Week 4: Dream Now For Our 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.