Twelve to eighteen months is a long commitment. It feels even longer to people when the weather is great and vacations are on the calendar. The summer months are challenging to keep the momentum of your D-Group, mainly because of the busyness of life. But when things start competing for time with our D-Groups, we have to be intentional about finding ways to keep them together, and sharing life together. Here are 3 tips to help you navigate the summer months if things make it harder to meet.
- Create an adjusted schedule- We have said many times that discipleship does not fit into a merry box. We must learn to be flexible and adaptable in order to make D-Groups a priority. If meeting weekly during the summer is not a reality for your group, try meeting every other week or even once a month for a season. Maybe you could shorten your meetings so that people don't feel like they are giving up as much time when you meet. You could even consider changing the day you meet to sync better with everyone. So if your group usually meets on Wednesdays, offer to come to church a little early or leave church a little later on Sundays to spend just a few minutes connecting with your group to discuss what God is showing them in the word. However you decide to switch things up, just be clear in your communication with everyone in the group.
- Include people from your D-Group in your "busyness" - If your group is struggling to find time to meet formally as a D-Group, use the summer months to invest more informally through life-on-life connecting. Look through your calendar at the many things you have to do and see if there is anything you can include 1 or 2 people from your D-Group in. This could be a grocery store visit or preparing a meal with both families. It could be your kids' sports tournaments or recitals. For those that are really radical about making this a priority, you could even try to schedule your family vacations to sync up with another family of someone in your D-Group. Life-on-life connections are just as important and useful for talking about the scriptures as formal meetings.
- Take advantage of technology - we live in a never ending technological world. There are so many ways at our fingertips to meet together without being in person. We can share our soap journals via group text or an app. We can schedule a facetime or phone call with people in our group. You could even do a google hangout or some type of virtual meeting space in order to get time with your group.
- Leverage summer event and holidays - With holidays like Memorial Day, and Independence Day or church events like VBS, and "Lunch it Up," there are opportunities to be intentional with time to be together. Plan a cookout for your d-group and their families to celebrate a holiday. You could even make it missional and invite lost friends and build relationships. Serve together with you D Group as VBS volunteers. This can also be missional as your group prayerfully engages parents who are dropping their kids off at VBS. I hope you find some of the ideas helpful. At the end of the day we make time for what is important to us. With just a little thought and creativity discipleship doesn't have to stop during the summer.
Mike Breen: Patterns of Discipleship
In this 7 minute video, Mike Breen shares some principles of discipleship with examples from scripture and his own life.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eJIVhMfV-v4