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We are about to kick off our small groups for the new school year so this week we hosted two nights of small group leader training. This morning I was debriefing the night in my mind and I thought of a few things that may be worth passing along concerning volunteer training.
-You Will Never Cover EVERYTHING! Our training for small group leaders last about 3 hours which seems like a long time until you actually get down to it. The reality is that there is so much involved in leading a small group of junior highers that 3 hours really only allows you to cover the bare necessities. Because of this it’s important to identify what those bare necessities are and make sure your leaders hear the most important stuff at the front end of their volunteer tenure.
-Embrace The Idea Of Ongoing Training. Because you can’t cover it all in one or two training sessions, create a culture of “ongoing training” with your volunteers. Take them to coffee, send them links to websites, attach an article to an email, point them to blogs, books etc. that will encourage them.
- Ease their fears. I have learned that the best thing we can do for our new leaders is often simply help ease their fears. So many leaders come into ministry feeling “called” but very uncertain and nervous. Be sure to fill your training time with lots of stories of success, testimonies from veteran leaders etc.
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This is a great reminder Kurt. I have never done a group training for small groups before and this just convicts me to do one now as we begin to kick off our small groups. In years past, I have just focused on individual training and equipping, but as our leadership team is growing, this would be more efficient. Thanks!
Tom Pounder
http://notamegachurch.wordpress.com
[...] Thoughts on Training Small Group Volunteers Josh on September 25th, 2009 I really liked Kurt’s post on training volunteers over on SimplyKurt.com. Here’s a clip, hopefully you’ve already made his blog a regular stop: -You Will Never [...]