Activity · Personal Growth
Experience Plans
The tool your group uses to name one step forward, and the night you introduce it
Leader Context
The Experience Plan is how a person names a few goals for how they want to pursue God, and a couple of habits that get them there.
It is not about doing everything at once or being perfect. It is about one small step forward in at least one area.
Your job is not to make anyone fill it out. Your job is to create the space, invite them to share if they want to, and pray with them.
Before you hand out the tool, spend some time on where people are right now. That conversation is what makes the tool land instead of feeling like homework.
The first month, not everyone will fill it out. That is fine. Once a few people start sharing wins, others get drawn in. Stay consistent and watch your group members grow.
Read to your group
Before we get into the tool, I want to talk about growth generally, because most of us already know how to grow at something. We have done it somewhere else.
Questions
Where you have already grown
Start outside faith. Everyone has an answer to this one.
Talk about an area of life where you have grown a lot over time. Career, health, a hobby. What did you do to pursue that growth?
Where you are strong
The five purposes are worship, connect, learn, serve, and share.
Which purpose do you feel most confident in, and what habit got you there?
Where you want to grow
This is the question the Experience Plan answers.
After this series, which purpose would you like to see growth in?
The first step
Keep it small enough to actually happen.
If every step forward is progress, what could you do this week to take one?
Next Steps for Leaders
- Introduce the tool after the conversation, not before. Ten to fifteen minutes is enough.
- Give people a few minutes in the room to fill it out on their phones. A plan people take home is a plan people forget.
- Invite anyone comfortable to share one goal. Do not go around the circle.
- Close in prayer over the steps being taken.
- Review monthly. Groups do best when they pick a consistent rhythm, like the first week of the month. See Sync with the Spirit for how to run the review.
- Send your group to dinnergroups.com/experience-plan. They fill it in on their phones, save it, and share it with the group. Anyone who wants paper can print it from there, and so can you.