20 Tips / Tip 18

Tip 18: Stay With Fruitful Conversation, Even If It's Taking Too Much Time.

For group leaders who are especially time-conscious, it's natural to march through a set of questions and make sure everything gets covered in the time allotted. The best group leaders remain mindful, though, that the real goal of the meeting is transformation, not completion.
Sometimes, a question will stimulate lots of discussion. It will go deep; it will touch a chord; it will create excitement; it will surface pains or misunderstandings that need to be addressed; it will plant the seeds of lasting change for people. Avoid cutting off God's work in these situations. Don't be a slave to a script, insisting on covering all the questions in your time together. Some questions may require twenty minutes, others three minutes. So be flexible and learn to discern when to deviate from your original plan.