Give 20 hours during the semester to leading a Small Group.
Your class posting of 300 words on your blog should report and reflect upon your experience. Reflect on
what you accomplished, disappointments and difficulties along the way, and
lessons learned.
Throughout the course of
this semester, I have been the leader of a small group within my youth
ministry. My small group is comprised of high school junior and seniors who are
interested in learning about leadership and are willing to serve.
I started advertising for
the group in mid-August, just at the brink of the new school year. A sign-up
sheet was posted, and seven out of thirty students signed up to be a part. I
was very excited as I prepared my schedules and outlines for our sessions. By the time the week rolled around for our
first session (September 2nd), three students had backed out. I
tried not to be disappointed, but I was a little bit. By the final count, there
were two girls, two boys, and a junior leader in his freshman year of college
in the group.
Our sessions have been
comprised of a number of different activities, including group prayer,
practical devotions focused on the condition of the heart, leadership, and leadership
qualities in the Bible; scheduling and planning events; discussion about the
condition/needs/wants of the youth group; and exploring and developing the
students’ own leadership qualities through preaching/teaching, leading worship,
leading small groups, and servant hood.
I thought that preparing
for each week wouldn’t be as hard as it has been. I’ve found that it’s really
hard to prepare a mini-lesson that is full of questions and discussion-worthy
material each week. It’s also been hard to devote enough time to each student,
being that I’m a student myself with many scholastic responsibilities. To be
honest, most times I’ve prepared the lesson, but only start the outlines for
events and teaching schedules during the 1.25 hour trip there on Sunday afternoons
and just “wing” the rest of the discussions.
God has been gracious to
me, because even though I don’t have nearly enough time to devote to this
group, let alone the youth group as a whole, good things have been happening.
Just last week, one of the shyest girls from my small group shared a sermon she
had prepared from her heart for her piers in the youth group. We worked on it a
few times after youth group, or before small group, or via telephone and
Facebook messaging over the past month, and by the night of her message, she
was ready to go! She did a phenomenal job, didn’t let her nerves get to her,
and the students responded very well. The look of satisfaction on her face when
she was finished was worth it all for me.
One thing that was
disappointing was, one of the guys had expressed a desire to lead worship
weekly. I was working with him on things like auditions, scheduling, song selection,
etc., and he was doing very well. About six weeks in, he started shirking his
responsibilities. At first I thought that it was okay because he was making
sure he had people to cover for him, but as the weeks continued, so did his
irresponsibility. He decided that the job was too much work and that he’d
rather just play guitar and sing back-up than have to put in the extra work. For
me, this was really hard to swallow, because that had been my favorite job when
I was in youth group, and I know from experience how little work it really is. It
was hard for me not to try to convince him with my personal testimony of how
beneficial and foundational the experience would be for him and that I thought
he was just being lazy. I didn’t do that, but we did work out a schedule in
which he leads once a month.
To sum it all up, it’s
been a challenging experience filled with excitement, laughter, disappointment,
struggles, and everything in between. The group will continue and I will
continue to be stretched.
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