Groups Guy

I was with Marty this morning to catch up on his group. The Bible part of his meeting was solid. They’ve been walking slowly through the book of Galatians. Marty’s group has served really well too. They have jumped into serving at The Refuge of Hope. They know the people who serve and are working to find ways to serve them. Its really good. Their group gets being outward.

But as we talked he said one thing wasn’t going well. No one was praying. It was shallow. He’d ask folks to pray. No one would volunteer, so he’d end up finishing the meeting just praying himself.

I asked if people talked very much during the rest of meeting. “Well not much,” Marty said. We were beginning to figure some things out. I like to say that groups all need three elements to be healthy: E C O.

You need biblical Equipping, unconditional Care, holistic Outreach. This group was good at two of these, equip and outreach. Yet they needed to step up their Care, their relationships. This happens a lot in groups. The Bible part of the meeting is strong and pushes out strong interaction.

Both of these Care and Equip are needed. If people are not comfortable to pray they aren’t going to share deeply or significantly.

So how do you get a group to talk, to share? More tomorrow.