{"id":3854,"date":"2008-07-16T08:01:06","date_gmt":"2008-07-16T14:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/?p=3854"},"modified":"2013-06-11T07:42:25","modified_gmt":"2013-06-11T13:42:25","slug":"change-for-the-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/change-for-the-better\/","title":{"rendered":"Change for the better"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Shared this with our <span class=\"removed_link\" title=\"http:\/\/encounterthis.com\/?page_id=28\">community 2.0<\/span> leaders today&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>Hello community 2.0 peeps&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Last night at our community group the three of us (yeah it was a slow week :-)) sat and talked about a number of things from prayer, to leadership, to future community groups etc. etc. We each talked about how refreshing Sunday at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.encounterthis.com\">encounter<\/a> was this past week. How it was a change from the ordinary and really seemed to spark something new.<\/p>\n<p>It made me think about how often we get set in a routine even in our weekly community groups.<\/p>\n<p>This morning, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.smallgroups.com\">Small Group Dynamics<\/a> touched on that as well. If things are starting to get &#8220;stale&#8221; or &#8220;traditional&#8221; in your group maybe it&#8217;s time to change things up a bit. Here are some of the things they suggested&#8230;<\/p>\n<li><strong>Change the expectations.<\/strong> If people expect to gather around a Bible study or a DVD curriculum or even around social interaction, the presence of the Spirit will be minimal. If people expect to meet with God and trust Jesus&#8217; words: &#8220;Where two or three gather in my name, there I am also,&#8221; then people will seek something different in the group&#8217;s life even if they do not know how.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Shorten the Bible study<\/strong> to make room to wait on God together.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Take the risk of allowing silence<\/strong> during the meeting.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Vary the agenda<\/strong> from week to week.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Eat together.<\/strong> You might be surprised by this one, but I have found food as essential to connecting with one another and in inviting God&#8217;s presence into our midst.<\/li>\n<p>I know some of the groups have had &#8220;coffee house night&#8221; and met at a local coffee house. Its not only given a change of pace for the group members, but also opened opportunities for discussions with others. <\/p>\n<p><strong>What other ideas have you and\/or your group done to change things up and keep it fresh?<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Shared this with our community 2.0 leaders today&#8230;. Hello community 2.0 peeps&#8230; Last night at our community group the three of us (yeah it was a slow week :-)) sat and talked about a number of things from prayer, to leadership, to future community groups etc. etc. We each talked about how refreshing Sunday at &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/change-for-the-better\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Change for the better<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[560,18,19],"tags":[445,4659,9,327,1278],"class_list":["post-3854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","category-faith","category-reflections","tag-change","tag-community","tag-encounterthiscom","tag-leadership","tag-small-groups"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pEnSo-10a","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3854"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3854\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11129,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3854\/revisions\/11129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}