Coaching Tips

We are very excited about our extremely dedicated small group coaches that are signed up for this next year.
Are you a coach?  Would you like to be a small group coach?
Jim Egli shares some great tips for coaches today on his blog: http://smallgroupsbigimpact.wordpress.com/2012/08/25/how-to-be-a-high-impact-coach

Enjoy!

It's sign up time!

Fall Sign ups begin this weekend!
Our church functions on a trimester system. This gives our church the opportunity 2 times a year to join a small group.  This is always an exciting time of year for our church.Fall is a time of year that we typically see families and individuals settling into a consistent schedule and looking forward to starting something new.

Things small group leaders can be doing during sign up weeks:
1. REACH OUT. Reach out to old small group members and share your plans for the fall.
2. PRAY. Be praying DAILY for your group, that God would send the right people to your group and for your meetings in the fall.
3. INVITE. Look for individuals and opportunities to invite new people to your group.  Sunday services are great opportunities to meet new people.  Also think about who is around you, you might have a coworker, neighbor or friend that you could invite.
4. EXPECT. Look forward your group starting this fall with anticipation.  Your excitement for your group will carry to others.

Caring for your small group: Meal Train

One of the principles that we teach creates healthy, growing small groups is the act of caring by the small group leader.  Leaders that care create a sense of "family" and closeness for their small group.  And leaders that care create a model for small group members to follow in treating each other.
One of the ways that leaders care is supporting others during life transitions and events.  When someone has a new baby, a loved one passes away, or a family member is injured a very practical way to show that you care is through providing meals.
We have found a great website that allows this type of care to happen.  It's called "Meal Train" and can be found as mealtrain.com.  Simply create a calendar for the family in need and invite other small group members to sign up for days to bring meals.  It's quick and easy. :)

Small Group focus for the fall

This is a excerpt from a congregational email from Rich Nathan in July 2012:

A few years ago Jim Collins, who was a former faculty member at Stanford's Graduate School of Business, and the best-selling author of the business classic Good to Great, wrote a fascinating book titled How the Mighty Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In. How the Mighty Fall is a study about why some formerly great companies are no longer great and why some have even ceased to exist. Think A&P, Pan Am, or Woolworth's. Many of the lessons that Jim Collins lays out concerning businesses can also be helpfully applied to churches. In several of his books, Collins describes how companies (or churches) become great. He writes: As with most climbs to greatness, it involves sustained, cumulative effort, like turning a giant, heavy flywheel: each push builds upon previous work, compounding the investment of effort - days, weeks, months, and years of works - generating momentum, from one turn to ten, from ten to a hundred, from a hundred to a thousand, from a thousand to a million. Once an organization gets one flywheel going, it might create a second or third flywheel. But to remain successful in any given area of activity, you have to keep pushing with as much intensity as when you first began building the flywheel.   Companies that cease to be great neglect their primary flywheels and turn to other activities.[1]

One of the characteristics that the Vineyard of Urbana has help through the years is a focus on small groups to bring about life change.  From the early years, we have always held our small groups as a core of what we do.  Small groups are one of our primary "fly wheels" if you will.

For this next year, we feel like the lord is again calling us back to focus on one of our primary modes of life change and relationships by way of "home groups".  As a small group team we look forward to a wonderful year!

Some of the changes that you will notice as we renew our emphasis on small groups are:
1. An all church catalogue for the fall trimester.  The weekend of August 26th we will be introducing a catalogue for everyone to take home highlighting the small group offerings for the fall trimester.
2. A renewed coaching system.  We believe that we are called to make disciples of Jesus.  We are working on renewing and reviving our coaching system for small group leaders.  We are hoping to create an experience of discipleship, support, and challenge to our leaders.  Small group leaders will hopefully in turn will turn around and do the same for their small group members.
3. World class conferences and training.  This fall you will notice that we have many conferences and training events happening at our church.  God has moved us into a season of bringing in outside speakers to encourage and teach teach our church.  These conferences are excellent opportunities for small group leaders to be apart of and to bring small group members to.
4. Growing and multiplying groups.  This next year we are renewing our focus on growing new "home groups" and multiplying our current small groups to allow others to experience the relationships and life change that is currently happening.

We are looking forward to an exciting fall of small groups!
The Small Group Team