Wednesday night we held a discussion about how and where the home group is going. Before I get into that, there was some discussion about the AIDS Walk and Ride after which the following conclusions were made:
1. It might be nice for some folks with the gift of hospitality to man (and/or woman) a rest station for the bike ride. Rest stations are simply stations at which the riders rest and recoup with snacks and such from the previous leg of their journey. Scott said that it really made a difference to ride in on a station that was up and cheering the riders on as opposed to just lounging around in chairs. The riders really like to feel welcomed to the rest stops. This is one really easy way to be a positive part of the event next year.
2. Entertainment. I didn't notice as this was my first event of this nature but as I understand it, the walk lacked a certain "pizzazz". There should have been sword swallowers and flame jugglers dodging the little Shriner's mini cars as the walkers made their way around the city. Maybe next year we can spruce it up a little, huh? Anyone know how to twirl a baton?
3. Mo' people, mo' money. This year we raised just under $6,000.00 after setting a goal of $5,000.00. I think a total of 36 people participated. Not bad, but we can do better. Those numbers put us in third in the overall standings for total dollars raised.
Okay, on to the meeting.
This discussion was born out of the leadership development meeting that took place on Sunday the 6th. The purpose of the discussion was to take stock of where we are as a home group and discuss ways that we can make it a place to facilitate our growth as learners, lovers and givers. There was a lot of focus placed on the learner aspect with some loving and giving sprinkled in. Here goes. (I'll try to format this in a way that doesn't make this feel like trying to swallow a whale.)
1. Is home group a place that we should feel comfortable bringing newcomers? It was mentioned that someone who visited with us didn't really feel like the group was "open", meaning that they didn't feel welcome. This is a problem. We should all be making an effort to welcome an embrace anyone who comes in the door. Let's try to be aware of that going forward.
2. How are the studies going? We have been studying "children's stories" from the Old Testament through the lens of an adult and we got some feedback on how that's been going. Some say it has been enjoyable and lessons have been learned, but there were also folks who weren't a fan of this particular study. Some people tend to learn better from the inductive study we did before this one.
Also there was a desire to see more follow-up with the studies we've been doing. We need time to process what we've been learning. A lot of us are learning so many different things from different places that it's difficult sometimes to really let the lesson sink in and become part of your life.
3. Should we structure Wednesday's to allow us to rehash and pick apart what was taught on Sunday morning?The rebuttals to this were (1) that this may put undue pressure on the teacher to come up with something since there are only 2 days between Sunday and Wednesday and (2) that this plan would be dependant on the teachers attendance during the Sunday gathering.
The solutions to this were (1) the teacher could take notes during the sermon and simply facilitate a discussion based on questions that either the teacher created or ones that may be embedded in the Sunday teaching and (2) this could be as simple as the teachers communicating if they will not be in attendance on a given Sunday and ensuring that someone was available for the task. After posing solution "1" the question arose of should our teaching be more lecture or more discussion? Thoughts on this included that we should tailor the teaching style to the character of the group and let "structure submit to spirit".
If we did this the Wednesday night meetings might look a little like this:
- Hang out
- Recap Sunday's teaching (for those who are new or weren't at the Sunday gathering)
- Discuss
- Challenge (optional)
It's worth mentioning also that if we do change to this new format that we will keep the same flexibility in our Wednesday meetings. Just because we would be discussing Sunday's message doesn't mean that we would need to teach every Wednesday. There will still be room for social and mission-based activities.
4. Should we let the teaching be driven by our experiences of loving and giving to those around us?This is an alternative to question 2 in so far as it would fill our time with something different than Sunday's teaching. This would be valuable however for a few reasons.
a. We would be speaking directly to struggles and issues that people are having in their attempts to live out the lessons learned.
b. This would imply that we carve out time in our Wednesday night meeting to share our experiences with one another which would result in us having the opportunity to know each other on a deeper level.
c. This would provide the opportunity for the teacher to challenge us in a given area and the experiences of those challenges can be shared at the next meeting and so on.
5. Should we spend time learning what our giftings are?It was mentioned that this type of thing may be a little to personal to handle in a group this size. It may be overwhelming for some folks to take that journey in this setting.
There was probably more that I didn't capture on paper but, seriously, did you even read this far? If you see anything I missed feel free to leave it in the comments.
There will be more discussion about the leadership development meeting as well as planning for the upcoming WIHN week this summer at our next meeting. Until then...
