Welcome!
If you’re looking for ways to get involved with St. Alban’s (the Anglican ministry at The Citadel) then you’re at the right place! From here you can:
- Find out what’s going on…
- Interact with news and notes of general interest… (check out the blog below)
- Grow a small group…
- Sign into the lounge (for Cadets)
- Find ways you can help this fun, real, and enjoyable ministry!
Stay a while and enjoy!
What’s the Best Way to Launch New Small Groups?
“What’s the best way to launch new small groups?” As a consultant for small-group ministries, I get asked that question a lot—probably more than any other question, in fact. And for good reason. After all, who isn’t trying to increase the number of groups (and the number of people in groups) in their church?
So what’s the answer? It’s not as easy as that. I could tell you what I think, but I’d rather lead you through a way of thinking about the issue so that you can make up your own mind.
But first, an important assumption: There is no problem-free method for starting new groups. This is a very important realization. What it means is that no matter what situation you’re wrestling with, all of the possible solutions to that situation have issues. All of them. There is no problem-free solution; you just have to choose which of the problem sets you’d rather have.
Three Common Methods of Launching New Groups:
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Encouraging “Next Steps” for Your Group Members
One of the main purposes of small groups is to develop mature people who follow Christ more obediently. But in churches, and especially in small groups, different people may view spiritual maturity in different ways. Some may think of it as having lots of Bible knowledge, for example, or having a great quiet time everyday, or being perfect.
At Community Christian Church, we believe that spiritual maturity is really about speedy obedience. No one says it better than our lead pastor, Dave Ferguson, in The Big Idea: “For a Christ follower, the measure of maturity is determined by the speed of obedience. The most mature Christ follower is not the person who has attended the most church events or accumulated the most information about Jesus, but rather the person whose heart is most transformed. And transformation is seen when a person hears God and responds with swift obedience.”
Read the rest of this entry »
100 Percent of your church in small groups? Yes you can!
“Connect 100 percent of your congregation into small groups.”
Now that’s a sales pitch.
Our church was stuck: A small number of our adults—only 30 percent—were involved in small groups. After seven long years of slugging it out the old fashioned way—raising up apprentices to birth new groups—we were headed nowhere. Only one leader started a new group. Connecting everyone in a group was my dream, but only a pipe dream.
Then, 10 months ago, I attended a conference for small group coaches. The speaker, Brett Eastman, shared a new idea: groups can multiply, without dividing, by recruiting overlooked people to be hosts. This is called the host model. I was intrigued because none of my leaders had been able to recruit apprentices in their groups.
At the workshop, Kent, a coach from a Las Vegas church, shared how they connected large numbers in their congregation in a relatively short period of time using the host model. Not only did they assimilate great numbers of their congregation into small groups, but they also reached their community through small group community. I thought, Maybe this really could work.
On the drive home, I thought about what my senior pastor was most passionate about. With the recent release of The Passion of The Christ, he was planning a new sermon series. I thought, Why not launch small groups based on The Passion? When we did, we went from 24 to 44 groups in one day! This was great progress for a congregation of 800 adults.
From the pulpit, my senior pastor invited all members of the congregation to host a group for a 6-week study. It took off from there. In our post-Easter campaign, we added 25+ new groups.
For our fall campaign, we started recruiting hosts, and our pastor aligned his weekly messages with the study our small groups were using. Then, we took 50 verses from the Bible and asked 50 members of our church to write a one-page devotional. Participation was high, and we were in awe. Our pipe dream was now a reality. More than 100 percent of our average adult attendance was plugged into a group.
It isn’t just about the numbers, though. Each number represents a life. When one man invited his co-workers to join him for a study on The Passion, two of them accepted Christ. I asked one host, “What motivates you to continue your group?” He said, “My dad is showing up.” His dad turned his back on church years ago; although he wouldn’t come to a service, he attended a small group at his son’s house. This was his first step back to God.
Our small groups also began to reach out beyond our congregation, serving hot meals to the homeless every Friday night. One host took her small group to a local women’s shelter. Individuals wouldn’t volunteer alone, but they were willing to serve with their group.
“Connecting 100 percent” was far more than a sales pitch; it was the first step in reaching beyond the walls of our church and connecting our community.
via 100 Percent Community | Articles | SmallGroups.com.
Noli nothis permittere te terere – Psalm 103
When I was a paramedic/firefighter in Chicago, I was having a particularly rough time with one of the lieutenants. He was not kind to me, didn’t appreciate my “christian ignorance” and would find every opportunity to put me down, give me extra work, and humiliate me. I took this hard and was at a loss one particular day when one of my mentors gave me a Latin phrase, “Noli nothis permittere te terere”, translated, “don’t let the (bad guys) get you down”.
While I thought the phrase was in reference only to my obnoxious LT, I soon realized that I was one of the “bad guys” too… I messed up frequently! (And still do!)
I’ve come to realize that God must have this Latin phrase memorized! Israel rarely if ever got things right… at best they were toddlers in their relationship with Him, and at worst they were prostituting themselves for other gods.And it isn’t just Israel — she is just a type of ourselves. We frequently follow in her same paths.
Indeed, God has every right to be angry with Israel and with us. But God is, in fact, SLOW to anger — restrained in His response. Why doesn’t God just wipe the smudge of humanity off this planet? Because he is “gracious and compassionate and abounding in love”. His love is a covenant love that is based on His love for us, not our good behavior and works.
Simply put, God never lets us “bad guys” get him down… rather, he seeks ways to restore us. God expertly separates sins from sinners!
For the sermon, click here
For a small group study on this passage, click here or go to the Life Group Page
What’s the best way to be visible as a cyclist?
Now this is the way to make yourself visible!
New to Holy Cross? Save the date for March 7th
At Holy Cross, our #1 Premise is, “We exist for those who are not yet members.”
In this spirit, we held our first Newcomer’s dinner in the fall of 2009, and it was a great success!
On Sunday March 7th at 6pm in The Great Hall on Sullivan’s Island, we will be holding another Newcomer’s dinner. This dinner is for everyone – it is a great way for new and “not yet” members to learn all about Holy Cross, for lay ministry leaders to share information about their ministry, and for existing members to live out our first premise and fellowship with newcomers and visitors.
Attached is a copy of the invitation that was mailed to new members, and prospects who are in our database. We would love you to join us, and if you can think of anyone who may want to attend, please pass along this invitation.
Call me or Leslie at 843-883-3586 for more info and to RSVP
The Hermeneutics Quiz
Scott McKnight is curious as to how we read the Bible and has developed a great quiz to think though… take a look at this quote, and enjoy the linked article and quiz. (And comment back to us what type of interpreter you are!)
I’m curious why one of my friends dismisses the Friday-evening-to-Saturday-evening Sabbath observance as “not for us today” but insists that capital punishment can’t be dismissed because it’s in the Old Testament.
Read more here: The Hermeneutics Quiz | LeadershipJournal.net.
A Small-Group Leader’s Most Important Job
What would you guess are the most important things you could do as a small group leader? According to an extensive survey of 3000 small group leaders, here are some important keys:
…the highest correlations to small-group health and growth were to the unseen dimensions of a group leader’s relationship with God. Out of the hundreds of questions we asked, the leaders’ answers to the following questions yielded the most pivotal results:
- How consistently do you take time for prayer and Bible reading?
- Are you praying daily for your non-Christian friends to come to know Jesus?
- How many days in the past week did you pray for your small-group members?
- Do you pray for your group meetings in the days leading up to it?
- How much time on average do you spend in daily prayer and Bible reading?
To read more: A Small-Group Leader’s Most Important Job | Articles | SmallGroups.com.
A $0 Marketing Budget
Our Marketing Budget is $0
(Filed under: Evangelism & Outreach)
by Danielle Hartland, guest blogger
This year our church made the decision to pull all of our traditional marketing dollars (phone book, newspaper, radio, etc.), and we moved it to equipping our people and staff to engage and connect with the lost. That sentence makes it sound perfect and glamorous. It wasn’t, but the end result and current culture shifting has made it all worth it.
(HT: http://www.churchmarketingsucks.com/archives/2010/02/our_marketing_b.html )
How to have great discussion in small groups
ht: http://www.markhowelllive.com
Five Keys to Stimulating Better Discussions
First, think ahead of time about where your members need to go… You don’t need to spend a lot of time on this, but it does help to think about the individual needs of your members as you’re looking over the upcoming session. Although this is a challenge in a newer group, it gets easier the longer a group has been together and the more you know about your members. One way you can speed up the process is to have each of your members take the Purpose Driven Health Assessment and develop a Health Plan.
…and tailor the standard-issue questions in your upcoming session to fit the needs of your group. Not as hard to do as it might seem. Often it’s simply a matter of being aware of the needs of your members.
Second, learn to use guiding statements to keep the session headed in the right direction. Guiding statements are simple modifications that can be dropped in right after the question. For example:
- “Let’s each take 30 seconds to respond to this question.”
- “What one word summarizes your feelings.”
- “What does this verse say to you? Boil your response down to one sentence.”
- “This is a good warm-up question. How about 2 of you giving us your answer.”
Third, rephrase the question and ask it again. If the discussion drifts off topic, it can be redirected by rephrasing and taking a second pass.
Fourth, use redirecting statements as necessary. You may feel a little awkward, but your members will appreciate your help keeping things on topic. For example:
- “That sounds like something we should discuss another time.”
- “Let’s keep working on this question. We may have time for that one later.”
Fiftth, recognize and celebrate each baby step along the way. Affirm your members when they take a risk or make progress on the steps they need to take. For example:
- “That’s great! Thank you for sharing that.”
- “That is a really important step to share your feelings with the group!”
- “We’ve taken some steps as a group tonight. I think all of us have acknowledged that we need to have a regular quiet time and we’re ready to give it a try.”
