Tag: community groups

Kingdom of God leaders

I’ve been reading Frank Viola’s “Reimagining Church” over the last week or so. It’s been a great companion to go along with Brian’s message series (priests in the hood). The book also seems to apply directly to what I envision for our community groups at encounter (and beyond).

This morning I read Luke 22:25-26:

Within minutes they were bickering over who of them would end up the greatest. But Jesus intervened: “Kings like to throw their weight around and people in authority like to give themselves fancy titles. It’s not going to be that way with you. Let the senior among you become like the junior; let the leader act the part of the servant.

As community group leaders/facilitators/hosts I think Viola makes some great points about what we should avoid striving for and what we should strive for:

  • in the gentile (secular) world, leaders operate on the basis of a political, chain-of-command social structure — a graded hierarchy. in the kingdom of God, leadership flows from childlike meekness and sacrificial service.
  • in the gentile world, authority is based on position and rank. in the kingdom of God, authority is based on godly character. note Christ’s description of a leader: “let him be a servant,” and “let him be as the younger.” in our Lord’s eyes, being precedes doing. and doing flows from being. put differently, function follows character. those who serve do so because they are servants.
  • in the gentile world, greatness is measured in prominence, external power and political influence. in the kingdom of God, greatness is measured by humility and servitude.
  • in the gentile world, leaders exploit their positions to rule over others. in the kingdom of god, leaders deplore special reverence. they rather regard themselves “as the younger.”

I hope and pray that we’re all being leaders/facilitators/hosts that fit in with the kingdom of God model and not the gentile/worldly model that surrounds us everywhere we go. I also pray that each of us are encouraging our group members to do the same. By becoming servants to all, leadership will be a natural extension to them all.

My Bucket List

Friday night Laurie and turned off the Olympic opening ceremonies (yes I know a cardinal sin) and watched the Bucket List. I loved it. She wasn’t as impressed.

The idea behind the movie is two men are dying of cancer and are only expected to have six months to live, so they make a list of all the things they want to do before they “kick the bucket.”

The movie reminded me of the “life goal list” Mark Batterson challenges folks to create in his first book, “In a Pit With a Lion On a Snowy Day.” Basically a list of 100 things that you want to do/accomplish before your life is over.

Been thinking through some of my goals (especially realizing that I only a little more than have 4 full months left to complete my goals for 2008). Looks like I’ve blown one of them already – the take a photo each day of me in 2008. I think I lost focus/motivation after folks said they were getting bored with my photo selection in mid-April. Hopefully I’ll pick it back up next year – but maybe just take a photo a day – rather than a photo of me each day.

So far I did finish rebuilding a new encounter website as well as rebuilding the CasadeBlundell.com website (with a lot of great help and insight from my life).

I think I’ll easily meet my reading goal for the year. I’ve completed 10, almost finished with #11 and just received #12 and have #13-15 currently being shipped from Amazon.com.

My last goals that I’m still worried about/shooting for are:

  • Finish losing weight. My goal weight is 205. I’ve got about 20 more lbs to go.
  • See 8 new community groups started at encounter.
  • Get 4 new people on the sound or media shout rotation at encounter.

So… all that said – what about my Bucket List? Well, I’m still thinking it though. I’ll give you one of them though… bungee jumping.

Now how about you? What’s on your Bucket List?

related ::
IMDB :: the bucket list
SSL :: goals for 2008
the “new” casadeblundell.com
the “new” encounterthis.com

What’s behind these community groups?

I’ve asked everyone in our community groups at encounter to take a couple minutes and either fill out an online survey or a printed version of the survey regarding their experiences in their encounter community group.

I’ve received some of the community group surveys back already – (they were sent out roughly a week ago)

A few interesting things so far… (from the current respondents).

  • 87% are married
  • 75% have children
  • 75% learned about their group from a Sunday morning announcement
  • 87% attend their group regularly (3-4 times a month)
  • 100% attend encounter – 100% attend frequently
  • 75% have attended encounter for more than a year
  • 87% have been a Christ follower for at least 3 years
  • 62% rarely or never attended church growing up
  • 100% are involved in other encounter ministries
  • 100% would recommend their group
  • 67% have invited at least 1 person to their group
  • 100% would rank the quality of their group 3 or higher on a 1-5 scale
  • 50% would rank the quality of their group a 5

I have a feeling these results have come primarily from one or two groups, so it will be interesting to see how the rest of the results turn out and if there’s much variation. I’d also be interested to see how other churches score.

Why community groups?

I posed a question to my community group last night, “Why are you involved in a/this small group?”

I thought the answers offered some interesting insight into why our group has come together. I’m sure this varies from group to group and person to person, but it seemed that community and intimacy with others seemed to be the predominant answer.

As the leader, I think (maybe selfishly) I hoped they would all say, “to learn more about the Bible.” But for those last night, building community and friendships is what really made them say, “Let’s get involved.” And their answers make sense. While Bible study is a large part of our meeting, the group really comes alive when we share life together. Whether or not that’s in the middle of looking at a passage of Scripture or eating a taco, sharing life experiences with others really seems to put a spark in people’s eyes.