Walking the Small Group Tightrope – Chap. 1 ‘The learning challenge’
I am excited about how we as LifeGroup leaders can lead healthier LifeGroups and form community together through reading this book and discussing it on this blog. As a talker versus a writer, I also look forward to our time face-to-face the week of April 9 when we discuss the first half of this book in person (more details to come). Let’s dive in.
Polarity Management is a new term for me. The book by Barry Johnson was published in 1992. Check out a Polarity Map on work/home balance. Has anyone read the book? Been trained in Polarity Mgmt? And/or used it personally or professionally?
“Instead of looking for right answers and nice little definitions, sometimes it’s better to identify and manage the tensions that exist between two desirable truths” This is the basic concept of Polarity Management and I am looking forward to applying it to LifeGroups.
The Learning Challenge – Truth………………………..Life
Where does your group fall on this continuum?
As a church we have chosen to emphasize ‘life’ hence the term LifeGroups. This was partially driven by the realities that unapplied truth creates hypocrites versus disciple makers and how easy it is for a group to simply transfer information. However, there is an equal danger of untrue life creating untransformed/confused people versus disciple makers. We want Spiritual Transformation.
So, how do we manage this tension? Bill and Russ have four suggestions:
- Connect scripture with story
This is exactly what Bob Barker is doing with his Epic project. Bob has stopped preaching and has simple started telling the stories. How good of a story teller are you?
- Turn questions into discussions
You don’t ask a question in order to get an answer you ask a question in order to generate discussion. I really like the statement about ‘stating the truths before asking your question’. This grounds the discussion in truth, but the question allows the truth to play itself out in life.
- Practice active listening
We as leaders must be great listeners and must pray continually in order to discern when a holy moment is near.
- Vary learning styles
Admit it. We like creative things, but rarely spend the time it takes to make them happen in our group. When we do, we usually get tremendous response, whether it is acting out a story, drawing, listening/singing to music, creative praying etc. Here is one idea we did several years ago: Ask everyone to bring a family picture, swap pictures and allow their picture to remind you to pray for them for a week.
Which one of these do you feel you are best at? Need more help in? Will try this week?
What other thoughts do you have from chapter 1?
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One area where I have really been trying to improve on is story-telling. They just seem to take the edge out of “church talk” because it allows you to make points in practical, easy to relate to ways.
Jesus obviously employed this method of teaching, and I think it is also an area that I would love to improve on. At first I didn’t think I had enough experiences to pull from, but when you sit down and think about it, there is a lot of things we can pull from our own lives, or even the lives of those close to us.
Storytelling is the thing that stood out to me.
Story telling definitely takes the edge out of of ‘church talk’, I couldn’t agree more. Jesus was so good at telling stories on such short notice. Or do you think he spent some time thinking about how to clearly tell God’s love and therefore had several stories ready to go when called upon?
It does require us to spend some time thinking about our own stories. Once you start thinking about you can come up with quite a few stories.
Anybody have a good story they want to tell?
Mark and Allen, you picked a great read for all of us. The concept of the balance between truth and life to find transformation is key to us becoming pastors in our life group and to our life groups seeing fruit. Lots of people walk away from small group type things saying all they talked about was the bible or all they talked about was their problems and when that happens that person has missed an opportunity because the leader has missed an opportunity. Balance, as the book guides, is key to leading people to see the point of why we do what we do with life groups.
That’s a good question. I wonder how long it took him to come up with the Good Samaritan? Hmm.
There is so much of God all around us that I suppose all we really need is to ask God to show himself to us through our environment. Perhaps that is what Jesus was good at, finding God in life’s situations, maybe that’s why he had so many stories so handy.
Mickey, I’m with you. God is really using this book to speak to me about “leading” in a way that manages the “polarity” or balance of all the life situations that challenge me. That includes not only my LifeGroup, my friends and family, but my own personal life. As the apostle Paul has always been my hero, modeling his agape love relationship with the New Testament churches has become an example for me to use as comparison. Loving someone or a group “in their own best interest”, the way God loves us, means that leading will often require us to deal with confrontational and difficult situations. Since in my natural self I’m confrontational avoidant, I have to rely on the Holy Spirit to give me the strength, wisdom and Godly insight that those situations require.
Looking at my relationship with Christ, His example, and the need for radical transformation in my life in order to be who God wants me to be, means that sometimes instead of getting chocolate, God serves up a heaping helping of broccoli. I’d rather eat chocolate, but God knows the broccoli is “good” for me and what I need at the moment. OK, and sometimes He gives me chocolate!!! Again, it’s the BALANCE of the two that reflects His incredible and incomparable love for us.
I think personally, it’s being ok with living with that tension, the pull to one side or the other, the need to act using Godly wisdom that requires me to be on my knees seeking His face–and that’s a good thing!!
I love it when the author says “Once you recognize the benefits of holding two good things in tension, your future gets a little easier to manage. Instead of fighting the tension, you can use it to your advantage. Managing tension keeps things in balance…Like walking a tightrope, balancing these tensions can be exhilarating and dynamic”.
One of the things I love about God is the ADVENTURE we get to be a part of…so let’s pack our bags, get on board and ride it out. Even with the ups and downs, it’s going to be a blast and definately NEVER boring!!! Thank you God for the chocolate and the broccoli!!