Why I’ll be at the distributed group leader training

Written by: Nathan Clark on May 20, 2010

I was involved in several faith groups at Northland before I started working here. Two of those groups were collections of believers who gathered regularly for shared service, training and worship. We read the Bible together, we prayed for one another, and we went about the business of being Jesus’ witnesses.

Along the way we fumbled through the best ways to follow God, and as a leader in both groups, I struggled with how to support our less-scripted version of the church. I kept at it because a quick look at the Bible is all it takes to know that God calls us to transform our communities as communities. But I always wanted someone alongside me, in part for encouragement and partly for permission to do things a little differently. I always wanted someone to help offer ideas and even training on how to lead groups—or even “church” in the basic biblical sense—effectively and in the model established in the Bible.

This Saturday we’re holding our first training to encourage and release people who are leading, or want to be leading distributed groups. Pastor Dan Lacich is leading a seminar at Longwood and online from 8:30 a.m. to noon that will cover all sort of subjects particular not only to group leadership, but also to the distinction between a group and a distributed group. There aren’t any requirements to attend—just a willingness to pursue God. If you lead a Bible study, gather friends for local service, have an accountability group or even just desire to assemble people to pursue God together, this training is for you.

Though the groups I led dissolved years ago, some of my original questions are still around, so I’ll be there Saturday morning. I hope you will, too.