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Nine Keys to Effective Small Group Leadership: How Lay Leaders Can Establish Dynamic and Healthy Cells, Classes, or Teams

Nine Keys to Effective Small Group Leadership: How Lay Leaders Can Establish Dynamic and Healthy Cells, Classes, or Teams
By Carl George, Warren Bird

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Product Description

A survey of resources about small groups at the beginning of the 1990s led to a discovery: Many books on small groups carried an instructional content and touched on groups as instrumental in delivery of that specific subject matter. How a leader was to function relative to a group was discussed as a matter of how to manage an instructional hour. The potential of groups for making connections and building community and serving others was largely unrecognized. What a group leader might do to pull together and maintain a group, or how a group leader might become acknowledged as part of a larger leadership strategy for service and outreach was simply unaddressed. From the insights developed in his complex and widely recommended Prepare Your Church for the Future, best-selling author Carl George extracts the most basic, practical elements of how an individual leader can contribute to the well-being of others and the overall organization. He interprets the role of a group leader in language that is easily understood and remembered: nine commitments leading to a partnership with professional church leaders. Pastors and church consultants consistently report that the people exposed to these nine keys are easy to work with. They readily grasp the reasonableness of the principles, which help them be trustworthy team players in this matter of shared ministry. From the forward, by Robert Coleman, Director of the Billy Graham Institute: "This book speaks to our need for practical leadership training. With profound simplicity, it describes how small groups grow through loving relationships as readers build up one another in the faith. More importantly, the reader learn ways to prepare yourself for leadership in the group. The sequential steps show readers how to bring others into the circle of love, and in the process, how to enlarge your outreach by multiplying disciple makers." This 2007 edition includes an updated Appendix, describing recent developments in the fi

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #199907 in Books
  • Published on: 2007-08-01
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Binding: Paperback
  • 216 pages

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher
"This is the best explanation in print of how God works through small groups...If I were a pastor, I would buy a copy of this book for every Sunday school teacher, small group leader, deacon, elder, staff member and every leader in my church. Then I'd buy a copy for the next set of leaders who will be produced when people get hold of these nine keys."

Reggie McNeal, Director of Leadership Development Team South Carolina Baptist Convention, Columbia, SC

"Carl George has not only identified the vital keys to group health and growth, but has exceedingly well illustrated the principles for doing so."

Michael Mack, president, The Small Group Network, Anderson, IL

"Here is the most practical and helpful book I have read on how to strengthen the role of group leaders...No one does a better job of combining solid Biblical theory with concrete steps to put it into practice!"

Glen Gunderson, Sr. Pastor, First Baptist Church, Pomona, CA

From the Back Cover
Increase your effectiveness as a Small-Group Leader. These groups have experienced the fruitfulness promised in Nine Keys to Effective Small Groups:

Cell Groups, Service Teams, Small Groups, Ministry Teams, Prayer Circles, Youth Groups and more. Don't just have meetings - the elements in this book will propel you and your group to a new level of teamwork and interpersonal growth. Multiply your efforts and the efforts of your group. The simple truths of Scritpure illustrated in these nine keys will unlock and open doors that make the difference in health, growth, vitality, energy, and life in your small group. Your group can thrive as you learn and apply these simple keys.

About the Author
Carl George, an internationally recognized church consultant, has been called on by congregations and leaders in100 denominations to help them increase their effectiveness in ministry. A former pastor, he is a popular conference keynoter, a panelist on such broadcasts as "Focus on the Family," the author of several well-known books, and serves as an adjunct professor at several theological seminaries. Carl and Grace, his wife of more than 33 years, are the parents of six children and several grandchildren.

Customer Reviews

This is the book on small groups that I hand out to pastors5
I am a small-groups person. I have been in one small group or another, often as a leader, almost continually, for the past 30 years. I believe small groups are just about the most important aspect of a church's life.

I have read many books on this, gone to many seminars. There is a lot of good material on this topic.

But in my present role as a church consultant, this is the book on small groups that I hand to pastors who are wanting to know how to grow a small group ministry or how to better equip their small group leaders.

Why? As George explains in this book, most church small groups do a good job of promoting nurture and fellowship, but most stop there. George believes an effective small group should perform three basic functions, not just nurture. In addition to nurture, he believes small groups should be effectively engaged in small-group-based evangelism (George says that in any given year, only one small group in four does any evangelism), and he thinks that small groups should constantly be training small group leaders through apprenticeship. I agree that a small group needs all three functions. And so I use this book as the entry point for someone who is new to these ideas about small group life.

After this introduction, I point churches to further training or more in-depth printed materials about various aspects of this approach to small groups, but in my opinion, there's not a better starting point than this one.

Nine Keys More than enough5
Carl George effectively communicates the essential basics. This book does a good job of highlighting the difference between being a facilitator of small group time and being a leader (someone who is a disciple-maker). I have used this book as the main text for training small group leaders. It provides great material for interactive discussion and presenting a wholistic picture of all that small groups can be.

Best book on Small Groups5
The best two things about this book are: 1) it helps the small group leader coordinate with the pastor, and 2) it includes shepherding, building community, discipleship and evangelism as part of the small group experience. It is the best balanced book available today!