Hello again Small Group leaders of Christ Church,
It is a privilege to be in this ministry with you and I so appreciate your dedication to Christ and to helping others grow in faith and in meaningful Christian friendships. As friends in Christ together, I would like to lift up a prayer concern to our small group leader community. Two of our small group leaders, Linette Rehkopf and Nancy Crow had to say goodbye to their mothers in this earthly life in the past two weeks. The services for Linette’s mother will be out of state at a later time, and a service for Nancy’s mother, Jacqueline Adams, will be at church, tomorrow, Monday February 19th, in the sanctuary at 10am. Our prayers go out to you and your families Linette and Nancy…
The discussion guides and leader tips are in the group email and also at the smallgroupleaders.net website for your meetings this week. Please send a friendly meeting reminder as usual to your groups with the discussion guide attached and a link to the sermon videos at www.christchurchsl.org/sermons. Below is the Discussion Guide link and the leader tips for this week which are available in all three formats- video, audio and text at the smallgroupleaders.net site.
Discussion Guide- 2-18-18 Sermon Discussion Guide- Community and Confession
Leader Tips 2-18-18 video format-
Leader Tips 2-18-18 audio format-
Leader Tips 2-18-18 text format-
Leader Tip#1 – the season of Lent at Christ Church
Well, we are in the season of lent and the beginning of the new sermon series called Spring Training: Disciplines for a Strong Spiritual Life. Over the next few weeks our weekly themes will cover the spiritual disciplines of fasting, receiving communion, prayer and reading scripture. It all begins this week with the discipline of community and confession and no, we are not going to be confessing our deepest dark secrets to each other in our small groups… go ahead and breathe a sigh of relief. We will however, be talking about how confession functions in general in our relationship with God in prayer but also speaking in general about how admitting our mistakes in community can be a healing and freeing experience as well.
Also, you may already have a regular daily devotional habit but we would like to make another spiritual challenge available to you during the week during lent if you are open to it as well. These challenges may involve scriptures and prayers that are on topic with the sermon message of the week, or they may involve stretching our faith with our hands and our feet in various practical actions that may benefit others. A listing of the daily challenges for the week will be shared with the congregations through the weekly handouts on Sunday mornings, and a daily online blog that you can subscribe to via email if you wish. Curious? Go to christchurchsl.org/lent to see what the spiritual challenge of the day is, Monday – Friday.
Leader Tip#2- the new discussion guide format
The discussion guide for this past week had the prayer requests sharing time came at the beginning of the meeting with a box to write notes in. This may have felt a little different than usual, but hopefully it also gave a good connecting point with your group members to begin your time together with. I have adjusted the recommended minutes for each section so that you do not need quite as much time for prayer at the end of the meeting now. Remember too that there will be other scripture references that are to be read out loud that will not fit on the pages, so please keep at least one Bible on hand and possibly some spares too if you can. You can also use the internet on your phone at biblegateway.com or use the free phone app YouVersion.
Leader Tip #3- the small group leaders equipping track
If you have not been able to join us for the small group leaders equipping track last fall on Wednesdays or this winter season on Sunday nights, I encourage you to check out smallgroupleaders.net and click on the menu item Small Group Leader’s Equipping Track. There you can find notes and audio recordings of the session messages. For example, this past Sunday Pastor Temple led session 3- The uniqueness of the Methodist tradition- from grace to grace. We meet in the Bride’s room Sundays at 5pm and tonight our session was about three tools for sharing the gospel of salvation with others. I should have the audio recording and handout documents on the smallgroupleaders.net website soon.
Leader Tip #4- Realm
The new online database for the church’s membership contact information, attendance data and online giving is called Realm. You can learn more about this at the church website- christchurchsl.org/realm. As a member the phone app is very handy to have for online giving and following your records. As a group member the app is helpful for group messaging or emailing as well as attendance recording. Doing small group attendance on realm can help indicate when someone has not been to a meeting for awhile and may benefit from a personal contact. There are also some group features to it that, if you wish to make use of it, resembles a private facebook type group experience for the sharing of announcements or pictures or special event invitations. I have already set up the groups online and set you up with the capabilities to manage the group information as leaders. When you log into realm, you will likely see your small group listed under “Groups.” I’m happy to work with you all one on one with your questions- either on the phone, or sometime when we can meet at the church and be looking at a screen together.
That’s all for now. Know that you can always reach out to me by phone or email to set up a meeting time if you have ministry related ideas or issues you would like to discuss. May God bless you and meet with you in your meetings this week!
Peace and Grace,
Dan Conway
Pastor of Discipleship & Outreach
Christ Church