Welcome & Refreshments (6:45pm – 7:05pm [20min])
Never underestimate the significance of the casual time before and after the Bible Study time. It’s key to connect with people in a safe, comfortable environment. Remember to greet everyone when they arrive, be sure refreshments are provided and ask everyone to turn off their cell phones if possible.

Connect with the group for welcoming new members, ice-breaker, announcements and presenting the topic and theme (7:05 – 7:20pm [15min])
The amount of time for this portion of the evening is determined by the
number of new members and the time required for the ice-breaker.

Bible Study and Discussion (7:20 – 8:05pm [45min])
After reviewing the Thinking It Through section in the weekend sermon
outline and the Leaders’ Notes come prepared to present questions for
discussion and application. Typically you will be able to move through
6-8 questions during a 45 minute period.

Share & Pray (8:05pm – 8:30pm [25min])
Encourage everyone to pray i sentence prayers, (Romans 8:26-27), but
don’t enforce it. Because of time, ask for prayer requests that pertain to
the study that evening, person needs and requests for the church and
country. Occasionally there may be deeper prayer needs. Be sure to
allow extra time for these requests.

FOLLOW-UP
A few days after your first gathering be sure to contact you group members to let them know you’re thinking of them and to remind them of the next gathering and what to bring if anything.

Once you have a core group of committed group members, then you want to establish what you all want your group to look like: Consider: Your target audience (see “Your Group Members,” below), Day of the week you want to meet, Time of the day, The agenda for your group time, Our Group’s mission and values, Your ground rules, and What will you begin studying. Note: One option to consider is that in our 10 week groups, we’ll be providing sermon-based studies. In other words, your group will dig deeper each weeks message and then at the end of the 10 weeks, you/your group members can decide to stay together or not, and if you are, then you can continue being a sermon-based group or move to a different study.

I encourage you to create a one-page handout, with the above information on it. This will be used in your group’s first gathering and then handed out to future members. If you have already launched a group, once you have completed your current study or at an appropriate time, establish a set of ground rules.

Ground Rules Ideas
Build one another up and encourage each other
Opinions must be respected and differences allowed (safe place)
What is shared here, stays here (pertaining to confidentiality and gossip)
Voluntary submission to one another for support, encouragement and accountability
Sharing and prayers must be brief so all everyone has an opportunity to share or pray
Share personally, not from or for others
Listen to hear, not change
Christ is the answer, not group members (avoid giving advice)
It’s okay to disagree, but not belittle, judge or become argumentative
Commit to starting and ending on time
Commit to show up regularly as well as the groups social activities and service projects
Commit to praying for one another
Be available to one another

Each small group must decide to what degree children will be involved. There are many different approaches you might take with your group. You need to think through the possibilities and design a plan that fits your needs. Here are a few possibilities:

• Trade off with another group or individual. For example, “I watch your kids on Tuesday night while you attend your group, then you watch mine on Wednesday evening while I go to my group.”

• If you meet in a home that has a separate large room, one member of the group, on a rotating basis, cares for the children. This allows the children to be involved with part of the meeting (i.e. worship) and then be dismissed.

• Hire one or more sitters to care for the children in a home separate from the one where the group meetings are held. Group members, whether or not they have children, participate in the payment of the sitter (e.g., $2 per child per night).

• Have periodic “family nights” when the evening is planned with children as the focus (this is their night).

• Leave it up to each family to make plans for the care of their children on small group night.

• A couple of our current Family Groups have it set up so that on the 1st week, the husbands get together, on the 2nd week, the wives get together, on the 3rd week, the couples get together and bring in a childcare worker and on the 4th week, they have a family BBQ. This way these group only have to pay for childcare once a month.