Product Description

A troubleshooting guide for church leaders. Assessment and solution for seven common obstacles to building small groups.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #40531 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780310267119
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From the Back Cover
Assessment and solution for seven common obstacles to building small groups. It’s one thing to start a small group ministry. It’s another to keep the groups in your church healthy and headed in the same direction. Whatever your church’s approach may be—whether it is a church with groups or of groups— sooner or later, as a leader, you’ll need to do some troubleshooting. That’s when the expert, to-the-point guidance in this book will prove its worth. The beauty of this book lies in its unique diagnostic process. It allows you to assess, diagnose, and correct seven common “deadly sins” that can drain the life from your church’s small group ministry. In The Seven Deadly Sins of Small Group Ministry, what would take you years to learn through trial and error is distilled into some of the most useful information you can find. Drawing on the knowledge they’ve gleaned from working inside Willow Creek Community Church, from consulting with hundreds of churches, and from conducting conferences and seminars worldwide, small group experts Bill Donahue and Russ Robinson furnish you with proven, real-life solutions to the toughest problems in your small group ministry. This is not theory—it is hands-on material you can read and apply today.

About the Author
Dr. Bill Donahue is Executive Director of Small Group Ministries for the Willow Creek Association (WCA) and works with Willow Creek Community Church to train and develop small group leaders. The church has over 2,500 small groups and the WCA has over 12,000 member churches worldwide representing over 95 denominations in 27 countries.

Bill Donahue es director del ministerio de grupos pequeños de Willow Creek Association. Previamente se desempeñó como miembro del personal de Willow Creek Community Church colaborando en la planificación e implementación del ministerio mundial de grupos pequeños. Reside en West Dundee, Illinois, con su esposa Gail y sus dos hijos.

Russ Robinson, formerly executive director of small groups at Willow Creek and senior pastor of Meadowbrook Church in North Haledon, New Jersey, is coauthor with Bill Donahue of The Seven Deadly Sins of Small Group Ministry. He continues to speak and write while practicing law in Hoffman Estates, Illinois.

Russ Robinson, abogado de Hoffman Estates, Illinois, fue pastor principal de Meadowbrook Church en North Haledon, Nueva Jersey. Y con anterioridad fue director de ministerios y grupos pequeños en Willow creek Community Church. Es coautor con Bill Donahue del libro titulado Building a Church of Small Groups.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Sin One:
Unclear Ministry Objectives
Symptoms of Unclear Ministry Objectives Leaders don’t agree on the purpose for small groups The church’s road to ministry progress is blocked Relationships are breaking down among those most committed to community Church members expect too much attention from the staff Small groups have a myopic vision and don’t know their role in the overall church strategy
It was the meeting to end all meetings. I (Bill) still get a shudder when I think of it. My son was in the Cub Scouts, and a meeting had been called for boys and their parents to attend. We arrived on time and took our place among the eleven boys and fifteen parents who were able to attend.
“Okay, so let’s get started,” began Kevin, the forty-five-year-old scoutmaster. “It is that time again when we should be thinking about the annual Cub Scout campout. Does anyone have any thoughts?”
“We will need some trucks to carry the garbage out after the boys leave,” said one father.
“Why don’t we have a different menu than last year?” asked Maria. “I think the boys are getting tired of peanut butter!”
About thirty seconds of silence reigned among us as we gathered in the cluttered church basement where these dreadful meetings were endured. Then seven-year-old Bobby broke the silence.
“What if it rains again? I hate it when it rains.”
“You’re a wimp!” said Mark, an eight-year-old veteran of camping life, whose speech was often laced with such encouraging words for his fellow Scouts. Others chimed in with their cracks and jokes.
“Okay, calm down. Let’s just stay with the program we did last year,” the scoutmaster suggested. “It seems like that worked fine.” Unless, that is, like our family, you were not involved last year. We had no idea what to expect this year or what had taken place last year as hundreds of young boys invaded the forests of Illinois.
“Last year was great . . .” started young Mike, pausing long enough for Kevin and the parents to think this whole camping experience might actually have some impact, “. . . if you like mosquitoes and mud!” The room erupted in laughter. Little Mike pleaded, “Please don’t make us go to the same campground! That place was a swamp!” By now the boys were roaring hysterically and parents were needed to help restore order.
“That’s enough boys—settle down. Parents, we need your help with this event. Who would like to volunteer to help this year?” asked Kevin. “We’ll need about ten people. Our troop is responsible for organizing the sports equipment and games.”
The response was unanimous: fifteen parents sat motionless as they pondered why they had chosen scouting instead of swimming lessons. I could be lounging by the pool, getting a tan, watching my kids frolic in the warm summer sun. Instead I will probably be trudging through a sweltering forest, fending off insect attacks, and struggling to get three hours of sleep in a tent with a group of second graders whose life ambition is to do exactly the opposite of everything I say.
“What about skills? Will the boys learn any skills?” asked Harold. At a Scout camp in 1967 Harold had learned to tie an assortment of knots. “I want my boy to learn something while he’s there. Won’t they learn to set up a tent, or carve something, or maybe build a fire?” Harold’s plea caught Kevin off guard. He was thinking logistics, not skills. He had parents to recruit, not kids to train.
Harold’s comment forced me to think. Isn’t that what scouting is for? Isn’t scouting supposed to train young men in the fine art of frontier survival—to impart skills for fending off wild animals without a weapon, catching fish with their bare hands, and building a log home without an axe? Scout camps should be raising up the next generation of Daniel Boones and Davy Crockets!
“I don’t want my son playing with fire,” said Linda, who thinks the Cub Scouts are a babysitting service with uniforms. “The last thing I need is to spend all day in the emergency room! Oh, and my son Jimmy has a question. He wants to know if the kids will be allowed to bring video games along.”
Sure. And why not a portable refrigerator, a mobile phone, and a laptop computer so he and the boys can keep up with the latest trends in the stock market? So much for developing the next King of the Wild Frontier.
“There will be plenty of safe things for the boys to do,” assured a frustrated scoutmaster. “But no video games are allowed. Now, as I was saying, we will need people to plan the activities and supervise the boys at each of the sporting events. Does anyone have a bow and arrow and know how to shoot it?”
At this point in the meeting I wished I had brought one along. This misery had to end, one way or another. Others seemed to share this sentiment. (A few parents in the back of the room were contemplating a game of Russian roulette, several mothers were angry that their husbands were home watching baseball, and the boys—who had crossed the boredom threshold long ago—were beginning to plot the abduction of the scoutmaster one evening at camp.)
Mrs. Peters and her son Jeffrey, late arrivals to the meeting, suggested that all the parents attend the camp and share a tent so they could all “experience scouting firsthand.” She was never seen again. Authorities are still looking for her. Well, actually that’s not true, but it got pretty close. “Why don’t we just skip this year? Nobody has time to take three days off work in the middle of the week to help.” A few others nodded. “But then there would be no archery, BB guns, rope swings, or late-night campfire stories” lamented the boys.
And no mosquitoes, no portable toilets, and no muscle cramps, thought the parents.
By this point even our beloved scoutmaster had had about all he could take, so he raised his voice to get everyone’s attention. “Look, we have to do this camp—all the other troops will be there, and it will be just fine! Now, who can help?”

Customer Reviews

A useful tool for small group directors...
I have read other books from Donahue and Robinson and heard them speak at several small groups conference, so the information in this book was relatively familiar to me. Nonetheless, "The Seven Deadly Sins of Small Group Ministry" is a valuable resources in which these small group gurus share their experiences and failures in the hopes that others involved in small group ministry within the local church can avoid those same missteps.

One thing that I appreciate about this book is its straightforward format. The seven deadly sins of small group ministry, as assessed by the authors, each occupy two chapters. The first chapter on each sin describes the problem, and the second chapter provides some solutions. This allows the reader to pick and choose a particular issue and read about it in some detail without having to read the entire book. I appreciated the experience of reading it straight through but look forward to referring to it in the future on one or more specific topics, and the simple format makes that notion feasible.

The second thing that I appreciated most about this book was the author's experience and wisdom. It is clear that they have gathered insight from years of small group ministry, and they are honest in stating that they have actually committed almost all of the sins at one point or another. That humility (and the almost playful writing style throughout the book) makes the information very accessible. The suggestions are not coming from some perfect small group geniuses, but instead come from real people who have made real mistakes and can offer real solutions.

My primary criticism of the book is that a somewhat limited perspective is provided. It only makes sense that they would write from the framework of Willow Creek, where they both spent much of their ministry lives. However, they seem unable to extract themselves from the Willow way of doing things. Quite frankly, the assimilation structure that they suggest is nothing if not overwhelming. In fact, the entire book is rather formidable. Again, it is formidable because they have so much important information to share, but it might be more useful if they had eliminated some of the painstaking detail and emphasized the main ideas.

I am glad that I read this book, and I know that it will shape how I proceed in my role in leadership over the small groups at our church. We are actually committing several of these deadly sins right now, and I now have the ammunition to make some necessary adjustments. If you are willing to dive into the thick of Willow Creek's learning from groups, this is a great book. I highly recommend it.

The Seven Sins of Small Group Ministry
Our church is on it's second try when it comes to Smalll Groups. The first try was about ten years ago and in about 18 months they came apart. After reading The Seven Sins of Small Group Ministry, I realized that we had commited all seven of the sins or mistakes. This is an excellent book which is straight to the point and very easy to read.

thanks, Ed Covert

Where are the potholes in this road?
Why waste a year or two in your congregation's spiritual journey? Why drive blind into dangerous, program-breaking potholes if they are, in fact, already identified? This book is a great resource reflecting some gifted teachers who have looked back and debriefed about what could have been done better "if only they'd known". Well, now they do and their feedback is available here. It has been referred to actively by our leadership group frequently in our 18 months of planning pre-launch. Now we use it to check our status relative to potholes. Our eyes are open to the Deceiver's obstacles and there are many. Plus, ol' Mischief Maker wants us to think good things aren't and so makes good decisions seem dangerous, like: embracing Holy Spirit-driven movement when a group comes together in an unexpected way. Sometimes there is fear of the unplanned. Sometimes there is confidence in something which generally hasn't worked elsewhere. So when is an idea constructive? When might it be destructive? This book addresses the 7 'sins' Willow uncovered; the flip side is knowing how to avoid them or fix them right out of the chute. Thank you, Willow.