Week 4: Dream Now For Our Community
James Browning: Welcome to week
four of the help for host podcast.
I'm your friend James Browning,
and we are going through the fourth
week of the dream now series.
This week, we are going to be talking
about dreaming now for your community.
We're also joined by my friend and
staff member here on the Central
Small Groups team, German Perez.
everyone, good to be here.
German, not only is on staff here at
Saddleback, but also a small groups host.
If you've ever had a technical problem or
an issue signing up, or just a question
about small groups, you've probably
emailed German without even knowing it.
So German is one of the
most in the weeds in depth.
Expert of small groups at Saddleback.
We're very excited to have
them this week and German.
We're getting close to the
finish line of dream now.
Yes.
Super exciting.
We're almost done with the study.
What excites me about
seeing how.
Even though we're on week four,
German, why don't you give us a couple
tips for wrapping this series up?
I think most of us are in the
rhythm, in the flow of the week
to week, but how can we land this?
Well, Absolutely.
First I just want to say thank you to
all of our hosts, , thank you so much for
leading your group the study and Five,
so even though the series is about to end
we want to make sure that we end not just
by being onto the next thing, whether it's
study or Book together, but we want to
celebrate The last week of dream now Start
thinking about what your group wants to
do to celebrate that and whether that's
a potluck or maybe Outing so start asking
your members what they either want to
bring for that potluck want to do with
a dinner as We love to do dinners and
we love to eat and we love to celebrate
with food so we always have these
discussions beforehand because everyone
has just start asking your members what
they want to do and if you have parents
it's also key to be able to ask what
are ways that you can celebrate together
by You know having a babysitter set up
or maybe families to come together Yeah
So just use this time this
week to brainstorm ideas and
see how you can celebrate.
As we've mentioned before, there's a
few different types of groups who are
doing DreamNow during this season.
There's on campus groups, there
are some of you, and we're very
excited to have you, who are
leading a group for the first time.
If you're an existing group, remember
to think about what your next study is.
Or, if you've started a group and
you're excited to be moving on, like
we talked about in last week's episode,
There's a study called base camp.
There is the new what's in a name
study and the mark five through eight
journey that's on the journey app.
Again if you're a new group that signed
up during dream now or immerse consider
heading over the website and making it
formal and continuing on if you've done
back to back groups, you've probably
gotten to know these people at this point
and hopefully your schedules align and you
can Carry on into the next season together
as a small group Yeah, really quickly.
So the website to go check out
these studies at saddleback.
com studies
And there's a whole library of studies
With your group All right, so as always
before your meeting remember it's
a good idea to preview the content.
People aren't expecting you to have all
the answers But they would like it if
you were prepared when they showed up.
I think it's super helpful, to be able to
preview the content as opposed when i've
led a group I like to see what exactly
the Video is about or Chapter in book is
about that way If I feel led maybe focus
on any questions topic or idea for that
because for this pastor stacy Talking more
in depth about drinking alcohol in our
community watch the video before meeting
with your group and maybe come up with
some other questions or focus on some part
of the video that really stuck out to you.
And as always pray for your
group and for your conversations.
If Andy or Stacey got up and preached
a sermon and you found out that they
hadn't prayed about it beforehand,
you'd probably be a little annoyed.
And I think that is also
true of us as hosts.
This is an important responsibility,
but it's also an easy responsibility.
Spend some time with them really
direct conversations, pray for
your members, that people are glad
to share that people participate.
We know that sometimes not everyone wants
to participate, but Maybe the Holy Spirit.
I don't give them that encouraging.
Yeah, that sounds great German.
And also we want to give
you a couple pro tips.
From not just small group world, but
some experience from children's ministry.
One of the things that works really
well in children's ministry, and
it turns out works super well with
adults as well, is to review what you
talked about in the previous weeks.
It can be a tendency to just go from week
to week and only focusing on that week,
but why don't you do a quick recap of the
things that you've talked about over the
past couple of weeks, a couple of things
that have stood out to you, a couple
of dreams that people have brought up,
encourage them to share more about that
or to talk about any progress that they've
done or anything that can make that
more concrete rather than just something
they said in small group one time.
So what does it actually mean
to dream for your community?
How can we as a small group or individual
dream for the area that we live in?
This is actually a great opportunity
for people who are parents or have
spent some time in the community
for a while, getting connected
with others in your neighborhood.
For example one thing that we
talk about on a regular basis is
the going through together, doing
a book club with your neighbors.
Book clubs are super popular right now.
They are a big deal.
So it's not going to be that weird or
unusual to invite someone over to read the
New Testament, especially in that format.
But another thing to do is just
being active in community events.
For example, my daughter
is on a softball team.
Her coach rearranged the schedule
so that those who were Saddleback
members could attend KSG, which
also opened it up to inviting the
other girls to attend KSG together.
This has a great group effect of a
couple of people working together to
make a big impact in the community.
All right.
At the end, as you're winding
up the group, what are some ways
that you can close your group?
in a manner that's going
to be very impactful.
Obviously, again, prayer.
This is a great opportunity to pray for
each other, to share prayer requests, and
to pray for each other's dreams, as we've
been discussing throughout all of this.
It's also a great opportunity
to pray for your community.
I would encourage your group as a group
to find a passage in the Bible, maybe
a psalm or something in the Bible that
can be the passage that they pray over
their neighborhood or your community.
And that could be almost like the theme
or guiding passage for your ministry
to your friends and coworkers and
relatives who may live in your area.
Yeah, absolutely.
I want to also just take a minute
to reemphasize the prayer part
and just invite a host to be
intentional with the prayer.
If maybe there is something that's shared,
that one of your groups is open, take
some time to pray about that, not only in
small groups, but even during the week.
Because it's obviously something that
they wanted to share with the community.
I think a lot of times we have this
about that query request, or that's
something someone had to share during
that time and you didn't follow up with
me a week after that's a different story.
I don't know that you guys are
caring, but you're listening.
I
All right.
So thank you so much for
joining us, German, and for
your great insights and advice.
As always, if you have any
questions, please contact German
at smallgroups at saddleback.
com or your local small
group point person.
And again, keep the stories coming.
We'd love to hear them and
share them on the podcast.
Have a great day.
Thanks everyone.
See ya.
