Understanding the Values of a Group
So I think most of you know that I pastor two churches. One church is more modern, progressive, and younger while the other is more traditional, conservative, and older.
In the more traditional church we have prayer meetings on wednesday night, like in many churches. Today something happened in that church that I thought was insightful.
We were discussing why there weren’t more people coming out to prayer meeting. Actually, it was more like they were discussing. They brought it up. And they began to tell me “pastor, you need to just announce it more, with a lot of energy. If you announce it more they will come.”
So I asked them, “out of all the programs in this church (friday night service, saturday night vespers service, wed. night prayer meeting), which should I emphasize the most?” I thought that was a fair question. Without hesitation one gentleman said, “All of them!”
I’m going to come back to that statement in a little bit.
By this point our prayer meeting had shifted to something else entirely, but I flowed with it. I thought, let’s go there and explore this baby as far as they want to go. So I asked them, “so what do you think of our current format for prayer meeting? (I don’t assume our prayer meeting method is great. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s pretty lame. But here’s what we do: we sing for about 15 min., we share testimonies and prayer requests, we go through a bible study together for about 20 min, and then we pray together. I didn’t make it up, it’s what they’ve always used.)
Coming back to the question that I asked them, “what do you think of our current format?” Essentially, they said they were dissatisfied with it. They mentioned how in another Bible study that they attend on Monday nights, all they do for the one hour is study the Bible. One of the ladies said, “we greet each other quickly…we sit down…and then we begin the study. We don’t want to waste too much time.” She was using that as an example of an effective and successful small group Bible study.
I know what you’re thinking. Surely I’m embellishing and exaggerating this story for effect. Ahh….how I wish I was. Those were her words.
Here’s why I think what they were saying was so interesting, though. For one, their response to getting more people to come to prayer meeting was merely to raise the volume. Announce it more. Get sweaty. Work it up, and the people will come. And i’m sure more people would come if I hollered a little bit at them and made them feel like bad Christians for not coming to prayer meeting. Here they are revealing their high value and sense for “duty.” The people should come because that’s what a Christian who loves God does. He goes to prayer meeting. But he also attends every single other meeting that the church offers.
I’m tired just thinking about attending all those things.
Secondly, I think they were revealing that they place a very high value in receiving information in a Bible study. I got that pretty loud and clear. It’s such a high value, in fact, that fellowship and getting to know each other is not really important. It’s just about studying.
So why am I pointing these things out? Because the values that someone has will determine how you are able to lead them. If you don’t understand what their values are, you won’t be able to lead them effectively.
If I simply tried to force upon them a certain model and way of doing things, and it goes against their ingrained values, they will shut me out. They may put up with it. But their hearts won’t be in it. But if I shape how I minister to them in a way that agrees with their values, they will listen.
Let me give you the flip side of this. In my other church which has many young adults, community and fellowship are a very high value. After church is done, people sometimes hang out for hours…not doing anything in particular, just hanging out. If I were to try to force upon them a small group Bible study where people couldn’t really share about themselves and how the Word interacted with them, they’d probably stone me. It’s a part of who they are.
I know this probably all sounds a little technical and perhaps abstract. But I think this is the bottom line. If I can remember what the final end-goal is: helping them become more like Jesus Christ and to be ready for His return, and I know where they are (as exhibited through their values), I can help to lead them in the right direction. I can still have the right end-goal, but if I don’t know where the starting point is, I won’t know the right way to take them on the journey.
Does that make sense at all? I know it’s probably just common sense, but I was reminded of its importance in a vivid way tonight.
What about you? Have you ever misunderstood a group of people and as a result messed up in something? How does understanding the values of the people you lead help you to lead them?
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"Have you ever misunderstood a group of people and as a result messed up in something?" I don't even know where to begin to answer this one! lol! I think you are spot on with this article. It's kind of like trying to design a computer program without knowing what the end-user actually needs. It's almost impossible to get it done the right way. That's where it becomes extremely important to get together with the end-users (congregation) and see what their "requirements" are to reach the end goal. Once you know the the goal and the starting point, creating the plan should be fairly easy. Excellent article! Thank you for sharing it!
I just wanted to share some suggestions about running an effective prayer meeting. At the beginning of this year there was a church and a home in the Berrien Springs community that was hosting a ten days of prayer event to begin the new year. Our ministry (Adventist Southeast Asia Projects) also decided to host a ten day of prayer event. The reason is because there were other people besides myself that wanted to really do some praying and not just come together for singing, a long message and a little praying at the end. We wanted to devote most of the 70 minutes each evening to prayer and pray earnestly for the Holy Spirit. During the ten days, Dan Augsburger and I took turns leading out. We varied the format each evening. As Dan puts it, you need to: keep it moving, keep in changing, and keep them guessing. We were all tremendously blessed during the ten days and saw many answers to prayers. As we were nearing the end, all were in favor of continuing a weekly Thursday evening prayer meeting which continues to this day. There were also a handful of us who wanted to continue meeting on a daily basis. Jesus didn't tell us to pray for ten days or to continue with a weekly prayer meeting. He told us to wait until we received the promise of the Holy Spirit. To make a long story short, I left for a 1 1/2 month trip to SE Asia shortly after the 10 days of prayer. But I and a few others continued to pray that God would work it out for us to meet daily. After I returned from my trip to SE Asia, the Lord kept showing me and others that He clearly wanted us to begin a daily prayer meeting. We launched a daily prayer initiative on March 30. We open up the apt in the back of our office from 1-2 pm. We are in our 7th week of meeting together and it continues to go strong. We have 9 people who are very committed to this and are praying for more praying people to join us. Three of the individuals who join us regularly use up their lunch break to come join us. Needless to say, it is very exciting to meet with others who are so committed to prayer. We are praying earnestly for the outpouring of the HS. We desire to see a revival. The following is a typical format. Sing a couple of prayer or praise songs 5 min. Have someone open with prayer 1 min Have several share short testimonies (like 30 sec testimonies) 5 min. Have conversational prayer praising and thanking God (also known as popcorn prayer) 10 min. Have individuals spend quiet time alone individually – confessing sins, etc. 10 min. Spend time as a group again in conversational prayer – praying for HS, revival, for church, family, etc. 20 min. I and others have found it to be a blessing to do conversational prayers with groups. People are able to stay more focused and do more praying when the prayers are short. I hope something that I've shared will be of value.