Recruiting New Leaders for Community Groups

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Objective: Helping people discover their God-given call to being Community Group Leaders

Rather than trying to sell something that people don’t want, we are giving people the opportunity to participate in God’s discipleship agenda for the church.

We’re not trying to steal people from other ministries, and we’re not trying to make people who are already too busy to add one more thing to their plate. Instead, we’re looking for people who love God and love people, who are ready to step up to a new challenge of shepherding a group of people toward Christ-likeness and kingdom-minded service.

What keeps most people from responding to the invitation to “start a group?”

·      They’re too busy, either participating or serving in other ministries, and/or with family, kids, work, hobbies, sports, etc.

·      They don’t feel qualified to lead (they haven’t led before, not enough Bible knowledge, don’t think they can do it, don’t have the gift of teaching, etc…)

·      They don’t feel called to lead

·      They’re already in a group and don’t want to leave the community of friends they’re connected to – that can feel like a divorce!

Everybody’s challenge is nobody’s challenge! The problem with only doing mass appeals for new Community Group Leaders is that we’ll get a limited number of respondents (in recent campaign at the Rock Church, two Sundays of promotions brought in .14% of those the attendance).  Many who would make good leaders don’t respond and opportunity is lost, unless we have a parallel track of invitation and challenge.

How to personally recruit CG leaders:

1.     Craft your message:

·      Vision: develop a 30 second “elevator speech” of how God is changing lives through Community Groups and the need to grow the number of groups to impact more lives.

·      Scope: what are you challenging them to? 1 year commitment? 6 months? How about a shorter scope of “host a group for 4-6 weeks.” That’s a much easier commitment for someone to make.

·      Responsibilities: what would they be required to do?  Show a video for the teaching segment, facilitate discussion, encourage relationship, lead prayer time.

·      Process: how would they begin? Application :: training :: coach :: launch :: coaching / support

2.     Start with your circle of influence: think and pray through those you know. Who could you talk with about starting a group? Make a list and start contacting them!

3.     Make appointments to meet with your prospects: a face-to-face meeting is going to have the greatest potential of recruiting a new leader, especially if you don’t already have relationship with the person.

4.     Ask coaching questions: as you dialog with a potential leader, ask questions that will help drill down to their desire to serve God, fears that may be holding them back, and that will help them assess their priorities and schedule.

5.     Network with other leaders and ask them for referrals