Potted Proverbs: watch the watch!

The study is flowing, the conversation is sharp, funny and moving by turn.

Someone raises an interesting question that everyone wants to comment on. Someone shares a deeply moving need that everyone wants to pray for.

You look at your watch, and it's 10.45.

"Whoa!" you cry, "time these little piggies were all tucked up in bed for the night." Some members shoot out of their seats and head straight for the door. Others linger in the hallway talking by the open door. You stifle a yawn, close the door and switch on the TV to wind down before you go to bed. The light doesn't go off until 12.45.

Sound familiar?

Time can just rush by at a homegroup when things are going well, when enthusiasm and interest seem to be sky high. But did you notice the warning signs in the little scenario above? "Some members shoot out of their seats and head straight for the door."

Before you read on, just pause for a moment and consider what the typical timings for your group meeting might be.

1. Know your group
The enthusiasm and interest of some members can make us blind to the real timing needs of others. In my current Home Group, there are some single men and women who work in the city, a student, a mother with three young children. Even though they are interested and engaged, I often catch stifled yawns from a couple of them. The reason is that their working life means that they rise early, and are often so shattered by 8 or 9 at night that they are really no good for much else than curling up with Cocoa after 9.30. So even though it might seem to be spoiling the fun for everyone else, you really owe it to them to finish in time for them to get home.

Before you read on, just pause for a moment and think about your current group members. Who finds it difficult to turn up on time? Why is this? And whose life situation might mean that they really need to get home by a specific time?

2. Understand how people learn
By and large, people's minds work best in small doses. An hour, or an hour and a half means that everyone will be still able to concentrate and be engaged with the subject (so long as you keep it on track, and don't allow too much digression). Sometimes extending the time you are talking doesn't actually add anything to what people are able to learn and process in an evening.

Sometimes less is more.

3. Leave them hungry for more
I never tire of telling people that good Christian work is nearly always long term, low-key and relational. The real benefits to a Christian's life and discipleship is about growing over a long period of time in fellowship with others - rather than through spectacular one-off events. That is, although individual evenings can have a significant influence, as the Spirit speaks to them from the Word of God, the cumulative effects of being part of a group that prays for each other and works through larger parts of the Bible together is much greater overall.

That has an implication for how you run the timing of your group. It is better long term to leave them hungry for more at the end of an evening, rather than go on for a long time and leave some exhausted. And that's because people will want to come back week after week. Whereas, in the scenario above, everyone will have agreed that they had a great time, but the following week, a couple of people may be thinking: "great time, but I was so exhausted the next day, I fell asleep at my desk," or I'd love to go, but I was so ratty with the kids the following day, that I can't face it."

Have a game plan
My game plan is to start the study at 8.15, pray at 9, and have and allow people to leave at 9.15. I try to make it easy for people to leave who need to. I try to allow those who want to stay for a while to do that. It doesn't often work like that, but having a game plan in mind will help reduce the likelihood of straying into injury time at the end of a long day.

It may feel a little "unspiritual" to work to timings like this. But experience has taught me that ignoring ground rules like this is simply unloving to some group members. So...

Have a clock within your eyeline. Make sure that you have a game plan, and...

Watch the watch!

potted proverbs: The main thing is the main thing

What kind of home group leader are you? A hippy, an engineer, a gardener or a schoolmaster?

Over the next few weeks I want to unpack (there's that word again!) some of the different leadership styles we may have, and try to work out what the pros and cons are.

Giving some thought to your style of leadership, and how you relate to others and just "be" with a group of people can be very instructive to working out your blind spots in making your home group go with a zing.

I asked the same question in a parenting seminar I ran with a friend a couple of years ago, and it opened my eyes to some dark truths about myself, and how I influence others.

Let me be up front. I pretty much default to Hippy mode when I'm with groups of people. I just love the journey so much, that I'm tempted to forget the destination. I think people in my homegroup have a great and memorable time, but I need to make sure that I have planned, prepared and have firmly fixed in my mind where we need to get to as we open God's word together.

Because, as I have written here, the key purpose of a home group is that we encourage one another with the Word of Christ. When we look at a passage of Scripture, it is God speaking to us - and he has something very important to tell us. It's important for us as leaders to be committed to that, because our social culture is pushing in exactly the opposite direction. Our culture values the  expressing of opinions and ideas and  does not like saying anybody is wrong - especially in matters of morality and spirituality.

But genuine Christian believers are committed to the truth of the Bible as God's Word. This is the only genuinely Christian position, because our master Jesus was committed to that too -  and a servant is not above his master. John 13:16. So we are committed to the belief that the truth of Scripture is objective. It is not about "what it means to me", but "what it means."[full stop]

That's why the Proverb of the title is so important for you, and for my fellow hippies in particular, as we lead a homegroup. Our job in preparation is to come to a conclusion about the main thing that the passage is saying, and to build our discussion, questions, and programme for the evening around the main thing. The main thing is the destination of our time together. Because it is what God is saying to us right now from the part of scripture we are looking at.

Hippy homegroup leaders may start with a destination in mind - albeit a vague one. But as we set out on the highway in our minibus to visit the doctor, we are intrigued by a sign that says "Museum of curiosities 5 miles" and turn off the road. And after spending some time there, we see a sign for "The world's best Cajun restaurant, 3 miles" and slide off in that direction for a while. And then we stop by a lake because it has a beautiful view, and we watch the sun set together. We had a great time. But we never made it to the doctor, and our problems remain un-diagnosed, un-treated and unresolved.

It can be the same with homegroups. We move from one interesting and absorbing distraction to another, and everyone has a great time. Except we never get to where we were going... If you are on holiday, that doesn't especially matter. But when the destination is hearing something really important that the creator of the universe, your saviour and Lord has to say to you, it is shockingly rude and disrespectful. The main thing is the main thing.


Preparation
Good preparation is always the key here. If you are writing the study yourself, come to a conclusion about the main point, and try to write a summary sentence for what the Bible study is about - your best hit at The Big Idea of the passage.

If you are using a published Bible-study guide, try to choose one that helps you with this. Some studies are just a series of questions that open up the content and logic of the passage, but do not try to focus down onto a single, central idea. The Good Book Guides are a good example of published guides that structure their studies this way.

That's not to say, of course, that you should deny the opportunity to look elsewhere as you work through a passage, and follow some interesting side roads for a while. Nor is it to say that, as you discuss the passage together, you may begin to see that the big idea is a little different from how your first saw it. But the truth is, that if you start without a destination, it is likely that you will end up going nowhere.