Could you lead a small group for a term?

At the end of 2018 I had one of those ‘aha’ moments as a leader where you know you need to help facilitate something changing. I was at one of our “New to Kerith” lunches on our Bracknell site where once a term we invite all the people who have visited Kerith for the first time and filled out one of the “Connect with us” cards for lunch after the 11.30am meeting.

There were around 50 new people, which was great, but as I went round chatting to them I heard the same comment again and again. They’d tried to join a small group in order to build deeper friendships within Kerith, but either hadn’t been able to find a group that worked for them, or had contacted a number of existing groups which were all full.

The reality is that we’ve got a set of brilliant small groups in Kerith, with some amazing leaders, but we simply don’t have enough of them. One of the main reasons for this is that people haven’t wanted to sign up to lead a small group because historically it has been an open ended commitment with no foreseeable end!

We’ve therefore decided to try a new way of running small groups with groups which run for a term, where the leader is free (within limits) to choose what the group does over the term. We’re going to launch the new structure in Bracknell after Easter, as that’s where we’ve got the greatest need, although if you’re based at one of our other sites then please speak to your site pastor as they may be able to get you up and running before the official launch on your site. For more details take a listen to our recent Bracknell site vision night. 

So would you be up for leading one of our new small groups? I’m going to be leading a group studying the Prayer Course. Would you be up for leading a group doing a growth track course, studying a book of the Bible, praying together, going out running or something else. 

You can read more details about what is involved in leading a group and register your interest here. Please take a look and consider giving it a go! Both I, and all those people in Kerith looking for a small group, will be very grateful! If you’re going to lead a group after Easter it would be really helpful if you could register by this Sunday to give us time to process the applications ready to launch groups after Easter so do it quickly :)

Thanks so much,

Simon