Do you ever get annoyed by your small group? Is there someone who’s always late? Someone who never lets you know if they’re coming? Someone who talks too much? Someone who never joins in at all?
It seems that the moment we step into leadership, we are setting ourselves us up to be disappointed, hurt and annoyed by the very people we are attempting to… well, love.
Everybody hurts
Before we can sit back and enjoy a good moan we need to remember that at times we ourselves will have disappointed, hurt, and – hard to believe, but bear with me – perhaps even annoyed the leaders of groups we have been members of ourselves.
Trust me, I’m a vicar’s daughter: I know that church members can be brutal towards their leaders.
More than anything else, leadership is a journey into grace. It is a constant process of forgiving and then forgetting.
The bummer about grace, of course, is that you can’t tell someone when you’re exercising it!
Grace is not the same as being a doormat…
This is not to say you should allow yourself to feel disrespected by your small group. It is right to agree with your everyone that there are basic rules of etiquette to be adhered to. Replying to texts, letting someone know if you’re not able to come and so on are reasonable expectations.
However, there are things that, as a leader, you will need to forgive and truly move on from, for the sake of your own mental health. People are not perfect – be they members or leaders of groups. We’re all in this muddle together and we need to practice grace as leaders on a daily basis.
This may only be possible when we return to the understanding of how much God has forgiven us.
Ultimately, the painful truth is that our group members will have practiced grace themselves at times unbeknownst to us, when we have disappointed, hurt or annoyed them.
In small groups, grace and growth go hand in hand. We love because we are loved; we forgive because we are forgiven. In doing so, our understanding of the nature of God grows, and our relationship with him, and those around us, changes.
Thinking It Through
- Who do you need to forgive in your group? (Privately and graciously. Never call anyone to tell them you forgive them for being so annoying!)
- Who do you need to thank for their grace to you in the past?
- Could you pray right now, just as you are, calling out a single sentence to the Lord, asking for abundant grace in your group?
Colossians 3:13
“Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”
P.S. If you feel that you’re struggling with being a small group leader at all, read this blog about the necessity of not being up to the task.
Photo Credits: Hiding in Bed by Alexandra Gorn on Unsplash / Cross picture by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash