We are working our way up the small group organizational chart to learn how Churchteams can be used to serve the pastoral care and leadership development needs at each level. This post focuses on the Small Groups Pastor and their relationship to their coaches.
Last time we compared Group Leaders to Sargeants, and Coaches to Lieutenants. In this comparison the Small Group Pastor/Director is the Captain who leads the small group company of the church. Often they are the paid staff person responsible for the small groups ministry. This was a role I served on church staff for many years. A lot of what we developed early on in Churchteams was from the Groups Pastor perspective.
Five Ways Churchteams Helps Groups Pastors Lead Coaches
Leader Reports. Information about a group flows from the bottom up in the form of the weekly meeting report. When the organizational structure is set up, these reports are emailed upline to both the group's coach and the staff person who oversees the coach. I used to forward these emails to coaches (or leaders) with any questions or tips I might have for them. They also are a great reminder to pray for groups, leaders and coaches. My goal was for every leader to hear from a coach or a staff person at least every other week even if it was a simple, "I'm praying for you".
Coach Reports. Just as leaders get report reminders when their groups meet, so coaches can get coaching report reminders up to 4 x per month. (See Settings / Groups / Email Reminders.) If you enable these, the system will automatically send you a summary report of contacts each month between coaches and leaders for the previous 30 and 60 days. This report tells you which of your coaches are thriving and which ones are falling short of expectations.
Coach Notes. Notes that are initiated with the coaching report reminders are just notes on the leader's member profile. But they are collated in that coach's Coach Area (Groups / Coach Area). Train coaches to track things like "Praises, Problems and Plans" to help them mentor / shepherd their leaders and to keep you as the Groups Pastor informed.
Staff Notes. Just as coaches use Notes to track leaders, so Staff can use Notes to track their interaction with their coaches. These are found under Groups / Staff Area. These notes show up on the coach's member profile as well but are collated here for easy reference for staff committed to further developing their leaders.
Small Group Health Report. At the end of every month, Churchteams compiles data gathered on groups during the month and emails the Groups Pastor a report that gives them and the Executive Team a long term perspective of the ministry. There is so much good stuff in this report that we will do the next blog post just on it.
One of the biggest concerns I have about churches is how little effort is put into the process of personally investing in developing leaders. Sermons in large groups settings inspire us to become multiplying disciple-makers. Some churches have a series of classes designed for this. These are helpful and important to communicate the driving vision and values. But the execution of these values is done at the personal level. One-on-One or in open dialog groups. We provide the tools to help you thrive at this level.
