River Group Leaders » River Leaders Podcast

Brenda interviewed Sarah about how God called her to launch her own group. Terry gave training on Philosophy of Ministry and Christy spoke about launching new groups and the blessings and challenges of investing in diverse women through the years.

Rodney continued the training on mentoring by focusing on member care and how member care can be a tool for mentoring.

Trace began the morning by talking about mentoring and giving us some tools for identifying and developing leaders.

Terry spoke about Friday night and shared three levels of “struggle” that we all experience in this fallen world.

Terry spoke on a vision for mentoring and challenged and encouraged leaders to work to recognize and develop emerging leaders. He also spoke about the Sequence in Learning by need. Slides from the presentation

Terry challenged and encouraged leaders to have a vision for transformation in their own lives and to challenge their group members to pursue transformation. He did this by sharing a brief bible study from 1 Timothy 1.

Terry gave information about the plan for Sermons in 2025 and also gave information about how we want to make prayer more of a priority in the coming semester.

Aaron gave us on update on the River Training Center and a potential partnership for teaching accredited classes with Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Rodney spoke about helping people change. This is an introduction to an upcoming River Christian Training class. Helping People Change Handout

Brenda spoke about mentoring as the bottom line of a group leader’s ministry. She also went through our leadership core commitments.

Jim Lewis shared how he and Justin and Neil have been reading the bible together over the last year. Each of theme shared some of the benefits of reading together and Jim encouraged and challenged group leaders to lean into reading the bible together.

Terry spoke about differing levels of complexity in life but our focus as group leaders to be faithful. The encouragement was to pursue simplicity in group life. Read the bible, pray, and do it in community.

Several weeks ago Austin and I had a good small group meeting. People were open and honest. We had a good discussion about the message. We have a guy who attends our group who is not a believer. He mostly listened. He felt welcomed and enjoyed being a part of the group. After our group meeting that night Austin said something to me that was very insightful and helpful. He said, “That was a good gr...

Q: Why do you believe in and trust the Bible? -what are the intellectual, emotional, “spiritual” reasons? Q: What reasons have you had or heard that people have had, who struggle to trust the Bible? Francis Schaeffer wrote, “The God who is there” “He is there and he is not silent.” He had a ministry in Switzerland where students from all over the world, in a pre...

We focused on Mission at Leadership in the fall. Terry began by talking about F.I.T.S. Which stands for Friendships, Identify with Christ, Team up with Others, Share the Gospel. Each of these aspects should be approached with prayer. God is the one at work, we are invited to join him. During the training a different leader came up and talked about how they have lived out each of these different as...

In the final session of the leader’s retreat, Dr. Allison talked about the transgenderism and gender dysphoria. He discussed the church’s proper response and errors for the church to avoid.

Dr. Greg Allison spoke on the Gendered Body in session 2 of the leader’s retreat. We are embodied beings, made either male and female, but both are made in the image of God. Our embodiment is the proper state of human existence.

Dr. Greg Allison spoke to River group leaders about the Created Body on September 9, 2023. There is a Q&A section in the recording and some of the audio is difficult to understand. For the leader’s retreat we are focusing on theology, because we are a church and good theology is essential to our call as leaders.

Terry recasts the vision for the reality that our Beliefs shape our values which in turn inform our behaviors. He gave us an overview of group life and then the staff led the time through the different components of group life: Meetings, Mission, Member Care, and Mentoring.

Terry talked about the meaning of being well-differentiated as a leader and took the leaders through some exercises to help people think about the importance of being well-differentiated. The well-differentiated leader is someone who cares and is connected but it not controlled by the drama and emotions of others.

Jim, Brenda, and Rodney talk with group leaders about mentoring threats and opportunities.

Aaron Lewis presented a theology on How People Change.

Terry talking about the importance of seeing people as whole persons. We are spiritual / physical hybrids. A group leader’s responsibility is in seeing people with the whole person in mind. The physical, spiritual, mental and relational are all facets of a persons life.

Terry spoke about Spiritual Leadership using stories from personal experience and instruction from Hebrews 10.

As a church we just finished going through the book of 2 Timothy. Terry took a few minutes to highlight a few key lesson from group life from our time in 2 Timothy.