Leadership and power leaders help group members achieve their goal using various motivational strategies. The types of power leaders use to motivate have long been a topic of study in small groups. Take the next step in your faith journey with resources on prayer, devotionals, and other tools for personal and spiritual growth. You can't manage a small group well without trusting God.
God is the One who changes lives, so obviously, He must lead the process. Only God can bring people to your small group, develop their character, and create deep, transformative relationships. Prayer is the starting point for this type of work, because it is God who makes us grow. Too often, prayer is the last thing we consider when planning and preparing for our small groups.
We dedicate ourselves to a last-minute, all-encompassing prayer, asking God to bless well-made plans. Your prayer should be that your small group will grow to the point where it needs to be divided into two groups, and that your co-leader or apprentice will take over the new group. Prayer can be the glue that holds a small group together or it can be a barrier that keeps people out. On the one hand, intimate things that are often shared in a moment of prayer can bring people together.
On the other hand, prayer can be an obstacle for people new to or exploring Christianity. Feeling pressured to pray aloud (which can happen even if you don't ask them to) can make people not want to go back to school. For more ideas on how you can incorporate prayer into your group, see “How to Run a Prayer Meeting. This is the second blog post in a series on small adult group leadership from a pastor's first-person perspective.
When all group members are expert communicators, they can take turns providing leadership, even if the group has a designated or implied leader.
