Sep

1

Finding the Time to Pray

September 1, 2010 | Leave a Comment

I’ve just been notified that my article, Finding the Time to Pray, is being offered as a freebie on SmallGroups.com this week. If you have problems making time to pray in your small group, be sure to check it out.

Photo Credit: iStockPhoto.com

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Aug

30

Think You’ve Got it Bad?

August 30, 2010 | Leave a Comment

Sometimes we think life is pretty difficult. Sometimes we feel sorry for ourselves. Here’s someone who knows that joy isn’t based on our circumstances. Now, stop whining!

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Aug

16

Q Place Seeker Groups

August 16, 2010 | Leave a Comment

I recently had coffee with Mary Schaller, President of Q Place (formerly Neighborhood Bible Studies). Q Place’s mission is to mobilize Christians to facilitate group discussions with spiritual seekers so they can find God as revealed in the Bible. Group leaders, called Initiators, cultivate a healthy small group process so that everyone in the group can come to conclusions at their own pace. Q Place offers a variety of discussion guides and resources to engage the postmodern culture. If you’re interested in or leading a seeker group, check them out.

To help you get started, Mary has written a new book called “How to Start a Q Place.” She encourages several potential leaders to form a Turbo Group and study it as a group for six weeks, learning the process as they study. It’s a wonderful book, rich in self-discovery as well as leadership skills. You can buy copies at the Q Place store.

If you’re in the Chicago area, Q Place is sponsoring their annual conference, Vital 2010 September 23-25, 2010 in St. Charles, IL.

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Aug

13

Composting for Transformation

August 13, 2010 | Leave a Comment


Let me ask you… do you have any garbage in your life?

Yeah, I thought so. Most of us do. And what do you do with that garbage? Do you let it rot and stink and contaminate those around you? Or do you allow God to compost it into something useful? I know. You probably don’t want your life compared to dirt, but frankly, the natural process of composting is a wonderful metaphor for dealing with all the junk life seems to throw at us.

I was motivated to start composting several years ago during one of the many California droughts when I realized how much water I wasted using the garbage disposal. And my garden was plagued with clay soil. Composting seemed like the answer and it spoke to my inner gardener. Now I get almost as much joy from a fresh container of compost as I do from the crops it helps grow. It’s exciting to turn useless garbage into amazing soil. It’s like I’m part of the creative, redemptive process. Pretty amazing. (continue reading)

I recently posted the July 2010 newsletter for Mighty Oak Ministries but forgot to mention it here. Be sure you check it out, and if you like what you see, click on the Newsletter Signup box in the right sidebar to receive this monthly newsletter by email.

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Aug

11

Introducing the Small Groups Digizine

August 11, 2010 | 1 Comment


SmallGroups.com has hit another one out of the park. I finally had a chance to read the Fall 2010 Small Groups Digizine, a free digital magazine that is specifically designed for equipping and encouraging small-group leaders (and the church staffers who love them). I was far more impressed than I expected to be. AND, I have an article in the premiere issue!

The theme for this issue is “Inspiration for Small-Group Leaders,” and it features great content from authors like Sam O’Neal, John Ortberg, and yours truly; video interviews with Mark Batterson, Heather Zempel, and JoHannah Reardon — not to mention Resource Reviews, Meeting Builders, and a new contest that has an iPad as the grand prize. And best of all, it’s free!

The next issue is scheduled to come out in February and will focus on worship. However, if they get enough positive response, it could go quarterly. Be sure to share this with both small group leaders and staff in your church.

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Jun

25

Creating Other People

June 25, 2010 | Comments Off


I’ve been reading a great book called SuperCoach: 10 Secrets to Transform Anyone’s Life by Michael Neil. The book is full of  helpful hints for successful living. I especially liked his chapter on “Listening” in relation to my interest in challenging people. He says,

We’ll nearly always hear what we’re listening for. This creates a self-fulfilling prophecy within all our relationships. This works because our relationships with other people happen almost entirely in our heads. Remember that when you think about people, you aren’t actually thinking about the “real” them – you’re thinking about a representation of them I your mind, like an icon on a computer. You’re actually re-creating them in your mind; and you’re deleting, distorting, and generalizing some of their characteristics as you do so.  At some point we decide what people are really like, and from that moment on, we maintain them in our minds as a fixed persona. We listen for the person we expect to hear and filter out anything that doesn’t fit with the character we’ve created for that individual.

This is SO true! I remember one singles group my husband and I were invited to serve. The church had deemed the members of the group “the losers.” Seriously! Most of the members were late 20s, early 30s, and not the “cool kids.” They were discounted in the minds of the pastoral staff, so ministry was also discounted. It wasn’t given resources or support and the members were often mocked and belittled behind their backs. True to the expectations, the “leadership” of the group was a motley crew. They weren’t skilled and ran a pretty sorry excuse for a singles ministry.

When Bob and I joined as advisors, we expressed our belief that these people could indeed lead an exciting group that would attract new members. We based that on previous experience and managed to convince them they could do it. Really. They weren’t sure, but reluctantly agreed to give us a try. We conducted some leadership training, reformatted the Sunday morning and social experiences, and taught them how to revitalize all aspects of the group. We encouraged them as individuals and became friends with them. We held weekly prayer meetings for both the ministry and the leaders.

Little by little they grew. They looked different. They sounded different. They led the group differently. The group grew, and the leaders grew as people. They gained self-confidence. They brought a new vitality to the ministry. All because we saw them differently, we encouraged them differently, and we brought out their best qualities.

Unfortunately, the staff didn’t (couldn’t) see the changes in these leaders because of their own preconceptions. They continued to see and hear what they expected to see and hear. Before long the ministry was disbanded by senior staff and new “cool kids” were brought in to lead a new group. It was sad and harmed these newly budding leaders tremendously. I don’t think any of them ever went on to lead another ministry. Each of them could have. If others had seen beneath the surface.

Take a look at your leadership and the people in your group or ministry. What do you see? What would happen if you saw differently?

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Jun

21

The Plan A Woman in a Plan B World

June 21, 2010 | Comments Off



If you’re looking for a simple but meaningful women’s study for the summer, Debbie Taylor Williams’ The Plan A Woman in a Plan B World may fill the bill. We all grow up with our “Plan A” – the perfect husband, children, career, good health. But these hopes and dreams can be thwarted or may simply never materialize. What do you do then?

Williams shows us how no matter where Plan B has us headed, we don’t have to simply discard becoming the Plan A woman we dreamed of. Even in the midst of our greatest discouragement, we have hope and the ability to find the fulfillment and peace of Gods Plan A for our lives. She unveils nine Plan B landmines that, if left unchecked, can maim a Plan A woman, then shows us how to take charge of our thoughts and walk in the power of the Spirit. The book comes complete with a study guide.

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Jun

10

When the Need is Serious

June 10, 2010 | Comments Off

My husband was recently diagnosed with a serious illness. We don’t have enough information yet to know how advanced it is or how quickly it will progress. We shared the news with our son last week. Tonight we shared it with our small group. We’ve been with most of these people for over six years. They love us and will stand with us. This is one of many reasons I’m a firm believer in closed, long-lasting groups.

When groups are short-lived, lasting deep relationships usually don’t develop. I’ve been in many such groups that were deep while we were together, but as soon as the group was over, people drifted back to their previous relationships. It’s sad, but the reality is that we can only have so many close people at a time and out of sight is out of mind. Within a month or two, people I thought would be intimate friends forever became acquaintances.

The same is true in an open group where people are free to join and leave, or cell groups that multiply and divide regularly. In such cases, members often don’t risk close relationships because they know things will change before long. Such groups are a great way to meet a lot of people and feel enfolded in a church or ministry. But when life comes crashing in and you need friends to stand with you for the long haul, a closed continuing group can’t be beat.

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May

26

Life In Spite of Me

May 26, 2010 | 1 Comment


Do you get tired of people whining and complaining about their circumstances? Sure, some people have pretty serious situations and I certainly don’t want to minimize the problems of others. Sometimes I barely manage my own issues. But when I meet someone who handles adversity well, my admiration soars.

Kristen Anderson has become such a person. But she wasn’t always that way. Young Kristen thought she had the picture perfect life until strokes of gray dimmed her outlook on life. Once a happy child, Kristen’s world darkened after three friends and her grandmother died within two years. Still reeling from these losses, she was raped by a friend she thought she could trust. She soon spiraled into a depression that didn’t seem to have a bottom.

One January night, the seventeen-year-old made a decision: She no longer wanted to deal with the emotional pain that smothered her. She lay down on a set of cold railroad tracks and waited-for a freight train to send her to heaven…and peace

“Fear coursed through me,” she remembers. “I squeezed my eyes tighter. It’s going to be over now. The pain is going to end. I’ll be in heaven soon. As the train whistle blew, the vibration of my body stilled. The sound stopped. The wind stopped. The train stopped. Am I dead yet”

Amazingly, Kristen survived her suicide attempt… but the 33 freight cars that ran over her severed her legs. Now she not only had to deal with depression; she also had to face the physical pain and life without legs.

But Kristen’s story didn’t end there. After her darkest days Kristen discovered a real purpose for living. Now, in her compelling book Life, In Spite of Me, Kristen shares her journey from despair to hope. If you work with youth or women dealing with depression, this might be a good book to share. Read more about the book on the blog tour.

Want to win any five books by Tricia Goyer?  Tweet this: Don’t miss Life, In Spite of Me by @TriciaGoyer! The amazing story of #KristenAnderson journey back from #suicide! http://bit.ly/98PKmo (must use both hashtags #kristenanderson and #suicide)

Want to win one of five copies of Life, In Spite of Me?  Leave a comment here.

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May

24

Why Didn’t You Warn Me? In Korean

May 24, 2010 | Comments Off

I’m please to announce that today I signed a contract with Korea Smallgroup Publishing Co., which will translate Why Didn’t You Warn Me? How to Deal with Challenging Group Members into the Korean language and market that book in South Korea.

This company has been publishing my first book, Small Group Bible Studies: How to Lead Them since 2003. (That’s the cover shown in this post). It’s in its 8th printing there and doing well. This company is a delight to work with and they produce a quality product. I’m looking forward to seeing what they do with Why Didn’t You Warn Me?

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