Recruiting And Training Pure Desire Leaders At Eastview Christian Church | Pure Desire Ministries

You know, one of the things you guys talked about with the initial hurdles, and it sounds like it still may be an ongoing challenge, which is very normal for churches, is recruiting and training group leaders. So how have you done that? What are the ways that maybe some of the issues you've seen with it, what are the solutions you guys have come up with to make sure we still have group leaders at East View.

The group leader training, We. We have your church membership, and we have that for five people is what we are currently at. And that has. Honestly, not only do we have it for our five, but then we have. We have more leaders than that. I think I'm at 20 leaders at this point. And just for them to go through the group leader training, that. That is hands down, that's the number one. I learned a lot from just going through that myself. I didn't have that. And then I went through the group leader training, and I remember going back to my groups literally the next week and say, things are changing this week. I've been doing it wrong in certain areas. And this is. These are the changes that we're going to start making. And that was so humbling for me because one of the guys was like, oh, let's start over. I'm like, okay, let's not get that drastic. But no word. We're doing it this way. We're going to do it. Like, as you guys say, you pay the dumb tax. Like, learn from the people who have paid the dumb tax.

Yeah, I think it was for me from the Dave Ferguson who pastors a church in Chicago, and he always uses the four initials. I see and you. And that idea of saying to someone, I see something in you. I see in you. Because I think when we're leading a group or we're maybe helping oversee a number of groups, it's very common that people that are in their story are focused on their journey, especially early. Early on, as they should be, are not thinking about, oh, I could lead this group someday. In fact, most of us, I mean, even my story, it's like I just wanted to fix it. I wanted to get it out of my life and my marriage so that my wife would be happy and our marriage would be better. But I was not dreaming about leading groups and telling my church. It's like I wanted to move on and be better and forget it. But it really took other people in my story saying, you know, Nick, you could make an impact with your story on other people. This could be a game changer for people in your church. If you told your story. Who else could you help? And it started to get these wheels turning of looking outside of my own story and looking at other people to go, oh, yeah, okay, let's think about that. What would that look like? How would that work? I mean, obviously I was a pastor, and so my story is a little different than someone who's not. But I think that same principle so applies when we're looking for group leaders. And what I feel like I've heard from you, Stuart, of doing is just identifying those people in group and then not just hoping that maybe they'll one day offer to volunteer, but actually coming alongside of them and saying, hey, I see something in you. I see that you have a passion for this. It seems like God's really at work in your heart. I think you could help lead a group or you could take one. You have the maturity and the ability. And that might be. It may seem obvious to you, but I will tell you, they're probably not thinking about it now. There is the occasional person that is feeling led, they're feeling inspired, and sometimes in those cases, we actually have to pull that person back because sometimes they're too eager to lead and not focused enough on their own story. But in general, I think it does take us coming alongside someone and saying, you can do this. Have you thought about it? Have you prayed about it? And that may be what gets the ball rolling for them to become the next group leader. Because if no one ever says anything, they're going to get better, move on with their life, and be glad that they didn't have to tell too many people about their story. But if you can come alongside and tell them that, I think they'll begin to have a vision for it.

And it's clear that East View is you guys are focused on equipping people and giving them the opportunity to step into it. And I think that that goes a long way at any church, any size, that if you're willing to put time, energy, and resource behind creating opportunity for people and then equipping them to step into those, I think is significant.

Yeah. And you guys are reminding me. There's one of the groups that I lead. A guy showed leadership qualities literally from day one. And just to text him after group and say, hey, I see this in you, that has been so affirming. Like, whenever we lead a group and somebody asks a great question or points something out, like, there's just like, hey, that's great quality for leadership. The other thing is there are times where we can be on Vacation. And so I'll still say, hey guys, still meet, just do check ins. And just for that one guy to say, hey, I want to put you in charge of this week and you're going to be the one that's guiding the group and check ins. And just to see them shine in that moment, that's a really cool opportunity. And then the co leader is one that, that's a double bind right there. Because we have people at this point, they're signed up, they're waiting for the next group to launch and we've kind of said, you know what, before we're sending somebody off on their own to do this. We want you to experience, be a co leader first. And I kind of relate this to myself when I was an EMT basic. I was a basic for four years before I became a paramedic. And what I wasn't doing a lot of was I wasn't watching what the paramedic was doing. I was just making sure that I was doing the job of a basic and doing my job really well. And then when I became a paramedic, it was kind of this eye opening experience of I should have been paying.

Attention to you guys, what was I doing? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But the reality is that was not my job. And so when somebody's in group, it's not their job to watch what the how the leader leads. It's their job to focus on themselves and find healing. And so by doing the co leading, that's where we enter that stage of just, hey, like I'm gonna lead.

Yeah, watch.

Yep. And then I'm gonna give you opportunity to lead and then you, you do like as you've been taught and then we process through that, we talk about it, but that it's slow, but it's been so intentional that it's been really great.