An example of a Connect Group meeting

PLAN FOR AND HONOUR TIME

People are generally time-conscious and live under constant stress, and so honouring time is important. A meeting that consists of life-giving people connecting around feedback, sharing life stories, a healthy discussion, faith-filled prayer and ministry should be possible in 90 minutes. It is tempting to wait for people that are late and push out the end time. Although this may appear noble, those who are on time are penalized and it creates a culture of dishonoring time. If people these days can’t rely on a meeting finishing at the given time, they often don’t come back again.

A good meeting structure could look as follows:

Pre-meeting (30 minutes)

6:30 PM – Supper or coffee – this moment can be used to gather people arriving at different times. Dinner works well to connect and remove pressure from the working sector to make dinner and get to a meeting. This is also a good time for families to settle the kids and get ready for the meeting

Meeting (90 minutes)

7:00 PM – Welcome – introductions, feedback, testimonies, my life story questions

7:20 PM – Group discussion – introduce the topic, get feedback from Sundays message, work through Bible texts and discussion guestions

8:00 PM – Discussion summary & application

8:10 PM – Prayer &ministry- requests, personal needs, local church events, outreaches, prophecy moments

8:25 PM – Vision casting – give the group direction looking at important announcements and upcoming events

8:30 PM – Coffee to close

ELEMENTS OF A LIFE-GIVING MEETING

In any environment there are numerous elements that contribute to the overall energy and life of a connect group. When these elements are missing in a connect group environment, meetings become predictable and monotonous. It is important as a leader to include and celebrate as many elements in a meeting a s possible. A few of these would include:

• Presence of Christ
• Regular testimonies of answered prayer 
• Visitors that integrate well into an existing group
• New salvations
• Baptisms
• Leadership development and release of these leaders
• Informal social interaction outside of the leader and formal meetings
• Passion and faith that is evident and contagious
• Prophetic encouragements
• Changing venues and environments – this can equally work the other way when not carefully managed
• Fresh voices as a much as a leader has a responsibility to lead from the front, people respond well to fresh voices every so often.
• Consistency – an inconsistent leader eventually drains the life out of any group