The November
newsletter featured an article by Nancy Chegus on Small Group Ministry. That
was her first step in introducing her congregation, St. Albert United Church,
to Small Group Ministry. The second step was bringing a group together where
they could all learn what was involved. While this was happening, Nancy met
with Joyce Madsen on a weekly basis to develop insights into the whole process.
Here's Nancy's report:
We began the process with a "learning circle" that consisted of five key interested people from the congregation. We met as a small group for six weeks to learn about small group ministry, identify how we have been meeting as small groups at St. Albert United, and how we could develop an intentional small group ministry program. The resource we followed was Anne Martin's book, Rooted in the Divine.
In January, the learning circle identified a number of individuals who were already leading groups, and other individuals with special interests who might start a group themselves. We personally invited each of these people to a congregational information sharing event, complete with lunch, after the service one Sunday. There were 40 people who showed up.
We have called what we are doing the LYFE Ministry program (Live Your Faith Experience). We planned a leadership training event, again on a Sunday after the service. We trained 14 leaders who are now proud owners of the LYFE Ministry Handbook. After some additional PR with the congregation, we had our group registration Sunday and they are ready to fly!.
The result is that we launched 11 groups (2 pre-existing that wanted to be part of the LYFE Ministry program). There was interest shown in all the groups. Some have six participants and others have ten or more signed up. There is a great variety of topics: bird watching, healthy desserts, a discussion group on theological issues, the prayer team (pre-existing), album making, a running group, healing touch (pre-existing), alpine back packing, an interfaith group, cross stitch/crafts, and card making.
Congregational Life Newsletter. May 2005. Vol. 11 No. 4.