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Home Study Groups Guidelines
Structure
Each home study group will have the following components:
Facilitator – A facilitator is not a Bible study teacher, an expert on the material or responsible for the group’s “enlightenment.” Each group member is responsible to come to the group ready to enrich the group by coming prepared to wrestle with “the Big Question.” Facilitators act as group guides, helping the group not get distracted from its purpose and taking the responsibility to see that effective small group principles are followed. A great session would be one where the facilitator had very little reason to even speak!!
Detail person – Detail people keep the role, rent the movie if one is suggested, maintain contact with NSC (Info@NorthStarCommunity.com), and act as the liaison person for the group. If an email needs to be sent, the detail person takes care of it.
Host/Hostess – The host/hostess usually provides the home where the group meets, but may be the coordinator of an alternate meeting location. For home groups, if the group decides that they want a dessert, the host coordinates that with the group. Usually a host home will provide beverages and the group will take turns bringing desserts (all these details are negotiable within the group.)
Schedule – Groups have a lot of flexibility, allowing them to craft the group in a way that works for them. However, these elements will be included: prayer time, fellowship time, and group discussion. The fellowship time is just as important as prayer and discussion. We’re building relationships, not just a study group! Recommended time: 30 minutes for each element. Again, make this group work for you guys!
Purpose
NorthStar study groups are formed for the purpose of developing intimate relationships. Why? So that we can get to know a small group of folks so that they can effectively help us find our place in the story, affirm our position in the story, and lovingly hold us accountable when we do what we’re predisposed to do – forget God and forget our place in the unseen world! We believe that the study of scripture is an important part of the process. We also believe that this is not an intellectual exercise so much as it is a relationship. We’re seeking to know God better, know ourselves better, and practice loving others too.
Prayer Guidelines
We have an unusual prayer guideline for these groups and it will no doubt be an exercise of discipline to pray this way. In keeping with our purpose, we’re going to ask group members to keep prayer requests personal. This group is for you and you alone. Let’s keep the requests in keeping with that. Each week we will consider how the scripture we’ve looked at might be applied to our lives; we’ll ask others to join us in praying in specific ways to help us become the Prince and Princess Warriors God created us to become. Sometimes we may share a particular stronghold that we believe is holding us back, or a dream that we’re daring to dream, or a hard truth that we desperately want to live out, but fear that we may fall prey to temptation. The facilitators will appreciate it if the group helps follow this guideline!
Attendance
Generally, we’re shooting for no more than two absences. We’re not into rules and performance, but any poor attendance will be evaluated and appropriately dealt with. Effective groups are those where attendance is pretty consistent; this helps build trust.
Values We Share
- Confidentiality is a value of the group. Nothing said in the group goes beyond the group. It is also recommended that “triangling” be eliminated. Example: Susie shares in group. The next week, Mary and Judy have lunch and spend part of their time talking about Susie’s comments. That’s a form of triangling bordering on gossip. If Susie is present, fine. If we’re discussing a point Susie has made, awesome. But we don’t discuss Susie.
- This is not a support group. This is an empowering group. We’re not focusing on our hurts, habits and hang-ups so much as we are trying to get a handle on who we are and what that means in the realm of large living. This is a subtle difference, and we’ll no doubt wrestle with what this means as we go along. Sometimes we will want to wrestle in group with how our hurts are hindering our “ever-increasing glory”, and that’s cool. But we will not take group time to talk about issues more appropriately dealt with in a support group.
- We assume that we are not discussing the validity of scripture. Group attendees are presumed to be folks who believe and respect the validity of scripture. These groups aren’t exercises in intellectual meanderings, but instead, are places where we arm ourselves for the fight for freedom – ours, those we love, and those we don’t yet know!
- Groups can and will be reorganized. This is our first attempt at this, and we’ll no doubt learn a lot in round one of the home study group experience. One value that we hold dear: after a ten to twelve week small group study, we will take a break. After our break, we’ll take time to let groups reorganize. It will always be ok to change groups. It will be ok to stay together as a group.
- This final value is a little awkward to discuss, but here goes. Good groups get close, and getting inappropriately close can destroy groups, families and ministries! Inappropriate emotional and/or sexual attachments are intolerable. We’ll discuss this in our group meeting, and if you have any confusion on this subject please feel free to talk to email us at Info@NorthStarCommunity.com
- We share the belief that as long as there is breath in our lungs, we have the awesome privilege of being transformed into the person God deeply desires for us to be in the seen world. We value this transformational process in ourselves and others. We don’t give up hope, and on occasion, when we lose our place in the story and we do give up hope, someone carries it for us for a time. We are hope-filled people, because we trust in the One who created us, and His Son, who came to not only set us free, but to give us the abundant life – NOW and into eternity.
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