One area I want to do different with my new small group this year is to be more intentional with them. I’ve already rearranged my work schedule a little bit and set some reminders in my calendar to accomplish this. Not that I wasn’t open and available to my students in the past, but this year I want to bring it to the next level.
Yesterday Steven posted some ideas he has for his new small group. I knew he formulated this list last week but I hadn’t read his ideas until they showed up in his blog . It made me start thinking about some things. I asked myself what was one area I really want to do different. Being more intentional was the first thing that came to mind. Here’s what I want to do:
- I often have a limited number of free hours in my week. I want to make sure I use them to my full advantage. Scheduling some time each week to contact students and setting reminders on my phone will help me from getting to the end of the week and running out of time for some intentional contacts.
- I don’t want students to feel like they are a disruption in my schedule, I want to be available to them.
- Let’s face it some problems need time to talk through, I don’t want a student to feel like he has five minutes to talk to me about something and then I’m off to the next guy. One thing that will really help this year is having a co-leader.
- I want to make sure I have at least one really good contact with each of the guys in my small group each week. Either in person or by text, I want them to know I’m thinking and praying about them.
- I want to set aside some time each week before small group to meet with a student one-on-one , or two-on-one since I have a co-leader this year.
- I want to be sure I follow-up on prayer requests each week with each student. Either myself or my co-leader will check in with them, see how things are going and offer a lot of encouragement.
Each one of these are small things but they add up. I’d love to hear ways you spend intentional time with students, you can comment here.
