Small Groups Under Fire: 12 Personalities That Can Make (or Break) Your Community

(upbeat music) - I'm telling you, I'm refraining because I can just feel, just be honest, you know how you gotta know, Austin, you gotta know, like one writer said, you gotta know when to hold them and you gotta know when to fold them, right? - I don't, I generally don't know. - Yeah, so as a theologian, I don't know. - I don't think so, okay. So I'm, you know, I'm measuring what I say here because some of these people drive me crazy. And I'm probably one of these. Somewhere on this list, we can identify as one of these. - I can tell you if you want. - Well, after we stop recording. - But yeah, I'm trying to, I'm trying to just weigh my words here. And again, I think the reason why this is so important, Pastor, is because we love small groups so much and we see the real potential purpose and why they exist and what our vision is. So whenever one of these personalities comes in and starts flexing their personality, we see the damage that it can cause and how it works against what we're trying to do. - Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Between Sundays, Pastor. - So good to see you. - So good to be back here in the first part of the year. And man, we're going at it again, I love it. - Crazy, you know, that this is technically we were just talking about our first episode where we were sitting down and record together. - Yeah. - Which is wild because it's already February, right? - Yeah, we've been through a lot though. I mean, it's not like we've been just twiddling our thumbs. I mean, we've been chipping away at getting out of the ice. - Yeah, what do they say? January was the toughest year so far. (laughing) - Amen to that. - It was so true. - But we did finally thought out everything thought and I'm sure there's still people without power around here. - Yeah, hopefully it's very, very few, but man, it just took a long time to get some power back on. - Yeah, for those of you who may not be local, just some context, like we just came through ice McGueden. We were hoping for snow McGueden, but it turned into ice McGueden. And if you know anything about Tennessee, if we get any snow, it shuts our world down. - If they talk about snow, it shuts the world down. - Bread, milk, everything is gone. But ice is a real deal, that's a deal breaker for us. - That's a wrecker. - Yep. - And so we've been experiencing that. But even through that, you've shared this publicly in our services many times, but just so thankful for the resiliency of our church and the care that our church shows in these times. There were so many times that a need was brought to us highlighted, but it was already being resolved so many times. Which just shows the strength and the care of our church and super thankful for that. - Yeah, that is what you wanna say. Man, that's what you're hoping people truly are getting from the teaching, the culture we're trying to create. Living out biblical principles, caring for one another, valuing one another, checking on one another. And to hear stories that come across, honestly, it's just a blessing. I'm so grateful for the heart of this church. So many fantastic people that are just truly living out their faith. And in Christ's moments like this, it matters. - Yeah, yeah, that's so true. And thankful for that. We joke about January being tough, but there's been so many wins at the same time. The biggest bummer was having to cancel service one day in January. We talk about that being such a challenging decision to make. Ultimately, it was the right call for us, but you feel like we're in a vein. We've got momentum and then that just comes in. But in that momentum, now we have had so many great things happening in January. We were talking before this. And I think we're at eight baptisms so far in January alone, which is just huge, right? Like so many families coming in and seeing the need, having the desire and getting that revelation of baptism in Jesus' name and the necessity of that is so powerful. And so thankful for that. And then obviously, you've just been cast in vision. It felt like we call it a layering approach. We don't want the message to get foggy. Like we want it to be crystal clear. And you've really intentionally leaned in every opportunity in the pulpit to just cast vision. And so we shared the, as you go sermon a couple of weeks ago. So people obviously, locals here who are a part of our church should be very familiar with that. But just share a little bit here, just in this context, we haven't heard your voice on the vision of as you go and where we're at on all that. - Yeah, as you go is really the mindset that you are called to be the salt of the earth and light of the world. And that those are just not metaphors. Those are reality. And then those are not options. That's what we're called to do. That's a command, that's a direction. And as you go is, listen, this is not going to be hard. It's just as you live your life, if you are open to the promptings of God's spirit, as you go, God's going to bring opportunity people that you can step in and be a light and be the salt. And there is really truly some depth and insight about what salt is. And again, we talked about that a little bit. It preserves, right? And it stays back some things. It makes things last and durin. And light just can't, it refuses to hide. And those kind of mindset, those kind of attitudes, spirit, really does matter. Trying to infuse in our church a courage, a bonus, a bonus to live out their faith, that you need to be a part of someone's salvation story. And so grateful for just the culture we're creating, the momentum. I love that word that's being built. And I think it's some defining moment in our church. I do feel like God is using this moment to continue to stretch our church to its preferred future. Yeah, amen. And you feel synergy and momentum. Really, like you feel that in the church. Like it's one thing to cast vision. And for the team, the senior leaders to be excited about it. But if it doesn't get into the proverbial pew, if it doesn't get into the DNA of the church, it doesn't work, right? Because really that's what you want. You want those people, the amazing people of our church to grasp this vision, to feel the way of that, to feel compelled to be the light of the world, to be the salt of the earth. Right. And I just, I'm telling you, I genuinely feel like it's there. It's gonna happen. It's happening. It's on people's lips. And more importantly, it's in their heart. Like it's conversation. And you know, it becomes culture when people start talking about it. And there are things intentional as leaders. Like vision leaks, we know that people have busy lives. They've got other things that just again, distractions and things. And so leaders have to continue sharing the vision. Like when the, the old proverbial, when you're tired of saying it, they're just getting it. Right. So we got to continue with purpose, with poise, with passion, continue to say, no, this is our year. This is your year as you go. God's gonna use you in amazing ways. And to see that taking place is just a beautiful thing. Yeah. And I don't wanna spend a lot of our time rehashing some things. But again, just in this context, some things they heard in the sermon. But just hearing your heartbeat on a few major things, like they're coming down the pike, that again, layer and show that this isn't just a, this isn't a January subject. And then we're just, you know, back to business as usual, whatever that means. We're strategically planning all throughout the year. For these key moments, right, to give opportunities for harvest, for opportunity for people to invite, right? And so there's, you talked about three outward facing events in 2026. Can you just walk through those? Yeah. So again, what we're learning and trying to just have the posture of saying, God, we're gonna continue position ourselves as church to be a harvesting church. And so one of those key indicators is churches that have at least three outward facing events, evangelism events. So for us, we have a Jesus-Tent Revival, Brother Braden Anderson. He's already been here a couple of times. We have a strategy. We're working through that. But I am so excited. And in April, we're going to have a Jesus-Tent Revival somewhere in our community. And we're gonna do our best to let that be a true living example of being the light of the world. There are people in our church that are already gravitating toward that. Their hearts already, like they come up to me and say, whatever it takes, we want to sponsor that. The other event that we're gonna do, and we haven't done this in a long time, but it's not new. And that is like a friends day. We're gonna strategically help our people. And the thing that we are saying, this is how you take a friends day to the next level, is not just inviting people. There's like a 15% chance. They'll come if you just a hand them a card. Hey, would you come? They're gonna be kind, polite, right? They may not show up. But if you want to really ramp up the game, invite them to go to lunch with you. Invite them, hey, let's come to church and we'll go to lunch. When you throw that in there, it just takes that opportunity or that invite to the next level. So we're saying that. As simple as that is, it's a tool. And it just gives people the strength to ask and then take that to the next level. And so to our church family, on that friends day, invite them and then invite them to lunch. And again, pay for that lunch. God's gonna bless you. All right. But I'm looking forward to that. been people. Then the third. outward facing event is our fall event. Now here's the difference between that. We've had fall events and we do fantastic events. - Absolutely. - I'm so proud of our team. Man, they do amazing job. They really think through this. They want a positive, great experience for families, kids, moms and dads, our church family, all of that. But here's the difference. This fall event, we're going to intentionally pause. And we're gonna shut down games, shut down rides, shut down whatever, shut down food, and just say, can I just have a moment of your time? - Yeah. - Because this is a moment that God wants to speak to you. And I'm praying even now for the boldness in that moment to say, God, give me the right words to pray, to say over people that maybe that's the first time they're on this campus. They may have been invited by a family friend. And again, they thought they're coming for a good time. But in that moment, man, God, we're gonna pray over those people. We're gonna ask God to deal work. Who knows what's gonna happen in that moment? And so we're just going to be bold and we're gonna be intentional. And we're gonna ask God, Lord, use our efforts. And I believe God's gonna do great things. - I do too. I do too. And I love that. We talk internally a lot. You've got a couple of different cultures of churches that exist. You've got your event-driven type churches like they're just, man, they excel in events. And what we've learned through my time being here in years is we can pull off fantastic events. We have great talented people. We're able to really dive in and be creative and make it wow moments. And I think we've done that well. And what you feel, there's always been a tug of this. It's not like all of a sudden we're like, okay, now let's really be serious about being the light and salt. There's always been that. But you feel a little bit different urgency now. You know what I mean? That's the word that I feel. There's a different sense of urgency to say, we don't just want to have an event just to say thumbs up. You know, a lot of people came. That was great. We had a lot of fun. There's an urgency to live out this vision. You know, obviously the great commission, right? What a Jesus laid out for us. And so I feel that. And I feel that to your point, I feel the church catching that vision like never before. This language isn't new. This vision isn't even new. Like we've been talking about stuff like this for as long as I can remember. It's why the church exists, you know? But you just feel a different sense of, I feel a different sense of urgency for sure. And maybe even that's personal. You know, like personally you feel a different urgency to it. And your perspective changes. So super, super thankful for all of that. And just have a lot of faith to believe that God is going to really do some amazing things through us this year. We'll look back on this year. And you said this is going to be a pivotal year for our church in so many ways. I think those three events, we're going to see so much fruit. And I believe that. True fruit, you know? And you know, there's another thing that we wouldn't put it necessarily into these three outward facing events. But it fits right into the mission, you know, in vision of our church, that discipleship vision, which is small groups. And right now we are in the throes of launching this next semester of small groups. As we're recording this today, so yesterday we launched small group signups. And just a buzz about that, you preached a powerful message about connection and community. And being able to do life with others and that completing our joy. And there was a genuine buzz in the lobby as well. Just around small groups team and people being excited about it. And again, and maybe, maybe I'm just seeing everything through rose colored glasses right now. But it just felt even more synergy and excitement around it, you know? And I just, I just love that. So we're about to, we're about to launch into another semester of small groups, which is, which is so important to us, right? Amen. So tell a little bit about why small groups matter so much to us. And so just a backup, just a little bit here. So when we just really asked the hard questions, like, what do we need to do? If we could pour a lot of energy, a lot of time, a lot of focus, again, what would take our church to the next level? We really decided that we need to just begin to call it out. We want to engage people, not just passive attenders. We don't want people to just show up. We want them to be heavily vested, engage members, call it engagement. Now that's not new language in the church space. But for us, defining what that really is, well, an engaged member is a part of a small group, right? They're building community fellowship. Those are biblical words and engage member connects relationally with people inside the church and outside. This is where the salt and light comes in. They're intentionally engaging in connection with people. I mean, that's important. That's two other things is they generously give their givers. That's what an engaged person does. And then they serve. There's a ministry. There's a mindset of heart of serving. So those are the four things that we're just calling out. We're saying, if you want a mark, if you want the in zone, then here's the in zone. This is what an engaged member looks like. And so in my mind, I believe that small groups forever and a day until the rapture takes place, small groups are going to be a healthy part of a dynamic apostolic church. It's biblical, it's deeply biblical. But whatever the future holds, the complexity of what our world is becoming, small group is an integral part of the survival, the growth and the strength of a local church. Amen. And you know, I just dive in a little more on that engaged member. So really, if someone's listening to this and they hear those four things, an engaged member, is it a small group? A bright engaged member is connecting relationally with people and engaged member is giving generously with joy. Yes. And an engaged member is serving somewhere in the ministry. So someone could listen to that and they may think they're an engaged member. Like they're an engaged part of what's going on in the local church here. And we would say if you can't answer yes to all four of those, then you may not be as engaged as you think you are. Because these are the four areas that are like, this is it, right? Or moving the needle. Small groups connecting relationally, generously giving and serving in ministry. And so if you're listening and you're like, I'm not one of those, one of those, I'm not there yet. This is what we're, this is why we're talking about. This is part of the vision because we want, we want to be an engaging church and we want you to be engaged in what God is doing here. And so that's a little, a little test, right? That's a little examination to determine that. And so I would, if you're listening, I would definitely consider those four things and then ask yourself, am I really, am I really doing those four things? And that leads us to our content for today because you've been, you've been talking about small groups really. We had a Wednesday night where you dove into, you know, a little bit of this as well from an engaged member standpoint. And we wanted to bring, we wanted to bring some of that to this episode of between Sundays because you said it earlier, you said there's so much teaching about being a great small group leader. Right. And but that's the smallest number in the grand scheme of what we're doing, you know, in our church. That's the smallest number of people. We need fantastic small group leaders. That's right. That doesn't go away. That's the cause of work without it. But you also need fantastic small group members. Right. And so we want to talk through that today. We want to talk about, what does it, what does it look like to be a fantastic small group member? Yeah. And I think this is part of the equation or the other side of the coin that rarely gets spoken about, about what does it mean to be a small group, a fantastic small group member, again, part of a group that makes that group better. That's just an important teaching. And so I guess Chris Hodges said something like this, like don't say our people can't ask them, are we leading them to do this? Like have we put the energy, the teaching, have we made this, we're not assuming this is going to happen. Like if you just show up, you're just going to get it. Yeah. No, we're, we want to give you some real teaching, some really equipping. We want to equip you to be a fantastic small group member. And so honestly, this is where I begin to just say, I'm going to talk about this. And I don't know exactly how this is going to unfold. I don't know how it's going to be received, but it needs to be spoken. It needs to be said. One of these is going to hit most people because again, you don't see your own blind spots of what hinders you from being a fantastic small group member. But we take serious, that our responsibility of trying to do the teaching, the hard lifting of helping people become a fantastic small group member. So before we launch into it, I just want you to maybe break down why this is, you know, we're about to walk through all of that. But why is this part of it so important to having a successful small group ministry, to having a healthy, let's just, I'd rather use that with the word healthy, a healthy small group ministry or a healthy small group? Why? Why not just a healthy small group leader? Why does having good small group members matter? Yeah. And that's a great question. What I want to say is, is because it just takes one member to make a small group funky. It just, again, the weirdo factor we would call it, you know, and it would be one individual, one personality type, one individual that can really just shift the whole culture of that group. And it's important because you and I both have had amazing small group experiences. And I've had some not so amazing, right? And so we're addressing challenges and personality. You may not see this in yourself, but we want to address it because everyone seems normative. until you get to know them, right? They seem normal. - Sure. - Then you start seeing, like, oh, no, this is off. - When they get in your living room. - That's right, that's exactly. And so we're not hiding that, like, when we do teaching training on this, we say this is challenging, because you're dealing with people, and people are not as pristine as we want them to be. They come with challenges with dysfunction and brokenness in our world. There's a lot of people that don't know what it looks like, or feels like they've never seen an example. And so to them, they're just being them. But it doesn't add to the healthy, small group experience. - Yeah, and one thing I love that we've learned along the way of this small group journey that we've been on for like 15 years now, I think, is it's that we didn't, we stopped just sending small group leaders out into the small group world and said, "Hey, you got it, people are gonna sign up." - We're praying. - We believe you. - Yeah, believe in you and you got this. We started changing that approach to where partnering people together, creating a strong base, a little bit of a core group. - A little bit of a core group kind of vibe. - And just so you know what that is, again, those that are listening is that, that's two or three people, two or three couples that are the core of a small group. So if no one shows up, or the weirdo shows up, or whatever shows up, you at least have a couple of with you that are the core of that group that makes it healthy. It protects the culture, right? - Yeah, sure. - Makes it, at least, at least you don't feel like you're doing it on your own. And I think we've seen some great success. There's been some small groups, I think that have been saved or redeemed. - Yeah. - You know, their experiences have been redeemed by changing our approach to that. So that's just for people listening, whether you're here locally or outside and you're thinking about small groups, that's one of our strategies, it's very intentional, to help with what we're about to walk through because you already said it, we definitely want healthy, great small group members too, but sometimes they're just not. Sometimes they're on the journey. And so the way we help offset that as much as possible is by some core group members that can work together in those scenarios. - Yeah, I wanna bring something up that really is important. And this is a lot in the business space, a lot in the work culture, okay? But it needs to be in the church culture and especially small groups. And that is really a self-awareness. And that is so important, that you know how you affect the room, you know how you create either attention or create a relaxation, how you affect the conversation, self-awareness is huge. And I know there's a lot of people writing about that and talking about that, but it's important for every member to really assess that. Like, how do I, am I, am I aiding? Am I helping, am I being a strength or my distraction? And sometimes honestly people don't know. They really, really don't know. They think that this is okay, but self-awareness is huge. And part of what we're talking about today is addressing that issue of self-awareness. - So let's jump into this because this is where the proverbial rubber meets the road, right? And I love the way this is broken down. I don't know if this is original. If you've pulled this resource, but either way, I love how we're about to break this down because it clearly identifies the different personality types that can exist within a small group. And somewhere in this list, every person can be like, I may lean toward that sometimes. I could drift into that. So this isn't about calling people out or just trying to show people that side. This is generally to try to drive people to identify, self-identify, say this is where I'm at, and adjust, right? - One hundred percent. - And give them tools of how to do that. So making people aware, I guess, we're bringing awareness today. (laughs) So you called it challenging personalities. So let's just walk through this list of challenging personalities that can exist in a small group. - Well, let me, let me where the basis of this comes from. So there's a book I came into acquaintance with called The Handbook on Small Groups. It's just a little book, but just fantastic content. Just kind of working through all of the different areas and scenarios and situations of small group. This actually comes from a chapter called challenging personalities. - Okay. - Okay, so I just wanna give credit what credit is to do, but this comes from that small group book that really addresses challenging personalities. - So, you know, I get out of, always though it's risky to tell how many there are 'cause you kind of set yourself up. But let's just do it, right? Let's just let them know how many are there. - I think there's 12, they mentioned. So we'll blaze through these, but I think they're worth noting. - Somebody driving down the road just said, they looked at how far they are from their destination. And they thought, "I'm not gonna finish this one today." (laughs) - But we are gonna roll through this pretty quick. So we're not gonna live on these. You kick off, we're kicking it off right here with the first one. I mean, I'm just telling you, this is the hot topic. - This is really it. - Okay, so the number one is the political junkie. And it's described like she assumes that everyone shares her political leanings and considers everyone who doesn't, either an enemy or a fool to be corrected. She can be accidentally and sometimes purposefully offensive. - Yeah. - Now, let me be clear, I'm a very political guy. I gotta manage that. You know, I don't talk a lot about it from the pulpit. But you wanna ask me questions? I don't mind sharing with you, but honestly, I've seen this where it can be a challenge because in our church here, there are people on both sides of the party, okay? And whether I agree with that or not, that's not the issue. And the point that leaders have to do is, we're not one way or the other. We're not Democrat, independent or Republican. We are kingdom first. - Yes. - Right, that's what binds us together. And so let's be reminded of that. Again, I've had some wonderful conversations about politics. I enjoy that. Again, I have some very strong opinions about that and leanings about that. And I'm not apologizing about that. I think I've studied person. I think I've educated myself more importantly. I think biblically, I know where I'm at. And so, but I cannot let that be divisive because there's people coming in from all kinds of different backgrounds. - Absolutely. Yeah, I think the point of this would be, you know, this matters. There's a time and place for these conversations. As the church, we're not afraid. As leaders, we're not afraid of these conversations. I love to grab a cup of coffee in the right context and timing and talk through this stuff in a civil way, right? Even if we don't agree, I love that. I think sitting down, this isn't the topic of the podcast but we should probably do an episode on this. I think the answer to the issues in our world today around this political is if people would sit down with a cup of coffee and just talk face to face. Get off of Facebook, get off of social media, quit sharing all your opinions there and go sit and talk to people and talk to people who disagree with you. Hear their perspective. But what we're saying is small groups is not the right spots. - That's exactly right. - That's not the right place for it. So, how do we help people, like we're gonna try to give a strategy with each one of these. So, what's the strategy for this one? - So, the strategy here is to explain that your group is a place to build for everyone, right? To build relationships. And so, again, this can be very divisive. And again, if that's your political ending, that's great. But let's keep politics away from small groups. Yeah, there's a time and place, but this is not that. - Invite them to coffee later. - Yeah. - There you go. - Just stay focused on small groups in the content and relationship building. All right, that's number one. The political junkie, what's number two? - Number two is the Pharisee. Like the Pharisees in the Gospel, he knows the word of the Bible, every word of the Bible. - Every word, okay? - And he knows when you mispoint out something or mispeak something or whatever, he's overtly pious in judgment, okay? And so, yeah, this is somebody that, again, comes in with their looking down and their nose, so to speak, and just trying to find some fault. - Yeah. They know the word of God. They just miss the entire point of the word of God. - 100%. So, this probably exists, this probably exists more in the church world, like especially people at like, I know that all of these exist, but there's a lot of people in small groups where I think what they do, maybe with the purist of motives, unintentionally, a lot of times people don't get the opportunity to share all of the things that they've learned and studied and know, and small groups becomes the platelet, it becomes their platform to flex on all of their biblical knowledge, right? And again, I think what we have to continue to remind everyone is that that's not the goal of small groups. - Right. - Somebody explained it this way, and we could frame the rest of these probably around this. Like, if you can set, if you can set the cornerstone purpose of this, like of small groups, which for us, the purpose is relationship building. - Right, connection to the church. - There's a discipleship element to this, a 100% and we're extremely intentional and thoughtful about the content that we share. Your pastoral team, senior leaders, aren't just willy-nilly out here, just throwing stuff. We are praying and asking God to give us direction on content. So it's very specific. So that's the discipleship side. So if you set those cornerstone purposes, anything that violates, that it just doesn't work. Like it doesn't belong in there. Anything that goes against or chips away at that or undermines that it doesn't work. So if this semester we're we're about to be diving into Andy's Stanley. Excuse me brother Stan Gleason. Wow. Totally. I'm so sorry. I hope we don't edit that. Yeah, I hope he hears that. Yeah, I got you. But brother Gleason's follow to lead his book, which is so on time. Right. This is not the time to do a deep dive into the book of revelation in your small group and share all the things that you know about, you know, in time prophecy and all the things. We want to focus on the content, right? I think that's the point. That's the point of this. Yeah, and I think it's great to remind people that hey, we're not perfect. People really do come broken and flawed. Yeah. And they need a lot of grace. Right. And so this is a place to give them that grace. Yeah. All right. So that's that's number two. What's number three? Yeah, this is probably one of my pet peeves right here. And this is the Eagle maniac. Okay. And everything it's described as everything. And I do mean everything somehow turns into a story about them. Okay. Like they they're going to take every scenario. And then they're going to turn that around and it becomes about them. And it's hard for them to share attention with other people. And yeah, I think this is where you need to be very careful. And now what I tell people is when people are telling you stories, the best question in every conversation is the follow up question. Okay. So if someone's sharing something instead of you diving in and say, Oh, yeah, that's my, well, let me tell you about me. Instead of you kind of hijacking the conversation, why don't you pause? Okay. And just ask them and dig a little deeper into their conversation or their experience or their story. And so yeah, I think this is one of my pet peeves right here. Yeah. You have a hard time with this person. I do. So how do you handle that person? But you know what? Honestly, sometimes those are private conversations. Yeah. Because people that do that, even even hearing this, they would not think they themselves. Interesting. Right. They're hearing this. And they're thinking, Oh, he's talking about somebody else. Like it's a great moment. Like you need to test yourself in a conversation. Do you, do you engage that conversation? Yeah. Or it always comes back to you. Do you like, Oh, yeah, well, let me tell you about mine or no way. Well, let me tell you what happened. Let me tell you about my disease or let me tell you about my, whatever. I think you need to stop talking about yourself for a moment and just kind of dive into that person. There's a real, that's a learning curve for a lot of people. Yeah. I drive them to an others first mentality, like group. This is about all of us. All right. So that's the egomaniac number four. Yeah. Thankfully, I don't think I've seen this one, but I think it is true. And that's the network builder. Okay. So you get the strange sensation that he joined the group to sell products or to build their personal pyramid, right? Yeah. At some point he will ask you, what would you do with the next for five thousand a month? Right? Okay. So again, small groups is not a place for you to pawn off your latest financial endeavor to build your pyramid or to sell your business. Yeah, this is not a recruiting ground. Yeah. Listen, listen, like if you, yeah, if we start here, right? And then you get three people, yeah. Listen, five thousand dollars a month. It's your way. What could you do with five thousand extra dollars a month? Yeah. It's not a place to push your business. It's not and I'm not saying you can't talk about business, but your motive has to be right. Yeah. Your motive has to be right. Like I don't mind people that have business in the church and they do business with members of the church. That's normal. You're looking for a safe place to do business. I get all that, but that's not the purpose. Yeah. That's not the reason why we gathered small. No, that that would ding the culture of small groups. If people think that they're just joined and now they're getting a sales pitch every week. Yeah, that's that's not good. All right. So number five. Yeah, this one's interesting. And I think it's and it needs to be noted. Okay. We should have put this on probably with it. Maybe you could go in, but it's the Illuminati. The Illuminati, there's the individual that has just all these conspiracy theories and they read the internet. They get these and they want to share them. They believe they're jumping on board of these conspiracy theories and they want to talk about them. And it's something there's there is some real social extent understanding about people that believe conspiracy theory. There's a there's a I don't know if it's a personality. I don't know if it's a emotional defect. Okay. I'm not saying everyone that believes is is defective, but I am saying there is some a sense that I know more than you, right? Like it puts me at a different level. Like I'm smarter than you. There's an intellect part of that. There's some real study about that. Okay. And I'm not saying everyone that believes a conspiracy theory is that way, but there's a there's a true a true ism when I'm saying here. So it we have to be very careful there. Yeah. I have to be very careful here. Okay. It drives me nuts sometimes. You know, yeah. Again, just even outside of small groups, but since we're going to we're going to stay on topic about small groups, because between Sundays is not our opportunity. We know this is not our platform to vent about our own pet peeves. Okay. We already had we already had your episodes. We could do that. Okay. But yeah, this is small groups is not the place to do that. You don't know why it's divisive. That's right. That's like great point. Anything that's divisive does not belong in small groups. Now, we want to use the word of God. Yes. To separate. Yes. To to to to to push people toward Jesus. Right. That's that's great. But opinions, political stuff like that. That's just not small groups is not the place. You join your Facebook group for, you know, illuminati stuff. And I hope Austin in post production. I hope he puts some really light eerie music behind this this part of it. But yes, small group is not the place for conspiracy. The latest greatest. All of those, all of those things. Let's keep it focused on what the purpose of it is. Yeah, because I think most conspiracy theories have an element of fear, you know, like there's something governments coming in taking all your stuff. Right. And again, we want to stick to the word of God that gives hope. Like you can believe whatever you want to. But we want to we we're not going to live in fear. We're not going to live what walk looking over our back, our shoulder. We're looking over your back, looking over your shoulder. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. You're just not going to we're not going to live that. We're not going to teach that Jesus is the hope of the world. We have a promise. We're going to let the Bible be what it is. And so, yeah, I just think that's a great, great point. Yeah, that's a great, it's a great reminder. And again, I could keep going. But we're going to move on to number six. And this is the cryptic individual. Okay. So here's how it they're described everything he says is mysterious and hard to understand. He never gives straight answers. Never ask direct question. Okay. It's always mysterious. It's always wrapped and shrouded in some like a depth and revelation. Like in some insight that you don't get. And yeah, people just want normal, understandable, common sense. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I haven't ever experienced this person, you know, in a small group setting. Another context, of course. But there's no there's no place for for that clarity. Let's just be it again, normal is relative, right? Like what's normal to me and you may not be normal to others. But this is this is a I've just tried to imagine a scenario of what the cryptic would like, what that would be like. Yeah, you know, sometimes it's wrapped around like, you know, the pokedaliptic stuff and things of that nature. You know, or even just some deep revelations, you know, about the godhead. Like there's there's all kinds of different things. But honestly, every time they kind of ask a question that's kind of shrouded in mystery, it's a great opportunity to say, hey, can you just simplify that for me? Yeah. And you can you can you just kind of bring it down to my level so I can understand. Like if you call them out on it, it just kind of helps that. Yeah. I'm just thinking, you know, there's some people in our world, like my world that I am. I should probably share this at the end, but I'm gonna share it now because we're halfway through. There's there's so many there's so many people who joined small groups to make friends to get connected to be a part of discipleship. And they really they couldn't care less about some of the things like what you just described at this at this stage. They couldn't care less about, you know, the beasts and you know, or even doctrine. Me honestly, they don't they don't they don't care how many gods you believe they're not there. You know what they care about right friends. So long not being alone. Right. How to get free of addiction. Yep. Like so. And what I'm thinking is is that what we may do, I'll get with Trenton in Bethany and maybe we just create a semester small groups, their interest based groups. And we just label them as all of these. So if you're a cryptic, here's your cryptic. Eliminate one another man. You guys, the comment time theory group. Yeah, man. Would that be interesting? Okay. Number seven. The rest of the yeah, this and I've seen this now. I've experienced this one and that is the emotional black hole. Okay. So they dominate the prayer time with their extensive list of needs and again, that goes beyond the scope of the group, right? And people can be needy. Be careful if you're a needy person, right? It's okay to share appropriately your needs. Yeah. And as trust is built, relationships with our bill, you can share more of the needs. But but somebody that is always deeply in need and always emotional about it. It's hard to build a foundation, a trust, a relationship with a, somebody that seems like they're emotional black home. Yeah, how do you, how do they balance that? Because, you know, in the goal of small groups, you want, you want that to be a safe place. We talk about it being a safe place where people share what they're going through. Right? So how do you balance that? I'm going to, I'm going to let the group in, but I don't, but I'm not going to over share or dominate. Yeah. So I think number one of the ways that you could do that is, is just, again, if you have a list of things, you don't want to share the deepest, most insightful, you're, you know, your greatest failure. I think this is where you start with more understandable things, where people get, and as trust is built, and you feel like, hey, these people understand, then you can get more like sometimes there's layers in people's lives or experiences that, as you go through them, you're okay with that because you know the heart of that person. When someone, someone's vomiting on you, day one, yeah, man, that's just a hard hill to climb. That's right. Like I'm avoiding this person because I did just, man, I don't get away from that. And so the wisdom is prevailing here. I think a good small group leader can come alongside that individual privately and say, listen, man, we want to walk this journey with you. But you know what, maybe bring one need. Like we don't need a bag full of needs. Maybe one need God knows and God cares. And I'll pray with you, but and that doesn't mean that they're not important. Just means that, you know what, for the group to get on board with you, we need to be wise here. Yeah. Love that. Number eight. Number eight is the boss. They may not be the official leader, but they will shirk like they're their official leader, right? When they speak with authority, they want people to pay attention. This is a, these are personnel. This is truly a strong personality. They want their voice and their presence known. They want you to know they're, they're, they'll use words like, hey, I don't, I'm not afraid to speak my mind. I'll tell you the truth. Right. It's like it's coming off on that. I've found that those kind of people, there's, there's lots of insecurities. Right. Lots of insecurities are there. Yeah. And so those are, those are leadership ability, you know, that type of personality. There's a great spot for that. Yeah. You know, and it's amazing how often those type of people don't want to lead a small group. Interest, everything about that is very interesting. Like a lot of times, the people who have that type of personality, they don't want to lead anything. Yeah. They want it. They, we would call them the armchair quarterback. Yeah. Like they, they don't, they don't want or, or, or nobody wants them to lead anything. That would be the other side of it. Maybe they want to, but nobody wants them to. Yeah. And I think it's like this, they want influence. They don't want responsibility. Yeah. That's a great way to get it. Right. They want influence. They just don't want response. Dangerous. Yeah. So a good place for them, because there is some leadership ability there, is maybe put them as the sheriff of the group. Now, if you don't know what the sheriff is, I've heard this is a lot of the sheriff is the person at the end, like I say, it's at a house and say, hey, group, man, we need to wrap up in about three minutes. And, you know, there's school tomorrow. And kids got to be put to bed. And there's still things that our host family needs to do. Like that sheriff is the one that, that makes sure everybody's out of the house. Yeah. Like there's sometimes I tell that sheriff in our group, like you don't leave until everybody galses. Like you, if you stay, if, if you leave a nice, I'm in a pastoral counseling conversation. Yeah. I'm stuck into something that I didn't want to be stuck. I didn't sign up for this is not the place for a pastoral conversation. Right. So the sheriff is the one that says, hey, and it really takes the pressure off the host, right? Or takes the pressure off me and say, hey, game, but we're so glad you came. And man, we want to make sure this, this group ends well. Man, let's, let's wrap up. Let's go. And you are literally the last person. Now, that could be a good place for somebody like this. Love that, love that. All right. Number nine. Number nine, the contrarian. She lives to argue, right? She's listening to any mistakes or jumps on it. You know, and she, she always is parsing every word and trying to find some new ones to argue with. And so yeah, this is the contrarian. They're always looking for a way to disagree or, hey, have you ever heard, have you ever considered the devil's advocate? I don't mind people being the devil's advocate, but for goodness sake, I think you need to be God's advocate for at least a long, right? At least, but just a man something every now and then, like just you don't always have to be the opposing view. And when you are that person, oh, Lord have mercy. Yeah. Yeah. I'm telling you, I'm refraining because I can just feel just be on, you know, you got to know Austin, you got to know, like one writer said, you got to know when to hold them and you got to know when to fold them, right? I don't, I generally don't. Yes, that's a theologian. I don't know. I don't think so. Okay. All right. And I'm probably one of these somewhere on this list, we can identify as one of these. I can tell you if you want, well, after we stop recording. But yeah, I'm trying to, I'm trying to just, uh, weigh, weigh my words here. And again, I think the reason why this is so important, Pastor, is because we love small groups so much and we see the real potential purpose and why they exist and what, what our vision is. So whenever one of these personalities comes in and, and starts flexing their personality, we see the damage that it can cause. That's how it works against what we're trying to do. And so, and hinders them from building true community. Some people on this list, they need small groups more than they would ever realize, but they can't seem to understand that the part of the problem is what we're talking about 100 cells or drives people away. All right. Let's, let's go to, let's go to number 10. What's number 10? Yeah, the story, top, okay, the, the top is often a champion storyteller. At his best, he creates a fun space for everyone to tell stories about real life. And that's the beauty about it at his worst. He competes for the best, most interesting, grandest story, creating a competitive environment that closes down the group. Like he has a way of making his stories better than your stories. And so, yeah, this is another common, you know, I guess personality defect that you don't always have to be the best story. In fact, you don't even always have to tell your story. Yeah. You know, let people have the spotlight as well. Just be a great listener. Like, I'm just telling you, the more people would just listen and let, I hear some language that I've heard recently, make people the hero. 100% make others the hero. Like stop trying to make yourself. There's a strategy, there's a marketing strategy and companies in the secular world and companies that says, too often companies try to make themselves their product. What they do is the hero make the consumer the hero and they'll want, they'll want, they want to be in partnership with you. So the more the way I would hear what you're saying is stop making yourself the hero to every story and making yourself like make them the hero dive in, you know, and then the humor side of me starts thinking, what would happen if we just put an egomaniac and a story topper together and just record their conversation. Put them in a group. I listen. I'm fantastic. Yeah. The fish, the, it's like the fish story. Yeah. I get just grow every time you tell it, the fish gets bigger and bigger. I mean, we're pulling up wells. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right out, right out of the lake here at Tennessee, called a shark. You know, yeah. These people are not fun to be around. Yeah. When they feel it, and again, you said a word earlier, a lot of this is rooted in that insecurity. Yeah. Like they got to, they got a one up, you know, and there's a whole, you do a whole, you do a whole lesson on this stuff about story topper and communicating. And it's conversations. How to have a conversation and that's so good. I don't know if we, are we done an episode on that? I don't think so. That would be a good episode. How to have a conversation. But that's so important for the context of small groups, right? Because it is supposed to be very conversational. It's supposed to be very everyone participates, no one dominates. And so if you have a dominating topping approach to small groups, what's going to end up happening is you're going to be the only voice that everyone hears every week. And nobody wants to do that. And what about the people that are silent in the group? Like again, some people are more naturally, you know, desired to talk. They were naturally add to the conversation. Others that have a lot to contribute may be need to call out. And so, you know, one of the ways that we can help is by asking questions. Like again, a topic can help, honestly, the conversation because they're good at telling stories is pulling out other people's stories and asking questions. Think of every small group member just had the mindset, I'm going to ask questions and hear people's out. They hear people's story out. I think our groups would have more meaningful conversations. You want to, here's just like a picture of small groups. So I've been a part of small groups before where before you officially start small groups, like before we kick sit down, we're going to watch the video, watch the room, watch how much people are talking, engaging each other, having conversations, the volume of the room, just watch the energy. And then if discussion time happens and it just dies, ask yourself why? Why does no one want to talk or speak right now? You know, like that would be, that always, it's always intriguing to me to see And some people just are very insecure to share in those moments of discussion, you know, for whatever reason. But, and I know this isn't geared towards small group leaders, but that's a, we've talked about that being a gift as well. You don't want your small group leader, especially to be a top or 100% to dominate. But you want to, you want to try to create room for everyone in this small group to have conversation. And sometimes the best time for that, I'm telling you, is through the food, there's a lot of food, is strategic, having connection through those moments. So when you're in those moments, it may not even be in the discussion part of the small group. It could be in the fellowship time at the beginning as you're just warming up that whatever, don't be a topper, let people talk, let people share their wins, make them the hero. What's number 11? - Number 11 is the wanderer. She usually lovable and fun, but she will take your crew down. Many Arabid trails, if you let her, the curriculum is an optional map that just she likes to ignore, okay? So you may be on a subject, but man, her story, her answers will take it down to different rabble. Again, I use here, she interchangeably because anybody does this. I'm saying both sides, right? That again, rabbit hole, rabbit trails. Man, I've seen people take a conversation totally the wrong way. Yeah, this is where a great leader would bring that back and say, you know what, hey, that's very interesting. You know, that's a very interesting thought, but let's stick to the content. Let's kind of come back here and bring that conversation back. - Yeah, they're like, boop, like put a pin in that. We'll park that car. Yeah, we're coming back. - We're coming back. - All right, last one, number 12. - The comedian, everything's a joke or an opportunity to make a joke, right? They're just that wired that way. Again, I think there's a lot of issues there as well, but at their best, he lightens the moon, puts a smile on everyone's face, at the worst, they won't let a serious moment take place in the group. Like when it gets deep, meaningful, when it gets to that moment, they'll do something to break the tension of them. And so groups are supposed to get to the point where I think it's around in my experience about between week four, five, six, there's something that happens in the dynamic of a group. There's a trust, there's a strength that happens and deeper, more meaningful conversations can happen. People open up their heart a little bit more. And that's a special moment. And if they're not aware of that or they're not tuned into that, sometimes an ill-time joke or ill-time funny moment can break that tension. That doesn't help the group get better. - Yeah, that's tricky because again, like you said, we want meaningful moments, but we want laughter. It's not that we don't want that. - Exactly. - Laughter is a sound of health as well. So there's definitely a place for it. But I think it's just wisdom to know when. And I guess as we're wrapping this up, I'm thinking like, if I was in a small group and I, I didn't have, like if I wasn't experiencing whether I'm a leader or just a part of the group, if I wasn't experiencing some of the key things we talked, the cornerstone things. If I wasn't seeing that there was connection happening, like people taking deeper steps in their relationship with one another, if I didn't see people taking steps in their relationship with Jesus, if I didn't see conversations happening, whether that's through the discussion of curriculum or during fellowship times, I would step back and look through this list and say, okay, are some of these personalities existing in here that's undermining this? And then as a leader, if I'm a small group leader or if I just feel like, I wanna protect the culture even as a small group member, I may try to have, there's a key word through all of these strategies, is have a private conversation with somebody. And it may start with the leader, like, hey, here's some things I've noticed. So and so, like right when the moment feels like, man, somebody is about to really open up and share something deep. Like they make a joke and it just changes the trajectory or dynamic. Like every week, like this guy brings a new conspiracy theory and it just feels uncomfortable in the room, you know, like being able to have those honest moments of acknowledging that and then trying to figure out how to correct it. I think that's the goal here. And the ultimate goal is, what are we protecting? What we're protecting the purpose of small groups, which is for fellowship and community and discipleship and all of us growing and taking steps toward Jesus. Anything that hinders that or affects that negatively, we want to address it and get rid of it as much as possible. It's our effort to try to have as meaningful and as healthy groups as we possibly can. We need fantastic leaders, we need fantastic members. We really truly want you to have an experience that anchors your faith, that deepens your walk with God, connect you to your spiritual family, that matters. That's so important. We can't make that happen. But it is our attempt to try to teach train equipped for us to have the best small group system we can possibly have. Yeah, amen. Well, I hope that everyone listening to this takes it to heart. I hope genuinely. If one of these is you, you know, that you self-examine and you take extreme ownership of that and you make adjustments as needed because we want you to be a great small group. 100%. You want to be a great small group member. We all need to be great small group members. And so if you need to go back and listen to those again and say, okay, that's me right there. And if you don't know if it's you, go ask the small group leader that you're in, which one you are. And they'll probably tell you, you know, they'll probably help you with that. As we get ready to wrap up, we want to highlight one of our amazing volunteers. And today, the volunteer that we're going to highlight is so fitting for this. Absolutely. This subject, this content. And so Pastor, who do we have today? Yeah, we have a great member of our church. She is actually a teacher at Irshan, Dr. Yann Alexander. Yeah. And so we are so grateful for it. She is a fantastic small group leader. Her group is stellar. Again, she rallies the troops there. She cares deeply about her members. She leads, she would call it the Starbucks group, right? And the Starbucks place and get the right. They get it. Yeah, right. It's wonderful and scary all at the same time. But man, the heart of a great small group leader, she is also the conference coordinator for our small group summit that we are hosting for the United Pentecostal Church. We're so grateful. The conference is called, grow through groups. And looking forward to that at the end of February. She is the one that has helped coordinating that. So really could us to her and her leadership. So grateful. She also teaches in our summer breakout classes. She's been a teacher there. Next step, she's just started, I think it's step three, right? And connect, I think she just started teaching there as well with that team. And so, Deanna, she's a fantastic volunteer at our church and been a part of our church for a long, long time. So many different roles. Just a great leader, great individual. Just so thankful for her ministry and what God is doing through her. But her verse is Psalms 27-4. And it reads like this, one thing, have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. Deanna, thank you for your leadership. Thank you for being a great, fantastic, small group leader. We're so blessed to have you and your influence, your leadership in this church, your giftings. God bless you. Thank you. Amen. Love you, Deanna. Appreciate you very much. And thank you guys for listening to this episode of Between Sundays. We'll catch you next time. [MUSIC PLAYING]