Beware Chocolate Bunny Syndrome
It’s always great around Easter to get a chocolate bunny. But, over the years, I’ve learned to temper my excitement until I better examine the bunny. Some are made of pure chocolate and I’m joyfully forced to figure out how to consume so much chocolate. But, other chocolate bunnies hold a dark secret. They may look as amazing as other bunnies, but inside- they’re hollow! Picking up these bunnies I feel like I’ve been tricked or hoodwinked into hoping for a high quality chocolate bunny. Instead, I’m holding a hollow Easter imposter. As a leader, I think there’s a lot ...
How the Grinch Stole Small Group
In the story, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, the Grinch believes the true meaning of Christmas is presents. Believing this, he steals all the Christmas presents from the unsuspecting Whos in Whoville to stop Christmas from coming. But, Christmas morning he finds all the whos singining their hearts out and realizes that Christmas had nothing to do with presents- it meant so much more. Like the Grinch, I’m coming to realize that small groups mean so much more than what I thought they meant. You see, this spring semester we’ve had a few groups who haven’t had as many people ...
Going Places
I’m sitting in the Cleveland Airport and everywhere around me are signs that say, “Going Places,” and “We’re Going Places.” There’s sign of improvement everywhere and I have to admit, it feels like they’re ‘going places.’ When it comes to leading groups, I wonder how many of us could say the same thing? Do we have a clear idea of why our group exists and what it’s trying to accomplish? The plane I’m about to board is also going places- Virginia to be exact. It’ll be successful if it makes it to Virginia on time and I make it in ...
Things I Learned from Group Evaluations: Part 1
At the end of our fall semester, I had all the participants of our various Fuel Groups give some feedback about how their group went. I would honestly have to say it’s one of the best things I’ve done for groups. As I read over the evaluations I feel there were two big things that mattered to people that stood out to me. Connection Matters. Over and over again the people who rated their group the highest commented how connected they felt to the other people in their group. They related to the other people in the group and didn’t ...