Starting a Good Life discussion group:
Suggestions for sharing the faith and the struggle
Living the Christian life requires love, acceptance, forgiveness, role models, encouragement, and education that come from sharing our lives with others. You can make all these experiences part of a group that you can start yourself. Below are some suggestions for putting a group together. Feel free to add your own ideas to make this group comfortable for those you invite.
- Pick a time and place for the group, explaining that those who come to the first meeting will decide where and when the group will meet after that.
- Describe what refreshments if any will be served. Think about what might attract the most people, and bother the least.
- List which people you want to invite. Consider if there is anyone on this list you might want to approach as a leader or coleader for the group.
- Decide on a time frame to suggest for the meetings, usually 75–90 minutes. For an agenda, outline how you think that time might best be spent. Open and close with prayer by different people. The most important part would be each person sharing how they have done since the last meeting relating to the materials assigned for study, or to their own goals.
- Choose a curriculum or a format. Will this be asupport group? study group? accountability group? discussion group? You could ask everyone to take the CAS between the first and second meetings. You could use the Learning Tools found at mynewlife.com, or the blog articles and podcasts there, both entitled Brain Food for the Good Life.
- Guidelines for the sharing: To keep the discussion respectful and kind yet honest, here are some recommended guidelines:
- Give no advice to others, unless it is asked for
- Keep your sharing brief, like around 30 seconds usually, and most always less than two or three minutes.
- Don’t interrupt, or talk over others when they are sharing.
- Select a chairperson or moderator for the group, perhaps a rotating responsibility, to remind group members about these guidelines, and how best to share for the benefit of all concerned. That person is prepared to stimulate discussion if needed with a few of their own experiences and questions.
- Don’t confess juicy specifics in your behavior, or other people’s. Protect the privacy of other people included. Leave out details like exactly where, when, who was there, etc. Just say what types of things you saw and heard, what you did and said, what you believe about it, what was in your heart at the time, and what remains in your heart now. E.g., “I’ve been having some financial insecurity. I made some foolish and selfish purchases, and then lied about them. When my partner found out, I felt afraid and ashamed, and I still do.” If people don’t mention specific things that were said or done, no one will be tempted to gossip, because what was confessed was vague enough it could have been done or experienced by most anyone.
- It is recommended that at every group, members share with each other one of their growing edges, issues/needs (usually one of the nine) where they sense that their spirit and flesh might avoid communicating, be stuck, or be actively pulling in opposite directions. They might also want to start with a knowing edge, an issue where their flesh and spirit arecommunicating and cooperating better.
- The group’s name should suggest their mission (and how they pursue it in group). The one who first organizes the group can choose its initial name and mission, or layout a few possible names and missions to be shaped and confirmed by inspired group consensus at the first meeting. One group calls itself “The Fruit Loop.”
- Invite people with a live 2-way personal contact (phone call, meeting, etc.). If you want the group to reach wider more than deeper, after the first meeting, they can invite their own people. This allows the group to grow until logistics require dividing in half. Make sure the group remains open and not closed to newcomers and drop-ins who haven’t been pre-approved.