The question that often comes up that people email or Facebook me on a regular basis is regarding resources for small groups especially in the area of discipleship small groups.
Below is a list I've begun that may help you focus your small group ministry:
Philosophy of Small Group ministry:
- Building a Church of Small Groups: Bill Donahue (anything by Bill is a gold mine)
- Sticky Church: Larry Osborne
- Simple Church: Thom S. Rainer and Eric Geiger
- The Big Book of Small Groups: Jeffrey Arnold
- Simple Small Groups: Bill Search
- Getting Together: Em Griffin. A must read in understanding group dynamics
- The Small Group Book: Dale Galloway
- Growing People Through Small Groups: David Stark, Betty Velman Wieland
Beginning and Maintaining Small Group Ministry:
- Leading Life-Changing Small Groups: Bill Donahue (must have)
- Coaching Life-Changing Small Group Leaders: Bill Donahue (must have)
- The Pocket Guide to Leading a Small Group: Dave Earley and Rod Dempsey
- 8 Habits of Effective Small Group Leaders: Dave Earley
Websites:
- Smallgroups.com -- for $99/year you get training and some of the best articles and studies around.
- Right Now Training -- formerly Small Group Trader. They've just revamped the whole thing and there is a cost per member in the church. I've been a tester for the beta system and it is wonderful. You can create your church's own online training program for your leaders. You can upload videos, articles and customize it for your needs. They have the absolute best people on their training videos; Francis Chan, Bill Donahue, Mac Lake, Alan Danielson... and more.
I hope this helps.
If you have some others feel free to add in the reply.
Comments
A couple to add
On Philosophy & Beginning, the book Activate by Nelson Searcy. Our church adapted this approach and it's going well.
I just happened to visit http://www.smallgroups.com/ last week, and from what I can tell the philosophy is quite different from the Activate approach, but it might be useful for some churches.
I saw you mention Sticky Church in another thread and I might have to check that out. Larry Osborne's church is in a neighboring city to mine, and I've visited there a few times. They are very serious about getting people into small groups, although their strong won't-take-no-for-an-answer pressure to join a group was a turnoff for me.
Hey Allen,
http://grouptone.com just opened, which is built for the purpose of resourcing small groups. Think SermonCentral, but for small groups. It's new, so it still needs community submitted content, but thought it would go well on your list.
Take care,
Just came across this resource recently. I've been reading M. Scott Boren's blog lately and happened upon this gem. If you are not familiar with his two books, Missional Small Groups and one he cowrote Introducing the Missional Church, get them and read them. They are exceptionally valuable.
Here's the gem. Scott has a website of FREE stuff including video teaching via You Tube. If you have Real Player Pro and something similar with the ability to capture online video you're set to burn them to DVD for your groups. And Scott gives permission to do this.
A couple of great studies to check out are The Journey Together: Training Groups for Effective Group Life. This study is not just training for leaders but the whole group. It is an excellent study for a new group. It's similar to Zondervan's ReGroup: Teaching groups to be groups, but is more extensive. Each person brings something different, both good and bad, to the group. The Journey Together helps the whole group understand its function and dysfunctions and how to work together.
Another study goes along with the book Missional Small Groups and leads the group toward a more practical understanding and commitment to making a difference in one another's lives and their community.
Here's the link to the FREE stuff on the site. Click Here
Free awesome curriculum? Who can pass that up?
Enjoy!
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