Leading a Small Group: Work Backwards

This is part 1 of a blog series called Leading a Small Group.

My seventh grade English teacher told us to read our papers backwards. When we thought we were done editing to read it backwards and we would catch more of our mistakes. Reading it normally we would gloss over our repeated words, misspellings, or poor word choice.

The key is changing your perspective.

When working on a group curriculum or planning out a meeting it can be easy to get lost in the details. Maybe you are so focused on the icebreaker or setting the tone for your group that by the time you get to the end of your plan you have forgotten what the group was all about.

A lot of Rookie Pastors who work with small groups think that they will be writing multi-week curriculum from scratch. You could do this but you are taking a big risk.

Writing a curriculum is hard and it is easy to lose sight of the end goal. You get bogged down coming up with good opening questions. The videos aren’t lining up with your vision. The booklet is a disaster. You get the idea.

Before you know it you are lost in this mess and you have forgotten where you were headed in the first place.

Plus starting from scratch at the very start will only exaggerate those early mistakes. Don’t be afraid to use someone else’s stuff and adapt if to suit your community.

Regardless of your approach be sure to focus on the end result. As a groups pastor (and in some of my preaching) I’ve started leading with the ending. So even in the groups I lead I tell them where we are going. Don’t be cute and go for a big reveal invite people into your thinking. We aren’t good enough to get cute. For my group leaders when they get a curriculum for me at the very top under the title is the main idea or conclusion. Make it simple.

So when you sit down to write a group curriculum start with the conclusion and figure out the illustrations and icebreakers later. Besides you don’t want the one thing they  remember to be the get to know you game you played.