Challenges

Relational challenges in your dinner group are opportunities to grow, for you as a leader and for the people in your group. That is the big idea, and everything below sits under it.

There will be nights, hopefully few, when you want to walk out of your dinner group and not look back. You will be tempted to roll your eyes, to get impatient with someone’s problems, to get frustrated with how little they show up. Anyone with life experience knows relationships are hard work. So let us say it plainly. Whenever people get together and share their lives, things get messy. Conflict happens.

We are made for each other. Yet making relationships work, let alone making them flourish, is often remarkably difficult.

N.T. Wright, Simply Christian

• How do you normally deal with people who annoy you?
• How do you normally deal with people who disagree with you?

Trouble is an opportunity

Whenever trouble comes your way, let it be an opportunity for joy. For when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be strong in character and ready for anything.

James 1:2-4, NLT

• Has trouble ever turned into joy or growth for you?
• Where have you matured in how you handle conflict?

As Christ followers we learn to love people we do not necessarily like. A dinner group is a great arena to teach and practice the hard lessons of loving, encouraging, and building relationship with people we otherwise would never get close to.

The Lord’s servants must not quarrel but must be kind to everyone. They must be able to teach effectively and be patient with difficult people. They should gently teach those who oppose the truth. Perhaps God will change those people’s hearts, and they will believe the truth.

2 Timothy 2:24-25

Kindness, patience, and gentleness make your leadership and your teaching effective. God is working to change hearts and bring people back to him, and you have a real part in that work.

• After reading 2 Timothy 2:24-25, which part is your growth area?
• How does it feel to know God wants to use you to help bring people back to him?

It helps to remember who we are and why we are trying to connect with people at all. The Bible calls the Church Christ’s body, a living thing with Jesus as the head. God arranges the parts as he wants them and gives each person a function that serves the whole. To stay healthy, the parts have to work together. Every one of them contributes to the growth and maturity of the body.

Three challenges you will hit

Lack of commitment

It drains a leader when people do not show up. Valid excuses or not, community takes time and a sense of commitment to develop, and poor attendance hurts it. What is in your control is making the time worth showing up for and keeping the goal and purpose of the group well defined.

• What are some other ways to build commitment?

Relationally unaware

We all want a group full of eager listeners and eager talkers who never talk too much, who know when to bring up the deep personal thing and when to talk about the weather. Someone who is relationally unaware upsets that balance. Awkward comments, awkward questions, oversharing. It can scare off new people and wear out your most committed members. You are the one who has to read the situation and confront the person in love.

There is no single right move here. It is case by case. Talking to other leaders, your coach, or a pastor will help you find the wisest path.

• Have you been in a group with someone relationally unaware? What did it do to the group dynamic?

Life challenges

Most life challenges are seasonal. Job loss, a new baby, sickness. Those are the moments to care for each other and show the love of Christ in a way people can touch. Sometimes it is bigger than a dinner group can hold, like a divorce, an addiction, or the death of a child. It is okay to recommend a support group or professional counseling in those cases.

• Have you been in a group with someone walking through a life challenge? How did the group support them?

The Matthew 18 principle

Sometimes a situation calls for confrontation. Jesus gave us instructions for exactly that.

If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

Matthew 18:15-17

1. Private confrontation. Done in humility, out of love, bathed in prayer.
2. Bring one or two others. People who can substantiate your claim or witness the conversation.
3. Bring it to the church.

OIC

• Observation. What did you observe?
• Interpretation. What are three reasons this may have occurred?
• Clarification. Could you clarify for me?

Your group will not be perfect

Life is messy and often comes with relational challenges. As you live life together in your dinner group, those challenges become opportunities to grow, for you and for your people. A dinner group is a great arena to practice the hard lessons of loving, encouraging, and building relationship with people we otherwise would not. Whether it is the perpetual over talker or a temporary sickness, recognizing that your group will not be perfect is a major part of leading one well.