SIGN: Group Leaders’ Instructions (updated March 9)

Tips for Facil­it­a­tion:
The DVD con­tin­ues through­out the entire group ses­sion, with a timer on screen to help you know when to close the dis­cus­sion times. The dis­cus­sion peri­ods should be car­ried out in groups of 3 – 5 people to provide each an oppor­tun­ity to share in the lim­ited time. 

DVD’s for your group ses­sions:
Pick up the DVD for Ses­sions 2 this Sunday at the Help Desk, and Ses­sion 3 next week. You will need one DVD per group session. 

When to start Daily Read­ings:
Par­ti­cipants aren’t to com­mence the daily devo­tional plan until the day after your group meets.

About the Course:
“God brought us back to Him­self through Christ. And God has given us this task of recon­cil­ing people to Him.” (2 Cor­inthi­ans 5:18 – 19)

Ever thought about what this means? Every­day fol­low­ers of Christ — you and me, warts and all — are God’s Plan A to make the intro­duc­tion between a way­ward world, and an infin­itely gra­cious God. To put it another way, we’re to be a Sign held high that points people to Jesus, so that every per­son can be recon­ciled to God. What a priv­ilege. And what a challenge!

So, how are you going with this? When’s the last time you inten­tion­ally poin­ted someone to Jesus? How often are you a Sign Post to God’s King­dom? Do you feel equipped to share your faith with your unchurched friends? Are you up for the challenge?

March 2010 is the time for you and your group to tackle this chal­lenge head on. It’s time to deal with all those cari­ca­tures and failed mod­els of evan­gel­ism. And it’s time to see, exper­i­ence, and share in new ways how the Gos­pel really is good news, even for a post-Christian cul­ture tired of talk. Kick­ing off KBC-wide on Sunday 7th March, the whole month is about SIGN: point­ing people to Jesus.

ESSENTIAL INFORMATION FOR STARTING THE SIGN COURSE IN YOUR GROWTH GROUP

What’s involved in SIGN? » Sunday Talks + Small Group Ses­sions + Devotions

In the four Sunday talks, you’ll encounter new SIGNS which embody our mis­sion as dis­ciples of Jesus sent to pro­claim the good news of the King­dom: a beg­gar, a story-teller, a life­guard, and a cook.

In the three GROWTH Group ses­sions, begin­ning the week of Sunday 7th March, you’ll dis­cover how to:
1) Sign Post the way to Jesus;
2) How to fine-tune your Sign Lan­guage for clear com­mu­nic­a­tion;
3) How to be an inten­tional Sign Writer.

Lastly, inter­mingled with the three ses­sions are 15 devo­tions—five per week, over the three stud­ies — to engage the Bible and catch God’s heart for call­ing the lost to come back home.

How will it run? » Par­ti­cipant Manual + DVDs

Each group mem­ber (includ­ing you) will need a Par­ti­cipant Manual. You can pick these up from KBC for $5 per manual, after all three ser­vices (8am, 10am, 5pm) both Sunday 28th Feb­ru­ary, and Sunday 7th Feb­ru­ary. (Or from the KBC office if this works bet­ter.) It’s best if you estim­ate group num­bers, pay for all the manu­als up front, and then col­lect the $5 per per­son dur­ing your group ses­sions. Each per­son will need the manu­als by the first ses­sion at the latest. Devo­tions kick off the first morn­ing after your first group ses­sion, the week of Sunday 7th March.

In terms of the group ses­sions, you’ll need to pick up the DVDs (pack­aged) after each of the three ser­vices dur­ing March — one pack­age per group. (Or, pick the DVDs up from the Church office before your sessions.)

Each of the three small group stud­ies has its own accom­pa­ny­ing DVD, which is divided into mul­tiple chapters. Each chapter is either a teach­ing seg­ment, or a count-down timer that matches group activ­it­ies in the par­ti­cipant manual. Ses­sions typ­ic­ally run for 90 minutes, so keep the DVD play­ing through­out to ensure you stick to time. This will be dif­fi­cult! Most dis­cus­sion seg­ments are a max­imum of 5 – 10 minutes, so all shar­ing needs to be focussed, and is ideally run in pairs or threes.

In the Par­ti­cipant Manual, each ses­sion has around 6 pages of notes for Group Dis­cus­sion—with spaces for jot­ting your thoughts and respond­ing to activ­it­ies. Ensure you achieve the key goal by the end of each session:

• Ses­sion 1: Learn how to share The Big Story
• Ses­sion 2: Prac­tice shar­ing The Big Story, and learn how to share your story
• Ses­sion 3: Prac­tice shar­ing your story, and fill out the 8 step SIGN Strategy

Each ses­sion fin­ishes with “where to from here?” which out­lines a num­ber of activ­it­ies for group mem­bers to do in their own time before the next group ses­sion. Read this as a group, to ensure every­one is apply­ing what they learn and grow­ing in their con­fid­ence and skills as a Sign point­ing people to Jesus.

Then, after the dis­cus­sion notes are extra ses­sion notes (car­ry­ing the key con­tent from each DVD teach­ing seg­ment) and the five daily devo­tions. Encour­age group mem­bers to do one devo­tion per week day, read­ing back through the ses­sion notes as dir­ec­ted in the devo­tions, and com­plet­ing the “where to from here” activ­it­ies.

Again, the dis­cus­sion times are brief. If you really enjoy the ses­sions and want to spend more time on a given activ­ity, then push on through the key aims for each ses­sion, but extend the SIGN series a few weeks after March, so you can get the most out of the course.

One last note. The SIGN series cul­min­ates on Sunday 28th March with “Church in the Park.” On this week, the 3 KBC ser­vices will be com­bined into one ser­vice out at Rocks River­side Park where we will wor­ship together at 10am, fol­lowed by serving our local com­munity with a free inter­na­tional food fare. So, get involved! Offer to cook for the day, or throw in some money to sup­port those who are. And invite your friends and fam­ily who don’t know Jesus, espe­cially those unlikely to set foot inside a Church build­ing. This is a great chance to live out all we will have learned dur­ing the course, and be a power­ful wit­ness in a cul­tur­ally rel­ev­ant way.

I’m excited for where God has led SIGN, and I’m con­fid­ent that God will work power­fully in our com­munity as we par­ti­cip­ate in the ser­mon series, small group ses­sions, and devo­tions. Thanks for the vital role you play in this pro­cess. May you exem­plify what it means to be a Sign point­ing people to Jesus, and dis­cover this March the incom­par­able chal­lenge, excite­ment, and pas­sion that comes with join­ing God’s mis­sion as agents of recon­cili­ation, all for His glory.

Your brother in Christ and fel­low labourer in the Kingdom,

Dave Ben­son.

Please note care­fully the fol­low­ing instruc­tions regard­ing your materials:

Please Advise Your Group Mem­bers to Bring $5:00 to group THIS WEEK.
This will help cover a por­tion of the pro­duc­tion costs for this series. Please take pay­ments BEFORE you pick up the work­books. I sug­gest you email your group mem­bers today and ask them to bring pay­ment to your group this week. Ensure couples pur­chase sep­ar­ate manu­als so they can have per­sonal notes etc.

Prin­ted Work­books Avail­able to Pick up for Your Group Mem­bers this Sunday
Lead­ers will pick up work­books for their group mem­bers. Please pay for and pick up the work­books this Sunday (28th Feb) from the foyer. 

SIGN: DVD 2: Avail­able to Pick Up on Sunday 14th March
The group stud­ies rely on the use of DVD mater­ial which we are pro­du­cing in-house. The second and third discs will be ready to pick up by you from the foyer by the group lead­ers on March 14. These are free of charge, as they are on loan from KBC, and can be returned after the SIGN series is finished.