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The Skills to Lead Small Groups November 5, 2009

Posted by Gilbert Kingsley in Coaching, Discipleship, Evangelism, Leadership, Student Ownership, Volunteers.
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I happened to read something last week that was interesting.  No doubt you have seen it.

“Last week, I was invited to a friend’s home for dinner. We hadn’t had a chance to see each other for a while, so I was eager for the companionship, as much as a good meal. Shortly after I arrived, we were alerted that dinner was ready, so we headed into the dining room, When I got there, I was expecting to find some sort of main dish— perhaps a casserole, or maybe some baked chicken. I was also hoping for a steaming dish of vegetables, and maybe some bread, served in a basket. Instead, sitting in the center of the table, with its jagged lid mostly pried back, was a five-pound can of cold green beans. “Dig in!” my friend said.

“Disgruntled may be too strong a word, but I was certainly hoping for more. The beans were fine, and no doubt full of good nutrients. The can itself was sturdy and clearly labeled. But the meal lacked a certain presentation, not to mention flavor…

“Every week, on campuses across the country, our students attend Bible studies that are served right out of the can. This year that “can” may have had the label Cru.Comm emblazoned on it. Cru.Comm is, unapologetically, Bible study in a can.”

This came from the first of seven short, but very helpful, articles on “How to Lead a Bible Study” from the folks who gave us Cru.Comm.

Healthy small groups are the essential building blocks of a growing movement.  That article goes on to explain that quality Biblical content, community, self-discovered learning, progressive life change and outward impact are elements of a healthy small group.  Cru.Comm helps provide that quality biblical content.  But it is the role of a small group leader to bring that biblical content into an environment where community is fostered, life change happens and impact for Christ ripples outward.

These seven articles are mostly one or two pages in length.

  1. How to Use Cru.Comm
  2. Crucial Elements
  3. Preparing the Lesson
  4. Planning Your Group Session
  5. Designing the Right Environment
  6. Ten Suggestions for the First Group Meeting
  7. Guiding a Discussion

They are a must read for our new Bible study leaders.  Even our veteran leaders will be reminded of how God works in the small group.


For the last few weeks, I have been talking about growing movements in their various stages of development.  We talked about filtering a leader, developing a leadership team and seeing evangelism and discipleship become a part of the movement.  If we hope to see our movements to grow from launched to multiplying, we must give our small group leaders the skills to lead quality small groups.

While the entire curriculum of over 100 lessons, complete with posters, studies, articles and leaders’ guides, is available for only $9.00 per disk, there is a semester’s worth of free sample lessons.  This will give your leaders enough experience with Cru.Comm to confidently invest in the rest.

Expanding from 1-10 October 25, 2009

Posted by Gilbert Kingsley in Coaching, Leadership, Student Ownership, Volunteers.
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As I write this I am flying back from a series of meetings in Eastern Europe where our ministry is looking to expand our ministry down to include high schools.  The one issue that came up more often than anything else was capacity.  How do we do that when we are stretched with everything else.  That is precisely the point when we talk about growing ministries on our campuses.


In last week’s tip, I talked about filtering a leader.  Today, I want us to consider growing a ministry from one leader to a team of leaders.  As we build a leadership team, we build capacity.  Some of these thoughts came from a roundtable of metro leaders some time ago.  We gave them this specific topic of developing a leadership team when all you have is a key leader.

Building a leadership team

  • Teach that lone leader to delegate, for their sake (so their burden of work is lighter) and for the sake of developing other students.
  • The cell group small group concept naturally lends itself to raising up additional leaders with the different roles in the group, although some staff feel the cell group philosophy is a bit complicated for students to roll out at first.
  • Use data from the Key Volunteer Application to understand the leadership elements of your existing key leaders.  It is here that you learn who their friends might be and what other strength areas are needed to complement them.
  • Is there a nearby church with a college ministry?  Ask your leader to find out the contact person for you.  You as the coach of that student, or the student could themselves, check with the church to find other potential leaders to come along side.
  • Help the student realize if they can just find a couple more people, they are making progress that’s valuable.
  • Help currently involved students to take initial steps of ownership, so that over time, leaders can be grown from within.
  • Coach them to do simple gathering events, like FSK’s.  A table may surface new leaders.
  • Ask key contacts to see if they have other ideas.  This helps them to problem solve.
  • Train leaders understand what makes a leader and have them keep an eye out for it.
  • Teach seniors to find and recruit freshman.
  • Helping the leaders understand the vision for engaging underclassmen as “developing leaders”.  Consider sending emails to the whole student email list of the group, and do some “masses coaching” to help develop the vision of all the students, not just the key contact.  This helps ensure that vision gets ‘passed down’.


Some obstacles that keep this from happening

  • When our key contact is not able to communicate our coaching to the other people on campus.  (One solution is asking them to copy one of our materials and then just coach them in using that material).  This points to the need to find other leaders to help lead.
  • When another Christian group is present on campus, there can be a scarcity in finding more leaders.
  • Two-year schools are a big challenge because we don’t have much time to find leaders.  Just because they are at a two year school, does not mean that they won’t be at the same level as leaders we are used to at four–year schools.  Some are simply going there because it is not as expensive as four-year schools.  Two year schools can often provide leadership coming in to our four- year schools, though the time they have with us will be less.
  • It can be tough to get the students to practice  “selection” well in recruiting their own replacements or co-leaders.
  • Some of our target students still live at home and therefore have less of an adult mentality and more of a “youth group mentality”, or “minister to me.”  During a launch, they lack a model to look to and follow.  However, some schools have adult populations who we could tap into.
  • Relational issues tear up student leadership teams and block their synergy.
  • A lone leader can sometimes turn into a dictator and become inflexible in sharing power.
  • We may not see them do as much one–on-one discipleship, because they’ve never seen it modeled up close.  We will need to think in terms of more group discipleship.


Particularly useful tools or tactics that have worked

  • Using the transformational community article to show them how we want to go to the whole campus.
  • In the late fall, evaluate the movement as you coach it and then go over that evaluation in January with your key contact, helping them think through how they’ll prepare to pass on leadership.
  • Go over the critical path steps on the LLCP with your leader and talk about what needs to happen at each step and who might be able to help out. 
  • Of course, we rely a lot on retreats and conferences to help in this, opportunity to connect with them and train them in person.
  • Many teams do periodic leadership gatherings (monthly or more frequently) where the leaders from multiple campuses meet for dinner and then do training.  This also brings out peer coaching, and all the more if a couple can come from the same campus.
  • If you cannot do periodic leadership gatherings, consider doing a “training overnighter” once a semester.
  • When you visit the campus, meet with a potential leader to do ministry with them.  Have them share their testimony or lead a segment of a training you might be doing, even helping in a small group.
  • We want to look for people who can lead and gather others, we can always train them in ministry skills as we go along.


Most of us are on teams.  That is a value in our ministry.  Certainly we want that value to be reflected in our students and volunteers who are leading.  GodSquad has resources designed for them.  This page will lead you to articles on a Picture of a Leader, Servant Team Challenge, Developing a Leader and Assessing Your Leadership Style.  MissionalTeamLeader.com also has a wealth of resources in the Lead Your Team Filing Cabinet.

Steps in Filtering a Leader October 18, 2009

Posted by Gilbert Kingsley in Coaching, Launching, Student Ownership, Volunteers.
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In last week’s tip, I talked about the stages of development of movements and the skills needed at each stage.  For the next few weeks, I want to double click on each of those stages and focus on specific skills.  Today I am double clicking on Pioneering.  The skill we need to develop is how to filter a leader.

Steps in Filtering a Leader

There are any number of ways that someone might express interest in starting a Campus Crusade for Christ ministry.  Maybe they are the leader of an existing group or they have initiated toward us in some way.  What I am going to describe is what I would do.  You may have other resources and steps, but I think you want to have a process for helping you determine who your leaders are and helping them see that God has raised them up.

Garett found out somehow that Campus Crusade for Christ could help him start a ministry.  When his email reached me, I emailed back to tell him that I was sending him a Starter Kit.  I asked him to fill out the required information and then mail it back to me.  Within a week or so, he sent me each piece filled out and we were on our way to launching a ministry SUNY New Paltz.

Several years ago the Starter Kit was developed as a way to filter leaders.  It introduces Campus Crusade for Christ and explains our vision and plans for reaching every student on every campus for Christ.  It also helps us get to know the potential leader.  The hardcopy version that we have in our office has examples of specific tools for prayer, evangelism and discipleship.  An on-line version of the Starter Kit is found on the Start a Ministry pages of GodSquad. 

We start by looking for the most mature Christians that we can find.  I ask them to read Transforming Movements.  Then I would meet with them as a group to discuss the thought questions at the end and dream with them about how to reach their campus.  I would also walk through or draw out the Local Leader Critical Path.  This helps cast vision for what we are believing God to accomplish on their campus.

By the end of that discussion I hope to find one or two who have distinguished themselves as potential leaders.  The others would hopefully see them as leaders and these leaders see themselves as such.  Then I would hand each potential leader a Starter Kit, walk through it and ask them to prayerfully fill and mail to me the application, sign the Statement of Faith and Key Person Volunteer Agreement.  The application helps us to get to know them.  The volunteer agreement helps them see what they are committing to. And the Statement of Faith clarifies what we believe.

I believe we have two tendencies in this process.  First we can rush to hand them a Starter Kit without taking time to cast vision and instill personal confidence that God can use them.  The other is that we don’t ask them to prayerfully commit to being a leader.

There is nothing magical about the application and agreement as they are written.  But I believe the process is valuable for the potential leader to consider their role.  We must not discount what God does in the heart of a potential leader as they take personal stock of what He might be calling them to do.  There is nothing like the joy of personal discovery as they begin to crystallize their thinking about their vision.

We do learn some things about them if they delay in filling out an application or they are superficial in their answers.  But if they know that we ask every leader to fill out an application they will see this as a necessary step.  Evon took over for another as leader on one of my campuses.  I asked him to fill out each form and he did.  Reading his answers helped me get to know him better and to see how God had prepared him for ministry.

The next step is to have a conversation with them.  The Telephone Interview.  is one way to gather typical contact information, some cursory campus demographics and get to know them.  We get to hear some of their heart and how God has prepared them.  I remember once finishing the interview with Jeff.  He thanked me for taking the time to get to know him when he knew that I was looking for a person who could begin a ministry on his campus.

An optional step in assessing the qualifications of a potential leader is calling references.  On the back of the application, there is a place to list references.  A Reference Questionnaire helps us determine if the prospective leader is qualified to lead the ministry.  It is a good idea to call these references if we have questions about their leadership qualifications.

Now we are at the point where we can make a decision about their being a leader.  A helpful tool for this is the Key Person Criteria.  This page lists several areas and assesses each with a “green light” (Go forward.), “yellow light” (Precede with caution.) and “red light” (Stop.).  It helps to objectify the qualification process to that we can make an informed decision.  Finally, we call them to inform them of our decision.  From here we begin to dream and make plans to reach their campus so that everyone has an opportunity to say “Yes!” to Jesus Christ.

A lot of us have encountered a few of the same pitfalls over the years in launching and building movements. Two of the most common are not having the right leader in place and having to restart ministries because leadership does not transfer to the next generation after the original leader graduates.  It is easy to rush to start with the first person to come along.  We might be uncomfortable asking them to fill out an application or we don’t do references if we have concerns.

The first few times through this, the process can feel somewhat contrived.  But it will cut down on the number of instances where we have the wrong leader.  It will also help us when we or they realize that they are not the right leader, because right up front they know what we are asking them to agree to.  By having a qualification process, we minimize the start and restart cycle.

The Will to Prepare October 11, 2009

Posted by Gilbert Kingsley in Coaching, Launching, Leadership, Student Ownership, Trusting God, Volunteers.
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My pastor used as an illustration Sunday about an exchange someone had with legendary basketball coach, Bobby Knight.  Someone asked how he was able to win so many games.  He must have had quite the “will to win”.  Knight was reported to have said, “The key is not the will to win… everybody has that. It is the will to prepare to win that is important.”

I think about what’s involved as we prepare to launch and build movements.

First we learn that there are stages of development of movements.  Our ministry uses the following five terms for these stages.

  1. Forerunner– When we are trusting God to raise up a ministry on the campus.
  2. Pioneering– When we are actively looking and taking steps to start a ministry.
  3. Key Contact– We have a student or volunteer qualified to lead a movement on the campus.
  4. Launched– We have a leader and five aligned students involved.
  5. Multiplying–When we see winning, building and sending taking place and are impacting the campus.

Second, we have to know how to employ different sets of skills for each stage of development.  I go back to Robert Coleman’s, “Master Plan of Evangelism”.  The principles he outlines in that classic relate very well to the various skills, tactics, ministry perspectives and tools that we use along the way as our movements develop.

  1. Forerunner– Association.  Skills include networking, visualizing something when there is nothing and being a spokesperson with churches, faculty and administration.
  2. Pioneering–Selection.  Skills include gathering, casting vision, being a change agent and motivating others to the vision.
  3. Key Contact– Consecration, Impartation.  Skills include recruiting, training, being an effective coach, helping our leaders assess their own skills and needs and how to build a team around them.
  4. Launched–Demonstration, Delegation.  Skills include training in evangelism and discipleship, the ability to impart our core DNA into others and effective delegation.
  5. Multiplying– Supervision, Reproduction.  Skills include setting direction for leaders and knowing how to set others up for success in ministry.

Much like the skills that we develop when we went through our New Staff Development, the skills required of us change as movements develop.  Our leadership must adjust and adapt to those needs.  As ministers, we must grow in our ability to lead at each stage of development.  The tools we use change with a growing movement.

While our ministry requires us to become proficient at every stage of movement development, over time we begin to figure out how we are uniquely wired for ministry, what our gift mix is and how to steward those gifts.  Some of us are simply better at networking, gathering and recruiting.  Some are better at coaching, training and developing leaders.  This is an interesting tension for us in a ministry like CCC.  With an expectation of proficiency at every stage but a tendency toward specialization, this is where our team comes in.  Hopefully, the team we are part of has the breadth of skills to launch and build movements, but also the desire, some who love to start new things and others who can develop those starts.  You can find great resources to help your team launch and build movements on Missional Team Leaders.

The Cornelius Principle February 21, 2009

Posted by Gilbert Kingsley in Launching, Leadership, Volunteers.
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In last week’s tip, I talked about how Christ looked to go to other places even while things were happening at home.  You remember the “whole town was gathered at the door.”   He knew, and we know, that others also need to hear the gospel.  God honors faith in going to other places.  Here is where the “Cornelius Principle” comes into play.

In Acts 10, we see the story of Cornelius.  Peter was praying.  God gave him a vision of a sheet coming down from heaven with various animals on it, some clean and some unclean.  God told him that they were all clean.  At that very moment, Peter received a knock at the door with a request to come to Cornelius’s home, a Gentile home.  Earlier in the chapter we read about this God-fearing Cornelius, but Peter had know way of knowing what would transpire.  When he explained the Gospel, the whole household believed.  Peter came to see that God wanted those outside his community of faith to be saved also.  But the point here is that God had already worked in Cornelius’ heart before Peter ever showed up.  When he heard the message, he received it gladly.

Likewise, we believe that God has already prepared some on other campuses and in other cultural communities to receive the message we bring.  Some are prepared to receive Christ.  And some will have a desire to start a work of God in their community.

For example, Dave Pritchett, Forerunner, Southeast Region, developed a webpage, where students can learn about starting a ministry.  He also developed ads to put on Facebook to point to that page.  John Achilles, Forerunner, Red River Region, placed ads on Facebook for a dozen campuses.  There have been over 425 hits from those campuses the first week.  God cares more about seeing ministries launched on campuses so that others can hear the Good News of Jesus Christ than we ever will.  We know that God wants all to come to faith.  We are simply going where God has already worked ahead of time.

Dave Meritt, Student Venture’s Coaching Center, received an email from Kevin saying that he wanted to make a difference for Christ in a school in Missouri.  Dave emailed him about GoCampus and how he could apply to volunteer with Student Venture.  Within three days, he had an application and all the references in.  He emailed again saying the more he dug into GoCampus, the more excited he got about what God might do.  In Dave’s first phone conversation with him, he mentioned he was connected with five youth pastors who had kids coming from as many schools.  Each one is interested in seeing a movement launched in those schools.  Dave says that the Coaching Center believes God has prepared one or two people to make a difference for Christ in every school in the country.

So as we go, trusting God to raise up those who want to make a difference for Christ, let’s anticipate what God will do.  We can assume that He has been working in advance and we can trust Him to lead us to those Great Commission resources, people and otherwise, to reach that campus or community for Christ.

Volunteers January 26, 2009

Posted by Gilbert Kingsley in Coaching, Launching, Volunteers.
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I have known Lee Davis, formerly Oregon and Nevada Catalytic and now Market Forum Coordinator, for several years.  We have worked together on distance ministry roundtables and other projects over the years.  I have appreciated his pioneering spirit and his vision for growing student and volunteer-led ministries.  He recently called me and we happened to talk about volunteers.  I asked him if he would write this tip for you.

I have been on staff 25 yrs. in February…12 on the WSU and Oregon State campuses and 12 in Catalytic, starting ministries in Alaska, Nevada and Oregon. In the early days of Catalytic I worked alone. I was always promised a team, but it never seemed to work out. My gifting was in pioneering and launching. I did my homework before scouting out a school. As I sought to launch a ministry, I usually had people in the community to meet with along with faculty and interested students. Usually a new ministry was started because a faculty member, or community volunteer or CCC student alum partnered with us to help begin the ministry.

Working with volunteers has been a major part of seeing successful ministries. At Western Oregon University, Ken and Michelle McKinney have volunteered for 10 years. They first got involved by allowing the Catalytic CCC ministry to use their rural property to host a bonfire. As they began to get to know students, our key male and female student leaders asked Ken and Michelle to disciple them. This led to the McKinney’s opening their home to host the weekly servant team meeting. This was such a help to me as a catalytic director, because I realized that as the ministry began to grow from 50 to 100 students, new challenges faced our ministry that required adult council.

After four years of volunteering, the McKinney’s asked for more CCC training. We offered them the opportunity to come to our Spring Leadership Retreat; Winter Conference and Ministry Days @ CSU (which they attended in 2003 & 2007).

In 2007 the McKinney’s asked to “try something new”…becoming Volunteer Campus Directors at Western Oregon University. I felt like they had a great understanding of CCC ministry philosophy, and had taken time out from their business to receive the training needed to make them successful. Michelle has said time and time again how thankful they are for the opportunity to be involved and grateful for those locally and regionally willing to “try something new”.

At this year’s Winter Conference they brought their pastor and his wife, two young married couples that lead Bible studies and an older couple that help pray for the campus. They “impart what they process” and they are helping us develop a model of volunteer-led Missional Teams!

As a CCC Catalytic Director, I realized the importance of empowering others to lead, trusting them to make decisions (2 Tim. 2:2) that are best for their campus ministry and being there as a friend and an associate to give advice and council when needed.

Lee has seen from his own experience the value of working with volunteers.  They are key to the continued growth of our ministry to new campuses, to new contextualized ministries and beyond the campus.  For more by Lee on launching and resourcing ministries out of the old Catalytic Journals: