This was one of the hotly debated questions at the Lifeway Small Group Summit in which I participated a few weeks ago. Recently, Michael Mack blogged about this very same issue, and I thought I’d pile on a bit to elaborate on what I shared during the Web broadcasted event. I made a couple of statements that evidently created a firestorm of discussion, but there was not enough time for me to unpack my initial statement.
It seems that every summit panel speaker aside from me thought that small group leadership should be a “crawling” position, not one for a “walker” or a “runner” (to use Saddleback’s terminology).
One issue that brings clarity to this conversation is my definition of a small group leader. I define it as a person who:
- has surrendered his or her life to God and is living sacrificially.
- feels a passionate, missional call to pastor others, helping them grow spiritually and mature in Christ.
- walking free of habitual sin and pursuing an accountable relationship with a close friend.
- is actively relating to both Christians and pre-Christians between church meetings, sharing his or her faith regularly.
- has participated fully in small group life beyond attending meetings (spearheading an outreach event, discipling a new believer, serving others without being asked, etc.)
- is devoted to living by and learning from God’s Word daily.
To the best of my estimation, this is a person who is somewhere between walking and running, not crawling.
Now if a church does not adequately disciple their small group members, they will be forced to lower the bar for small group leadership to unhealthy low levels. And that level would be what one of the summit participants stated (as a side comment) that was considered tongue-in-cheek, but oh so revealing: “If they have a pulse we’ll make them a group leader!”
