, “Well, they don’t come because your training is boring and irrelevant.” He was taken aback. How could I make such an accusation about his training? I told him I knew it because that’s why people didn’t come to my training meetings. The good news is there are so many ways to communicate with people these days, there are many training opportunities, we just need to update our methods.
