Meeting Online: 5 Simple Tips to Keep Groups Connected

The world has changed in the past few days.

I was busy about 30 days ago helping churches plan for the construction of new buildings, enlarging their organization to have more classes/groups to reach and disciple more people, and working on training events that would take place in the future all over or state and nation. Now all of that has changed.

For years I’ve said that churches needed to change or they would become ineffective or die. I had no idea it would come this fast. The conditions of our world may have changed but the mission that Jesus gave us, what He commanded us to do, has not changed! As followers of Jesus, we are still to be about the mission God has given us. That mission is to make disciples.

I hope that your church has already begun to stream your worship time online as well as setting up some for your people to give via online. If you need more ideas, you can see the resources on the Georgia Baptist webpage.

Encourage your group to meet online if you haven’t!

I also hope that you’ve begun to encourage your Sunday School classes and/or small groups Bible studies to begin meeting online. With us all practicing social distancing or being told to self-quarantine, we must encourage our classes and groups to be connected online. My goal is not to give tech tools but rather to help you know a process that works when you move your groups to meeting online.

Remember that our mission is to make disciples and that is not going to happen just because someone watches our worship time online. There still needs to be relationships and accountability. See the webinar below. For more information on the tools from Sunday School University, contact Steve Guidry 903.520.1067 or steveguidry@hotmail.com.

Whatever resource you decide to use, remember these points.

Contact everyone in your group by phone every week to make this personal.
Email or text them a link to the Bible study several days prior to the group meeting online.
Also send them a list of questions to review in order to be prepared for the Bible study online. For any of us to mature spiritually requires that we be engaged in God’s Word.
An hour before the group meets online, send out a reminder with the link to the group gathering.
During the group time, encourage discussion but don’t let the group get stuck or sidetracked in their discussion.

My prayer is that one day we will be able to meet together but right now we’ve got to do things differently. I’m praying for you!

I encourage you to join the Discipleship Facebook group as we have conversations around meeting together.

Published March 22, 2020