The Different Breakout Sessions:

Session 1

• Navigating Difficult Situations  by David Ross
  Even the most authentic and transparent groups/teams experience challenging situations. When leaders know how to navigate those situations in healthy and humble ways, it sets everyone up to grow through difficulty and continue to thrive. In this breakout, we’ll explore how to create an environments that embrace difficult situations.
• How To Measure Progress  by  Zach Imboden
  Measuring your group/team effectiveness is the only way to know if you are making progress. But how do you know if you are asking the right questions and gathering the right data? In this breakout, we’ll help you identify the right questions and how to gather the right information to help your group/team move in the right direction.
• Leading Yourself First by Dustin Tramel  
  Effectively leading often comes down to how well you lead yourself. In this breakout session we will talk about practical and tangible ways to become a better leader by leading yourself well.

Session 2

• Caring Well For Others by John Beeson
  This breakout is for leaders and/or those with specific responsibility for pastoral care in a small group/team. We want to give you the tools and skills you need to help better care for each other. 
• I'm New To Small Groups by Lance Yarborough 
  Jesus walked through life and ministry alongside His disciples—His “small group,” if you will. Those closest to Him were marked by their relationship with Christ…and went on to ignite and profoundly impact their world.  In this breakout session will discuss helping you either start well in leading or being in a group effectively.  
• Move: From Conversation to Spiritual Application by Jennifer Callaway 
  The opportunity to study God's Word together should move us from learning what a passage means to discovering how we live it out in each of our lives.  In this breakout session we walk through the process we use here at New Life.  Remember the goal in our small group conversations is transformation, not only gaining knowledge.

A great line from Tim Keller’s The Prodigal God:
“You can’t live the Christian life without a band of Christian friends, without a family of believers in which you find a place.”

Life Is Better Connected Bible Verses

• Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 “Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!”
• ​John 15:13 “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”

• Proverbs 27:17 “Iron sharpens iron; so one man sharpens another.”
• Proverbs 17:17 “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.”

While often in our groups we emphasize care, connecting with one another, prayer, and Bible study, however service should also be an important part of our groups. Our heartbeat is that your group would be where you can share God’s heart to serve the people around you. We are encouraging Connection Groups to serve their neighbors and/or community through a ministry project or act of compassion. We want to encourage groups to fulfill the ministry that God is placing on their hearts.  Would your group consider doing one service project sometime during this year to share the love of Christ with others?

LOOKING FOR A PLACE TO START
If your group is not sure where to start, let me share a great opportunity.  We have a great partnership with Thornydale Elementary where they are inviting us as a church to partner with them.  They have 20 teachers on staff. Our goal is to have What if we had 20 groups adopt one teacher for a school year with the goal just to be a blessing to that teacher.  

WHAT WE ARE ASKING YOUR GROUP TO CONSIDER:

• As a group, Be a blessing to one teacher.
  For a school year your group would look for a way to bless and encourage your teacher every month.  Examples:  make contact once a month through emails, cards, possibly a small gift card at times, or volunteer to do small jobs.
• If the opportunities arises look to serve
  If your group would like to go beyond just serving the teacher then in cooperation with the teacher and Thornydale Administration, there could be other ways to serve the class.  A couple of examples:
  • Read to kids
  • Go on field trips
  • Help in the class room
  • Help on special events
  • Help on craft day
  • Do prep work for teacher
  • Collect needed school supplies
  • Any other ways your group can come up with
    
    

WE WILL MAKE IT EASY FOR YOU
We know serving other people may or may not involve money, but it will certainly involve time, effort, commitment, and compassion. If seed money is needed for your group to accomplish blessing a teacher at Thornydale, we would like to help. New Life will reimburse the first 20 Connection Groups up to $100 each to help get you started.
 
One of the prayers we have is that each teacher at Thornydale would be covered in prayer, encouragement and love.  Individually we can make an impact in a teacher’s life, together we can make a significant difference at Thornydale.  Let me know if your group is interested in serving a teacher.  Let me know if you group is interested in being a blessing to a teacher this school year.