Day 14: Investing in a Few. I have lead a high school girls life group for the last 5 years (they’re graduating in a few short weeks…tissues please!!). Leading this group has been one of my favorite things that I have ever done! They are an amazing group of young women who have grown to really love and follow Christ. It has been amazing to watch them grow and mature and ask hard questions and hold each other accountable. This last year our youth minister challenged us to read a book with tips on leading a high school life group, 99 Thoughts for Small Group Leaders by Joshua Griffin with Doug Fields. Truthfully, I only made it through the first 1/3 of the book or so (for some reason, that seems to happen with a lot of books I read…) but one of the points it made was to “Care for all, Pour into a Few, and Duplicate Yourself in One.” That is what this challenge reminded me of. “Pour into a Few.” And after watching the video of this challenge, I would add “Teach a Few to Do the Same.”
Since leading this group for the last 5 years, this is something that has never been a priority of mine, in fact, it just never really occurred to me. I wanted to invest time in their lives, teaching them to be obedient to Christ, and building their faith and understanding of God, but actually challenging them to be teaching other people (students they go to school with, kids in their youth group, even their parents) never really occurred to me. I am only on Day 14 of this challenge, but since starting it I have realized the importance of not only investing in other people but teaching them to invest in other people as well. It’s that idea of multiplication, and that is what makes this approach unique and is a great strategy to reach so many more people than you could on your own. The way I was doing it before, I had touched 13 girls over the last 5 years (some stayed the entire 5 years, some were only a part of the group for 1 year); but with the DMM model, each of those 13 girls could also be reaching 2-5 people (ish), who also could reach people, etc. making my total impact so much more.
You’re capturing it all, Nicole. Great work.
Thanks for pouring into and discipling me over the past 5 years, you’ve made such an impact on my life! I’m so so so thankful that I was blessed with being in your life group!