City life changes the way small groups work. Jess Ngo from Scots Presbyterian Church Sydney shares what she’s learned leading groups in the CBD — where people move in and out quickly, apartments are small, and the community is incredibly multicultural.

She talks about why they meet at the church building, how they keep studies short and sharp, and why raising up new leaders every year is so important.

Jess shares how they’ve adapted — meeting at the church building, keeping studies tight, and raising leaders every year — and why it matters to shape groups for your own context.

Jess is a pastoral assistant of Scots Presbyterian Church in the middle of the Sydney CBD.

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TRANSCRIPT:

The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.

00:00:08:11 – 00:00:14:10

Unknown

Good. I’ll pick you. And welcome to the one thing the podcast is on to give you one solid, a practical tip for gospel centered ministry.

00:00:14:10 – 00:00:31:08

Unknown

Every week. And the one thing is brought to you by Reach Australia. We will see thousands of healthy evangelistic multiplying churches. And over the last few weeks we’ve been looking at small groups. We’re gonna be looking at small groups again. I have just. No with me. Now, you may know her as just Shelly because she’s recently got married.

00:00:31:08 – 00:00:53:19

Unknown

Congratulations. Thank you. Rebranded? Yeah. Rebranded. That’s it. Just tell me a bit more. What’s your fun thing to do? At the moment, I’m really enjoying sewing clothes. Excellent. Yeah, I kind of like bright patterns and fun fabrics. I’m also six foot one, so it’s easier for me there. So clothes that fit me than by them. And it’s been really relaxing.

00:00:53:19 – 00:01:11:06

Unknown

And you get to choose like the patterns. Like you don’t just go, yeah, well I’ve got blue or white. And so that’s about it. So yeah. And I can like, you know, so matching things for me and my sisters and really. Yeah. Yeah. That’s funny. It sounds like fun. Yeah yeah yeah I’ve seen a lot of we, our family did some cruising as holidays from time to time.

00:01:11:06 – 00:01:29:20

Unknown

And you saw the, the true cruise people, where the people who all had the matching clothes on their shirts and stuff like that. So I feel like suggesting that’s where you’re going. But as kids, you don’t want to match. And then, you know, once you’re adults, it’s like kind of cool again. Yeah. I didn’t see one shirt that had, we’re all matching rural matching.

00:01:29:20 – 00:01:41:13

Unknown

And then there was one guy I didn’t want to match, but they made me anyway. And I thought that was that summed up the whole thing. Anyway, we’re not here to talk about sewing or fashion. I’m not an expert on that. We, we are here to talk about small groups.

00:01:41:13 – 00:01:47:20

Unknown

but for now, you’ve press play on another episode of the one thing solutions to small groups in an urban setting.

00:01:49:16 – 00:02:05:23

00:02:08:08 – 00:02:22:01

Unknown

Now, Jess, you’ve been on staff at Scott’s church and you’ve been there for a little while now, haven’t you? Yeah, on staff for six years, but I was there for three years before that. Okay. Now, Scott’s church is for those who don’t know, it is right in the middle of Sydney.

00:02:22:07 – 00:02:48:06

Unknown

If you don’t know Sydney, we need, So it’s a very, very urban thing. Tell us about some of the unique issues that you face being in a church like in that particular area. Yeah. So we are about a eight year old church plan, right near the Harbor Bridge. We’re a very public building. So we get a lot of people who walk in the church who are either looking for a church there, a tourist, or wanting to explore, but don’t know anyone.

00:02:48:06 – 00:03:02:10

Unknown

Most people who come along and are invited by a friend, they it’s a public building. They’ve walked past it during the week and they just rock up. So when you mean walking, you mean they walk in on a Sunday or they walk in through the week? As I say, they just walk into it. They say building and it’s okay.

00:03:02:10 – 00:03:20:02

Unknown

It’s an old building. So some people want to come and take a photo and we invite them to stick around for church. Sure, I can average Sunday for us. We would have been 140 people, but so far this year. So between January and August, we’ve had almost 700 different individuals walk through our doors on a Sunday. Are you 700?

00:03:20:03 – 00:03:39:09

Unknown

Yeah. That okay. Right. Just to give you a kind of sense of, when we say it’s a public building, that’s the number of people we’re welcoming on a Sunday. Yeah, but a lot of them will be tourists, I guess. Like that won’t be sticking around the city or some excuse. Yeah. So it’s we’ve seen a lot of people at the moment who come along.

00:03:39:11 – 00:04:01:10

Unknown

It’s a city in the city. It’s the season of transition. So people have moved here for study or and a new life in Sydney. And often that’s the moment where people are asking those questions of, is this older life? How do I make friends? What’s the purpose? And God uses that moment to to make them think, maybe I should go to church to find out some of those answers.

00:04:01:10 – 00:04:23:14

Unknown

And so I lots of people who come along. I just wondering whether church would fit in or what’s this Christian thing. And so let’s people as well who have grown up in churches 20, 30 years, not going to a church, think something in their life prompts them to think maybe, maybe it’s time to go back. And so we see a lot of people who are in those categories that, coming back to church.

00:04:23:16 – 00:04:44:12

Unknown

And do they live in the city or are they coming from a whole range of different places, like, tell me about the people who are there. Yes, I well, the city of Sydney has about a quarter of a million residents living in the city. So they’re picketing? Yeah, a quarter of a million living in the city. But, you know, we see the fall and the Harbor Bridge, a quarter of a million people because they I know there’s a lot of offices, there’s a lot of work things.

00:04:44:12 – 00:04:59:21

Unknown

But I didn’t realize how many people actually lived here. Yeah. So they’re they’re the people we’re praying for that we want to reach, that. We want to structure things around to make it as achievable as possible for them to hear the gospel. There’s a quarter of a million residents, but, not that many Bible teaching churches in the city.

00:04:59:23 – 00:05:18:20

Unknown

And so we long for them to know the Lord. People at church live in the city and kind of in the sprawl around the city. The train line makes it, quite easy for people to leave a little bit further out, jump on the train and be at church in 15 minutes.

00:05:18:20 – 00:05:28:09

Unknown

what’s the for want of a better term, the turnover of people I call people a how long do people usually stay with you as a church?

00:05:28:11 – 00:05:49:20

Unknown

Oh, that’s a good question. I think reality and perception are different on that question. So the perception is it’s a high turnover. That’s my perception. Asking the question. Even within Scotch people would probably say it’s a high turnover. Right? I think that there’s a difference between the people who come along, dip their toe in the water and then think, no, no, Scotch is not for me.

00:05:49:20 – 00:06:14:02

Unknown

Right? Versus those who connect in serve or in groups, that has a smaller turnover. And then you would expect. So I think it depends on, what people group you are working out for that one. Well, let’s talk about small groups. So how is that shaped your small group ministry? So how does the fact that you’re an urban church mean that you do small groups differently to say, a suburban church?

00:06:14:04 – 00:06:37:20

Unknown

Yeah. So some of the things we love about being, urban church are things like being multicultural and multi-generational. And so we want to structure our groups around embracing that and doing everything possible to not subdue, divide into cultural or generational groups. And so all our groups meet in the church building. The building is kind of the central point.

00:06:37:20 – 00:07:07:00

Unknown

People live and work around the building, not necessarily close to each other’s homes. Most people don’t live in homes big enough to have a small group in them. So we meet in the building as that central point, and we try and as much as possible have groups that are as mixed as possible. And so we’ll have groups with uni students all the way up to, retirees, because we want to be able to model learning from each other.

00:07:07:02 – 00:07:27:05

Unknown

We want to have all the people modeling what it looks like to be a Christian. For those who are maybe first generation Christians and not seen that model before. And we want the younger people to be that, encourage and pray for and support the older. And so that’s one, one way we, deliberately do things may be different to a suburban church.

00:07:27:07 – 00:07:56:02

Unknown

We also, because the city is a quite a lonely place. It’s hard to make community. And so we want to build community moments as much as possible. So our groups are split across and night time groups are split across, Tuesday and Wednesday nights. People roll in from 6:00 straight after work. They come and bring food, and we eat dinner together for about half and half an hour to have that kind of community moment where you get to meet people in other groups, right?

00:07:56:02 – 00:08:18:03

Unknown

Yeah. So you’re doing that as one big group. One big group. Yep, yep. Okay. And then so that’s kind of your medium community. So churches are a big community on a Sunday. The hub not is the medium community in that time. There’s also time for like interviews with people up front bit of news. And so there’s a sense of like we are say Tuesday night or where Wednesday night.

00:08:18:05 – 00:08:49:17

Unknown

And then your small community is your individual Bible study group. That said, we also do things differently. Time wise. So we did a lot of, like focus groups before we started at Scott’s and asked people things like what makes it difficult to get to Bible study as a city worker or someone who lives in the city, and that that their schedule and filling time poor had a big, contribution to that of, you know, I’ve been in Bible studies in the past where, you know, they start at seven, but they actually start at 730.

00:08:49:22 – 00:09:06:17

Unknown

They said they’re finished at nine, but they actually stop praying at 930. And yeah, by the time you get home and you’ve got, 8 a.m. presentation at work, you’re not going to get a Bible study. Yeah, or you’re a charity. Yeah. Because the charities are always nice and they’ve got to get up at like 5:00 to get on site by seven.

00:09:06:17 – 00:09:27:00

Unknown

So yeah, it’s, it’s that, that, that time pressure. I feel very acutely. Yeah. To be honest, we don’t have a lot of tradies at Scott’s. We need to have them. But yeah. Yeah there’s different pockets of people who are, time sensitive, particularly at night. And so we are really strict about we finish at 8 p.m., we tend to lock, we turn the lights off.

00:09:27:02 – 00:09:45:19

Unknown

All right. You when you say, I mean, we’re totally. Someone flicks the lights as a warning and then they turn them off. Got it. Because we say to people and we, we really value their time. We want them to make Bible study a priority, even when the week is crazy and they’ve got a lot of things going on that they know they can come along.

00:09:45:21 – 00:10:02:21

Unknown

He, God’s Word, pray together, but they’ll be better at a reasonable hour to be honest. If they need to, they can go back to work, which some people do, but they know that, we respect their time by keeping to the time. That’s something that’s often a bit of a learning curve for people that join us.

00:10:02:21 – 00:10:26:06

Unknown

The light flicking at 8 p.m. can sometimes be a bit off putting. We want to keep reinforcing. It’s because we value your time. We have to structure our studies differently. Sorry. I used to say that time thing that can be interpreted as, oh, you know, it’s not very loving because you’re keeping to time, but actually it is very loving because you’ve made, basically a social contract with people to say we’re finishing at a certain time.

00:10:26:06 – 00:10:44:04

Unknown

Yes. And we are going to keep to that contract. So it might not seem loving, but actually is so. Yep. Yeah. And we try and, have this, like real value in that kind of relaxed, no time pressure moment. But we try and build that in other ways and not on our Bible Sunday nights job. Sorry I interrupted.

00:10:44:04 – 00:11:06:02

Unknown

You were talking about that. The way that you do studies is a little different as well. Yeah, partly because of the time limit. Most Bible like pre-written Bible studies are not aimed at a group that’s going to need to do a study in, say, an hour. And so we structure our studies a bit different for the time, but we also want to structure our studies, to focus on application and prayer.

00:11:06:02 – 00:11:28:21

Unknown

I think we, our contacts, people, ideas, people. And so it’s easy for people to sit in the what is the passage saying and never actively think, well, what does that mean for me? And particularly because we have so many people where they’re first generation Christian, lots of things have never been modeled for them. And so it needs to be discussed in the groups.

00:11:28:23 – 00:11:46:13

Unknown

And so we make sure there’s lots of time in the study where, we do application and prayer. We often do studies. At the moment we’re doing studies where we hear the sermon on Sunday, and then we do that passage in groups after so that there’s a bit of kind of exegesis unpacking done on Sunday. We reinforce it in the grapes.

00:11:46:13 – 00:12:06:01

Unknown

We read the passage, do it. We’re not separate from the passage, but we want to prioritize lots of time to talk through. So what for us? And how do we pray for each other? How do we pray for our world? How do we pray for our non-Christian friends? In light of the passage, it sounds like you’ve had to sort of sit back a little bit and go, okay, how do we actually do these?

00:12:06:03 – 00:12:29:15

Unknown

Because we can’t just do it the way that we’ve seen other people do it. You’ve actually kind of gone, what do have people like, what do they need? And so what what was that process like to sort of step back and go, how do we actually do this? Well, in our particular setting? I think for us, one of the gifts of being a church plant was we didn’t inherit anything.

00:12:29:17 – 00:12:52:14

Unknown

I mean, we inherited individuals expectations, but, when we started, it was a clean slate where we could actually say where we’re wanting to start a church in the city. That’s for the city. And so what is this, a church for the city? Need to look like, how do we reach people that are not in the suburbs, that come into the city, but actually reach city people?

00:12:52:16 – 00:13:07:13

Unknown

And so we did a lot of focus groups chatting with people in the city and asking like Christian, a non-Christian, but asking them if you were going to go to a church in the city, what kind of things would you want it to look like or not be like? What would make it easier to invite a friend to?

00:13:07:15 – 00:13:25:03

Unknown

We wanted to learn lots from people who are actually city people, the people we’re trying to reach. So that’s an interesting idea, just to not even assume that, you know, the people that you’re trying to reach, but to see, thank God. No, no, you tell us what’s what’s going on. When you did those focus groups, how did that like particularly with people who weren’t Christian, what what did you do?

00:13:25:03 – 00:13:42:15

Unknown

Did you say, we’re going to stand at the front of the church and talk to random people walking past? Or how did you do that? How did you form those, focus groups? I was not part of most of those groups, but, lots of it was as contact. So we started off with a few contacts and then said to people, do you have other people we could ask these kind of questions to?

00:13:42:17 – 00:14:03:08

Unknown

It was not confrontational, was like over coffee and just having a chat and saying like, there’s no expectation you’re going to join us. You’re not putting them in a darkened room and shining a light in their face and going, yeah, yeah, yeah, you’re right. Okay. I think, the team when we started had a mixture of people who were city city dwellers, and then people like myself, like, I’m.

00:14:03:12 – 00:14:24:06

Unknown

I grew up in Dubbo. You can’t get much more cross-cultural then coming from Dubbo and trying to reach city people, in Sydney. And I think that was, I found that really helpful because I knew I knew nothing, which meant I needed to be curious about people. And I still feel like it’s a bit of a cross-cultural thing.

00:14:24:06 – 00:14:43:23

Unknown

And I need to ask lots of questions to understand how people taken what’s important to them. And, why is it important to them? And through that process, I think we found the big thing was the importance of embracing diversity. People moved to the city because they love the hustle and bustle and the people that’s different to them.

00:14:44:01 – 00:15:14:10

Unknown

But also it’s really hard to find community in that space. And so things like mentoring, having the testimony of the gospel, that the gospel saves all sorts of different people, things like welcoming you need a diverse church so that you can welcome a diversity to come in the doors. You want to have someone if I’m going to invite a friend who’s much older than me, I need a church where there are other people who are much older than me so I can invite my friends and they feel welcomed.

00:15:14:12 – 00:15:38:18

Unknown

And valuing things like having a church that feels like home, where someone can pass their baby to me and I can walk around and and feel like, oh, yeah, I’ve got like pseudo, siblings and, nephews and nieces at church with me are those things were all real, really valued by people in the city. And so it prompted us to think, how do we how do we grow this?

00:15:38:18 – 00:16:01:08

Unknown

How do we value these things both in our small groups but across church, in, in, in how we do everything? I visited a small group, this weekend actually, and it was interesting. I met a couple who, they said I said, why did you come? Why did you join this church plant? And they said, oh, well, we’ve got young kids and we know that if you want, more young kids to come along, you need young kids here.

00:16:01:08 – 00:16:18:12

Unknown

So we brought our young kids along to attract other young kids. And I went, that was just a beautiful thing. And a moment for them to go. Yeah. We are thinking, how do we live out the gospel in this church plant? Now, let me just see if I’ve got the format right. And then, and I want to move into, asking questions about how you develop your leaders.

00:16:18:12 – 00:16:39:01

Unknown

So people come together at 6:00 to have meal, a meal together, all together, you break into smaller groups around table. So I got that right. Yep. And of course, the lights which flick at 8:00. Yeah. So each table has a leader on it, is that correct? Yeah. So we kind of gathering close tables for dinner so that you can kind of hear the hustle and bustle.

00:16:39:03 – 00:16:55:14

Unknown

There’s someone who coordinates the the logistics of the night, and they’ll get up and welcome people, let them know news and things like that. And then they are. We then split across the, the building. We do it all in one room. But our, our building is big enough that we don’t we can’t necessarily hear each other.

00:16:55:14 – 00:17:10:01

Unknown

So we split across the building, and part of, being able to do that is so that the groups for the people who are investigating Christianity or who are new at church, both of those groups are run on those same nights as well.

00:17:10:07 – 00:17:31:05

Unknown

They’re just one of many groups meeting in the auditorium. They can look across the room and think, and we model for them. Even without saying, Christians value gathering around the world and so having, nonbelievers who are checking things out, both hearing the gospel and looking around the room and seeing it lived out in their Bible study groups as well.

00:17:31:07 – 00:17:45:12

Unknown

Yeah, that’s a really interesting idea because as they, going through the gospel themselves, they’re actually seeing other small groups. So when you say, now we’re going to get you to join a small group, they go, oh, we know, I know what that is. I know those guys. I you know, it’s much easier step for them to take I guess.

00:17:45:12 – 00:18:08:02

Unknown

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So tell me a little bit more with the church you have. I mean, there is a certain amount of turnover that you have there and particularly with leaders. So how do you deal with raising up more leaders, like how does that, that high turnover of leaders, what does that look like. Yeah. So on average I’ve been overseeing the Bible studies for six years.

00:18:08:04 – 00:18:26:23

Unknown

And on average across six years, somewhere between 20 to 40% of our leaders or assistant leaders will stop leading at the end of each year, 20 to 40%. That’s, that’s a I know there’s a lot of people listening to this who are listening very intently, yelling, how do I raise up more leaders? They’re probably not thinking 20 to 40%.

00:18:26:23 – 00:18:51:21

Unknown

That’s a fairly high. Yeah. So if you’re feeling the pain of raising up new leaders, I know that pain. But I think, some of that turnover is not necessarily people leaving things. There’s lots going on for people. So they have like have babies or other family commitments. Some people do move away. Some people we, we send for gospel reasons to other parts of Australia and the world.

00:18:51:23 – 00:19:17:12

Unknown

So, they’re all great reasons. So we want to celebrate when leaders step down for good reasons, because we want to not make leading and idle. And in the, in church, we want to say, you know, having babies are great gift, sending, sending people to Melbourne to preach the gospel there. That’s a really important thing. So, but it’s a cost for church.

00:19:17:14 – 00:20:00:16

Unknown

In terms of our Bible study leaders. But I think it’s really fun. It’s fun having the pressure of knowing at the end of this year. So at the moment, 40% for us will be, somewhere around the 15 to 20 leaders. But I think it’s fun to be pushed to be intentional about investing in and equipping leaders across the year, because you can’t raise up that many leaders to replace, let alone Gregory in November, for the next year, for me, I start the year, I kick off in, say, February, and by the end of February, I’m thinking, okay, what’s my plan for raising up a certain number of leaders for the

00:20:00:16 – 00:20:21:08

Unknown

end of the year? So I think it’s helpful for me, there’s lots of demand, easy to get distracted by other things, but that number pushes me to be intentional across a whole year, which I’m really thankful for, because you’re not just looking to replace the leaders that you’ve lost. Yeah, you want to. You want to actually add more to keep growing, correct?

00:20:21:08 – 00:20:44:00

Unknown

Yeah. So I at the beginning of a year, I think I have at the moment, I think we have 35 leaders. By the end of this year, I want to have raised up roughly 50% of that number. Right. So I can both replace and hopefully grow, for next year. Okay. So fun is probably not the first word that most people who are in your situation will think of you.

00:20:44:00 – 00:21:01:11

Unknown

You’re saying it’s fun? Yeah. Okay. Talk me through. How do you do that? How do you develop that? So if you already you’re already thinking in February that’s probably a great step to kind of go, okay, I am not leaving this till November till the end of the year. Tell me what your how do you develop more small group leaders?

00:21:01:13 – 00:21:39:13

Unknown

I think maybe it’s fun. Six years in and maybe you want to share it with us here in chasing. But I think it’s, there’s a few things that I think have helped the process. I think the first thing is having a clear job description, clear expectations. I think expectations that are achievable for our context. I think knowing what is the role I’m actually recruiting for is an important first step to know both who to be looking for and what am I asking them, and what are the smaller steps I might need to encourage them in to be ready for that job description at the end of the year.

00:21:39:15 – 00:22:03:10

Unknown

So something like achievable, expectations for us that has helped us raise up more leaders is lowering the bar on the skill set, but not the godliness. And so we want our leaders to be they they have to be godly by modeling the Christian life, prayerful, every hour Bible studies will fall apart if that’s not the case.

00:22:03:12 – 00:22:24:10

Unknown

But they skill set and expectations of, say, time commitment. I think that can be lowered and have other things supplement to to make it achievable. So what do you mean by that. Like what we mean. You mean lowering the lowering the bar. So we said earlier that, we want you to spend no more than 30 minutes of prep on a study each week.

00:22:24:12 – 00:22:49:02

Unknown

Okay. We provide studies and quite extensive leaders notes to make that as achievable as possible. We don’t expect our leaders to write studies or things like that. They’re good skills to learn, but not for the context that we’re in now. People will say lead in teams of 2 to 4. People say that they’re leading, some groups, they, they, they’re leading once a month to make it more achievable.

00:22:49:04 – 00:23:16:18

Unknown

That’s also 2 to 4. Some are more experienced with the responsibility of helping those less experienced be raised up. Right. And so most of those teams of people leading will have a mixture of leaders and assistant leaders, assistant leaders, like leaders in training usually. And so, that also helps make leading a more achievable thing.

00:23:16:20 – 00:23:34:02

Unknown

How do you recruit those assistant leaders? So is that a different thing to the leaders? Like is it to sort of say, hey, I just want you to come along and like you said, a different job description and a different, set of expectations. It’s, not really a different set of. I have the same job description.

00:23:34:02 – 00:23:56:04

Unknown

Right. There’s a little clarification in the job description of, if something is something in the group falls apart, the leaders are held responsible. The leaders are the ones who are responsible for the functioning of the leadership team of the group, as well as the whole group. But we want to put real responsibility on assistant leaders so that they rise to the occasion.

00:23:56:06 – 00:24:17:07

Unknown

We want them to be in training. To be late is one day, is the prayer not everyone will be. But that’s the goal in terms of raising up those assistant leaders. Before someone even is approach to be an assistant leader, we run, we just, our Bible studies are called hub. So we say how to lead a hub study.

00:24:17:09 – 00:24:38:05

Unknown

We run that training really 2 to 3 times across a year. And that’s a 90 minute overview of how do you prepare a study, how do you lead a study. And within that we prep a specific study. It’s an overview because it’s only 90 minutes. They then go off and lead the study that they’ve prepared in their regular group.

00:24:38:07 – 00:24:58:09

Unknown

Their leaders give them feedback. And then we’re gather everyone who’s had a go at doing something new and scary. And we reflect on it. Okay. Three questions usually prompts, kind of extra topics about how do you lead a Bible study that we then talk through. What are we wanting to make? That kind of training?

00:24:58:10 – 00:25:18:17

Unknown

There’s there’s more to being a Bible study later than just leading a study, but we want to break down those skill sets into small and achievable things. And so we run that training, we normalize that. Lots of people come to that training. You’re not being asked to be a leader. It’s great for our groups to celebrate members of groups giving something scary to go.

00:25:18:17 – 00:25:47:01

Unknown

And across the board, people report back and say, wow, my group was so helpful when I led the study. Like they are sorts of questions. I was really scared there’d be silence. There was no silence because everyone wanted to help me out. And I just think it creates a culture of church where we celebrate trying something new, which, culturally is not something that’s easy to do in the city that values professionalism.

00:25:47:03 – 00:26:10:23

Unknown

So that’s one thing we do. We, we run that had a little study training. People usually come to that training, lead a study, and then, sometimes it bombs and that’s okay. Sometimes the leaders will say, that was good to do, but, maybe we will tunnel them towards serving in a different way. But often the that person will then be invited to have a go at leading a couple other studies.

00:26:11:01 – 00:26:33:06

Unknown

Their latest will support them and prep them if they don’t have capacity. They know I can do that for them. And usually then by the end of the year, there’s a pool of people who’ve had a go at leading a couple of studies. If they’ve come along and led some studies, they get an invite to our Bible study leader training, events as well.

00:26:33:06 – 00:26:51:06

Unknown

They kind of get that peek into what are the what if the leaders actually do? What do we talk about in training? What do we value. So they’ve kind of seen it modeled without the responsibility of actually being a leader. Right. So there is there’s other there’s another there’s a different training strand for the actual leaders. And that’s where they’re being invited into.

00:26:51:07 – 00:27:09:00

Unknown

Just be careful. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. And so then by the end of the year, there’s a pool of people that will then get approached to say, do you want to consider being an assistant leader? You could even be an assistant leader to one of your current leaders. Keep that relationship going. Not everyone will say yes first time round.

00:27:09:00 – 00:27:27:10

Unknown

Usually it takes people 2 to 3 years. Which is why we keep running the training, we keep inviting. We invite people to come back and do it again, to grow people’s confidence that this is something they could do and and show them why we think that they could do it as well. It sounds like the key to a lot of this is clarity.

00:27:27:14 – 00:27:51:05

Unknown

Like, so you’re being clear about what you’re trying to do. Yeah. And you’re also being clear about the steps that you’re breaking it down into and going, okay, we’re not expecting you to be at the top. We’re expecting you to step up into this one and then into the next one, the next one, next one. So yeah, I think another thing that’s helped us in raising up new leaders is, not having myself as the bottleneck.

00:27:51:07 – 00:28:18:05

Unknown

And I think that means involving as many of the more experienced leaders as possible in raising up the next generation of Bible study leaders at Scott’s. And sorry, we do that training for our leaders and assistant leaders five times across a year. And at each of those training times, we we talk. I talk through with leaders. What what does it mean to be rising up people who who do you look for?

00:28:18:11 – 00:28:50:15

Unknown

What’s the next step of. Is it inviting them to how to lead a hub study training, or is it asking them to, run the prayer section of of the study? How do you give people small but real responsibility, see how they go with it, and then invite them to the next thing? And in inviting them to be able to invite people to training or including leaders in the conversations with people about stepping up so that it’s, not just me trying to work out across church.

00:28:50:15 – 00:29:09:20

Unknown

Who should I be inviting? But people who have actually got their eyes on the ground and and relating with the people inviting and training up people. That’s really helpful, just to kind of identify the fact that you could be a bottleneck. And how do you stop yourself from that happening? And, just do that self-reflection. I think that’s that’s brilliant.

00:29:09:22 – 00:29:31:16

Unknown

Just this is the one thing. What’s the one thing that you think church teams should think about when it comes to small groups? I think it’s hard because I don’t know people’s contexts. So generally, I would say be intentional in understanding your context and be creative in gathering around the Bible in a way that serves your people and not just importing someone else’s structure.

00:29:31:18 – 00:29:47:19

Unknown

Brilliant. That is really great. We’ve, in the toolbox. There’s a couple of previous episodes we’ve had on a small group, so we’ll make sure you get the links there. Also a link to small Group essentials, which is a book that we’ve referred to in other episodes, that I think is a helpful book on small groups.

00:29:47:19 – 00:29:56:19

Unknown

And we also have a link to, the job description that Jess has been referring to in terms of, the small group leaders, so that that you can get an idea of that, but don’t use that one.

00:29:57:01 – 00:30:13:09

Unknown

Write your own one, because that’s going to be more helpful. And you found this helpful. You may want to talk about this as a staff team or in your small group, and think about who you need to be training up as a small group leader. Just thank you so much. This has been really, really helpful. I found it really helpful as a small group leader.

00:30:13:09 – 00:30:23:15

Unknown

So thank you so much for coming and joining us today. And my pleasure. Thank you. And if you have found this helpful episode, do us a favor. Pass it around. On pages chat soon.