Adam Bishop (Small Groups Pastor at The Journey) here again.  I shared yesterday that the key to identifying and involving enough small group leaders at your church is to make that process a priority for each of your current group leaders.

The only way to get your group leaders to actively pray for new leaders, see potential leaders as Jesus sees them and ask them to lead is through… you guessed it – TRAINING.

The training of your group leaders can be broken down into three categories:

1. ONCE-A-SEMESTER SMALL GROUP LEADERS TRAINING – This training needs to take place two weeks prior to the start of each semester.  At The Journey, we have ours on a Sunday afternoon for three hours.  So if you have a spring, summer, and fall semester you will have three trainings a year.

Begin with the end goal in mind – clearly communicate to your group leaders at the training that identifying, asking, and producing new group leaders from their group is one of the goals of leading a group.

Celebrate and reward group leaders who have modeled this well.  At our last training, I gave away three gift cards for a day at the spa to the three group leaders who had produced the most new group leaders. Remember, what gets rewarded gets repeated.

2. WEEKLY TRAINING – Utilize a weekly email to your group leaders to reinforce the importance of identifying and asking new people to lead.

Around four to six weeks into the semester, ask your current group leaders to respond with the names of current group members who could potentially lead next semester.

3. MONTHLY TEAM LEADER TRAINING – I do not meet with all of our group leaders on a monthly basis, but I do meet with our Team Leaders.

Our team leaders are high capacity volunteers who provide care, communication, and coaching to the leaders of the five small groups on their team.  The number of team leaders you have will grow as your number of groups grows.

I lead a one hour a month meeting with our Team Leaders on Monday nights.  Regardless of the agenda at these meetings, I always make a point to focus on identifying and asking new people to lead in some form.

They in turn continue to communicate the importance of this to the group leaders on their team.  All of this serves to raise the value of finding new leaders in our small groups system.

Don’t miss tomorrow’s post where I’ll share the most important element in finding enough group leaders…

P.S. The new Small Groups Pastor Tele-Coaching Network that Kerrick Thomas and I are leading is beginning in less than a month and we still have a few more spots available.  For more information and to download an application, CLICK HERE

© Nelson Searcy. All Rights Reserved.

About Nelson Searcy

Nelson Searcy is an experienced church growth strategist, pastor, church planter and coach, consulting with churches around the world. As founder of Church Leader Insights and the Renegade Pastors Network, he has personally trained more than 3,500 church leaders in over 45 denominations through live events, seminars and monthly coaching. Nelson is also the Founding and Lead Pastor of The Journey Church, with locations across New York City and in Boca Raton, FL. Nelson and his church routinely appear on lists such as “The 50 Most Influential Churches” and “The 25 Most Innovative Leaders.” He is the author of over 100 church growth resources and 18+ books, including The Renegade Pastor: Abandoning Average in Your Life, Ministry and The Difference Maker: Using Your Everyday Life for Eternal Impact, and At the Cross with the People Who Were There. He and his wife, Kelley, have one son, Alexander.