I watched the TV screen scroll through the public-service announcements, finally seeing the one I’d been looking for: “Divorce Recovery Group,” it read, with information and the name of our church below. In the past year I have received dozens of phone calls regarding this group, and more about others we sponsor. It’s one way our church is responding to the needs around us.
More and more churches are offering divorce-recovery, addiction-recovery, grief, cancer, pregnancy, parenting, and retirement groups, among others. These support groups give a forum whereby people can stand by one another, support and encourage one another, and receive, in the process, the very comfort of God (2 Cor. 1:3-7).
Many churches, however, hesitate to start a support group because they simply feel unqualified. Yet the process isn’t as intimidating as it sounds. Here, for example, are the steps our church takes in forming support groups.
Step one: Identify an appropriate need
I wouldn’t start a support group simply because someone decided the church should have one. Groups need to meet legitimate, existing, and usually felt needs.
One church, looking at community demographics, learned that in many homes both parents worked, leaving many children alone for several hours after school. These “latchkey homes” shared a common need, and the parents were keenly aware of the problems. So the church launched a support group for them.
Another church used a congregational survey. They had assumed people wanted help with parenting skills but were surprised to find many of their people were enduring one form of grief or another. So they formed a grief group.
Step two: Select the right leader
Since a support group isn’t a therapy group, the leader need not be a professional. However, he or she must be qualified. Because support-group participants are particularly vulnerable and must be protected accordingly, the potential leader ought to possess several qualities:
Personal maturity. I look for both emotional and spiritual maturity.
John was an alcoholic who badly needed support to stop drinking. He began going to a support group for alcoholics led by Shawna.
Shawna had a strong personality and believed in what she was doing. She also used her leadership to bolster her ego. John began staying after meetings to talk with her about his drinking. Soon they were having dinner together, and then having an affair. As soon as he and Shawna broke up, he quit attending the group and began drinking again.
Leadership potential. This includes the abilities to listen, guide discussions, present accurate information, and handle the unexpected.
I once participated in a marriage-enrichment group in which the leader introduced a simple exercise. In the middle of his instructions, one man became extremely agitated and left abruptly. His wife broke down sobbing, while the group stared at the woman and the leader.
The leader had the presence of mind to take a break; he then explored the situation with the man’s wife privately. When the group came back together, he encouraged the woman to talk about the struggle she and her husband were having with the group, and the group gave her the support she needed. That leader had made sound judgments in a tense situation.
Personal credibility. One woman told me she felt comfortable coming to our abuse-recovery group because the leader was someone she could identify with. A member of an abusers group told me he continued to attend only because the group leader spoke from experience. Another group member told her leader, “I like coming here because I know you are a ‘real’ person, just like me.”
To be credible, however, does a leader need to experience the group’s unifying problem? If so, Jesus’ ministry would have failed. He was not immoral, yet he led prostitutes out of immorality.
The key to his effectiveness? Jesus had credibility. He knew temptation, and he demonstrated to others a realistic way of life.
While I prefer group leaders who can share from experience, it’s more important that they be believable. At a minimum, leaders need to understand the problem and the scriptural insights that speak to it. They must also have a realistic picture of what can happen in the lives of the group members.
Love. Jeff thought he could lead a group with a time commitment of four hours a week: two for the group, one for preparation, and one for supervision. On paper, it worked. But because Jeff loved his group, he found himself spending many more hours with members on the phone and in the parking lot. It made a difference. As relationships develop, group members know who “punches the clock” and who cares.
Willingness to be accountable. Martha, the mother of a man in a support group for chemical dependency, anxiously told me her son was being “taken over” by the leader. The leader was telling Martha’s son where to work, who to talk to, and even which church to attend. Upon checking out the group, I found the leader wasn’t accountable to anyone.
Every responsible professional counselor consults with or is supervised by another. No support-group leader should be hesitant to seek the same type of relationship. Many churches (including ours) require weekly supervision of group leaders, as well as written reports of the group sessions.
Step three: Develop a core group
Imagine going to a party to which you had been invited, but the host doesn’t show up! That’s what happens when a church offers a support group without a core of its own committed people attending.
In most cases, our church develops a support group only when a number of our members with a valid need will form the core. For example, in a divorce-recovery group, the church members attending should be recovering from divorce. When a core group is in place, others will be more likely to join.
Normally, a core group consists of four to six church members, although sometimes two churches can supply the members. In some cases, however, it’s not possible to form a church core. When our church established a group for abused women, only a minority were members of our congregation. The core consisted of reliable people from outside the church.
The ways to form a core group are varied. Some churches place an announcement in the bulletin. Other churches seek people who fit the qualifications. Still others rely on referrals from members.
Step four: Determine the appropriate structure
Although there are a variety of valid formats for support groups, several ingredients are vital to every group. These are:
1. Ice-breaking and fellowship time
2. Opportunities to share feelings and experiences
3. Discussions of issues that relate to the group subject
4. Education about relevant topics
5. Prayer for and with the group members.
Depending on the nature of the group, different amounts of time will be allotted to each ingredient. For example, divorce-recovery and abuse-recovery groups spend much time sharing feelings. Groups designed to prevent problems, such as parenting groups, might focus on educational input.
Step five: Train all leaders
It’s not necessary to put all leaders through the same training, but a basic training program-particularly for lay leaders-is important. Ingredients in such a program include:
1. Knowledge of the particular subject matter
2. Knowledge of group dynamics
3. Group-leadership skills
4. Referral skills and resource information
5. Crisis-intervention skills
6. Briefing on accountability procedures.
Often, the people we seek as group leaders have already shown their leadership ability, but this doesn’t mean they don’t need specific training.
A friend of mine is an excellent family therapist. Although she understands group dynamics, her greatest skills lie in individual counseling. She was asked once to lead a support group but was not given training, and the results were disastrous.
Step six: Hold an organizational meeting
Holding such a meeting has a number of advantages over simply beginning the group. First, it settles ahead of time the issues of meeting length, frequency, focus, and format. Second, it acts as an ice-breaker. Third, it allows all group members to start with the same information. Finally, it clarifies existing needs.
For example, in the organizational meeting for a parenting group, I learned that several present needed a more specific group to support parents of adolescents with severe behavior problems such as drug abuse, violence, and thievery.
Also, if a large number of nonchurch people are expected (or desired), it might be wise to choose a neutral setting for the organizational meeting, such as someone’s home, a school, or a restaurant conference room.
Step seven: Clarify safety rules
At the organizational meeting, I clarify group rules designed to insure our safety. For example, nearly every group will want a virtually ironclad confidentiality rule. Yet a recent conversation illustrates the need for one exception: if maintaining confidentiality would endanger someone, we will break confidentiality.
Tony pastored a church with a grief-recovery group. One day he called to consult about a member who had indicated that he intended to seek revenge on another. Tony was taken aback by his honesty and believed the person meant what he said. He was inclined to warn the person being threatened, yet he felt he needed to maintain confidentiality. However, in this case, to do so would have endangered someone.
Other rules I have insisted on include giving people freedom to speak or not speak in group meetings, limiting dating relationships between group members (especially in a divorce-recovery group), and requiring an entry conference to insure group members are appropriate to the group.
Step eight: Distribute a variety of publicity
Our publicity for support groups generally employs three forms: brochures, news releases, and public-service announcements. Brochures provide the most information and can be printed in quantity and distributed broadly.
News releases are normally one page (double spaced) and should be sent to all newspapers in the area (labeled on the envelope as news releases), as well as other churches, schools, community groups, counseling agencies, doctors, lawyers, and any other interested parties.
Public-service announcements designed primarily for radio and television stations are an excellent way to get basic information to hundreds of thousands. They should be brief:
GRIEF-RECOVERY GROUP-MEETS 7 PM EACH THURSDAY, 9th AND GROVER. OPEN TO ALL WHO HAVE EXPERIENCED THE DEATH OF A LOVED ONE. FREE OF CHARGE. CHILDCARE PROVIDED. FOR MORE INFORMATION, CALL 555-5555.
As much as possible, publicity should feature prominently the church name. This is more than a public-relations gimmick. The more that people outside the church see the church’s name in connection with support groups, the more credibility the church will have.
Step nine: Continue oversight
A minister or another qualified person can supervise the leaders either individually or in groups to give them feedback, guidance, and support.
When I provide oversight, I’m regularly reminded of how group members find comfort and strength. I also see how leaders, themselves, benefit. Some of them have experienced enormous pain and suffering yet find they are comforted when they comfort those in their group. Not only have they grown through their own pain, they also can see God using their pain to help others.
That’s especially gratifying: it’s support-group ministry at its best.
-Randy Christian
Beaverton (Oregon) Christian Church
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