What are the essential skills a new small group pastor needs to develop; to have in their toolkit? And I would clarify the question by asking what are the skills in which a new small group pastor must develop an unconscious competence?
But before we begin shaping a list of the skills most new small group pastors need to develop, to have in their toolkit, we might need to think about the four stages of learning.
You probably have heard about the four stages of learning, but you may not know the name. Noel Burch, an employee with Gordon Training International, developed the Conscious Competence Ladder in the 1970s.
Here are the four stages of learning:
1. Unconscious incompetence: Don’t know that they don’t know.
2. Conscious incompetence: Know that they don’t know.
3. Conscious competence: The skill requires concentration.
4. Unconscious competence: The skill has become second nature.
If all of us chimed in we could come up with a list of things a new small group pastor needs to know how to do.
Veteran small group pastors could come up with a great list of things we had to know how to do (or things we had to learn how to do). Of course, depending on how long it has been since we were new, we might not remember what we didn’t know how to do when we began. Or we might actually be unconsciously competent.
New small group pastors could also come up with a list of what they are learning to do right now (or learned recently). And the truth is, new small group pastors may not yet know what they don’t know how to do. A new small group pastor would often be unconsciously incompetent. Right?
