Category Archives: Bible study groups

Factotum #8: Pitfalls for small groups

Everyday Ministry

|

Our last ‘Factotum’ examined leadership in small groups. In this edition, we continue to focus on the ministry done in small groups, this time looking at some of the problems that can arise. Most of us have been in small groups at different stages of our lives—youth groups, prayer cells, focus groups, Bible studies. We will also have experienced some of the challenges and difficulties that these groups generate. You might like to use this edition as a way of assessing the small groups that you lead or participate in. Are you avoiding the pitfalls? Or are you stumbling headlong into them?

(more…)

Factotum #6: Do-it-yourself-church

Everyday Ministry

|

Are you amongst the 5 per cent that watch SBS television? Usually I’m not, but I read the TV guide and there it was: the movie The Factotum. I watched the first part of it. It’s a clever comedy about an unlikely speech writer for an aspiring Italian politician. The factotum is summoned from his teaching job to write for the politician. He is given no choice; his whole life is disrupted as he does his master’s bidding. Not a bad model for us as factotums, except we are given the script, rather than producing our own.

(more…)

Factotum #4: Praying in small groups

Everyday Ministry

|

If there is one sure-fire prayer point in small groups, it’s praying that God will make us more prayerful! Everyone believes in prayer; everyone recognizes that we need to pray more, but everyone has trouble making it a priority. Put it down to the bustle of 90s life, or simply to sinful, independent hearts—either way, we can always find something which is more pressing a task than speaking to God in prayer.

(more…)