Written in Heaven

One thing I learned early on in leadership is to learn from the mistakes of those around me. When I was in student ministry, I recognized that some of my peers were struggling in their student ministries because they didn’t communicate enough to students and families. I made communication one of my number one priorities. We would put out a calendar with all the events on it for the year, we would send out a weekly newsletter with the same information on it, we would send parent letters home every semester, we would send reminder postcards when an event or schedule change was coming up, we would even make phone calls as small group leaders to students about events, and the standard weekly announcements from the front on Sundays and Wednesdays. After three years of this, I had a parent approach me and inform me that they felt like they never knew what was going on because we didn’t communicate well. Moment of confession: I was IRATE!

I kept my cool, but what I realized is this very important principle: you can’t communicate enough. Over-communicating is exactly what it sounds like: communicate the same message over and over again through as many different mediums as possible, in an effort to make that message part of the culture.

For BridgeWay Small Groups, our vision is to “belong and become:” belong in a safe group of friends and to become more like Jesus Christ each day. If you’re a small group leader you’re going to hear this vision again and again, and will be asked to communicate it to your group again and again. It’s vital that this message is ingrained in the culture.

What message do you need to over-communicate to those around you?