Noelle joined a dinner group her first Sunday at Hoboken Grace, but she was shocked when, just a few months later, she was asked to lead a small group herself.
“I immediately said no,” she recalls. “It was something I had no interest in doing. I had my group, and I was happy. At the time, I thought that I had to know everything—that I needed to recite endless verses at the drop of a hat and have unwavering faith. I just wasn’t that person.”
Answering Their Hesitations
But the dinner group Noelle was in grew so dramatically over the course of the next year that no one’s apartment was big enough for everyone. And one morning, while praying on her commute to work, the words “Just say yes” kept replaying in her mind and heart. Later that evening at dinner group, a friend and mentor asked again if she would start and lead a small group. This time, without hesitation, Noelle said yes. “I didn’t know what God had in store for me, but I trusted Him enough to just say ‘yes,’” she says. “It’s now been two and a half years, and I absolutely love leading my group.”
RELATED: 8 Qualities Need to Lead a Small Group
Noelle’s story is not unique to her. When we started asking around, we heard a similar story from many of our dinner group leaders.
“When my dinner group leader asked if I’d like to lead our group the next cycle, I’m pretty sure I had to keep from falling off my chair because that was the last thing I had expected her to ask,” says Gretchen, who led a dinner group last year. “I felt like I was a very unlikely choice and that I had so much more to learn before taking on this type of role.”
