Steven: I’ll be the first to admit that follow up is not one of the things I’m best at. Even knowing how important it is, it is not something that comes naturally to me. This year I’ve put an effort into setting up ways to make sure I’m better at follow up. Here are some of the ways:

• Focus groups. My co-leader and I have split up our group of 12 into 2 groups. We haven’t said anything to them, but it’s just a way for us to focus on 6 guys each instead of 12. With those 6, we are texting them several times a week and following up on prayer requests and challenges that we’ve given them earlier in the week.
• Parent emails. My co-leader and I have been really consistent with parent emails, but we’re adding an extra piece into our emails now. We make sure to mention what’s coming up and what the action step is for the upcoming week. This gives parents an opportunity to be “follow-up agents” at home. We can’t be there all the time, but parents see their kids all the time and can work on our behalf.
• Two-on-ones. We’ve always taken a student out to dinner every week before small group, but we’re being more intentional about the conversation at those dinners. Instead of just shooting the breeze and letting the conversation come up organically, we’re being strategic in what we talk about. We’re challenging students individually, casting vision for what we see in them and giving them the ability to ask questions or get clarification on things.

Matt: I try and start each week with a review of the previous week. That also gives me a good indication of who really understood the lesson from the previous week and if I need to do some follow up. One of the things I have talked with my student group about is having a quiet time every day. This is something I follow up on each week as well as texting them during the week to see how their quiet times are going. I think it’s something that is so important that it’s worth doing almost a weekly follow up.

I also try and pull students aside each week and follow up on their prayer requests from previous weeks. I’m trying to get them to open up if a problem or situation got worse and also get them to do a praise report when things have changed for the better. If I know a student is struggling with a particular problem I like to text them throughout the week. This does a couple of things: first it lets them know I care about them and want to help them succeed, but it also helps them to keep working on a problem and not just give up.

We’re about to begin having our students give their testimonies, each week a couple of guys will talk about themselves and their lives and what’s going on. This is an excellent opportunity to see where your students need prayer and guidance and also lets you as a leader know the areas in their lives that need some follow up.