General Tips
Whether you’ve been leading groups for years or this is your first group, here are a couple of tips to help you run a great group for moms.
NO SHAME ATMOSPHERE
While this experience was designed to include daily, at-home studies, and people who complete them all will get more out of the experience, the reality for many moms is that they may not get to them. And one thing no mom needs is more shame about something else she should have done but didn’t get to. Invite all women to come to the group sessions whether they have done the daily studies or not. Jesus welcomes them to come as they are, and so do we!
PACING
These studies were written to be completed in seven, 90-minute sessions. During those sessions, you will start by sharing insights and experiences that came up during the previous week’s daily, at-home studies. After sharing, you will do a group activity, watch a video, complete the Bible Study and prayer. It sounds like a like, but we’ve included timing in this leader’s guide, and you can get through it in an hour. And we’ve learned from testing the studies that using them the way they are written in the book will be rewarding.
Still, some groups may wish to take more time to soak in the studies. You can do this in two ways.
The easiest may be to hold a two-hour small group session, which provides more time for both debriefing the previous week and completing the current week’s Bible study.
Alternatively, you may wish to spend two weeks on each study. Week one would include the group activity, video, Bible study, and prayer. Week two would consist of sharing insights and experiences that came up during the previous week’s daily, at-home activities. You could take time during the 2nd week to practice some of the activities suggested in the daily practices - which could be helpful for moms who didn’t have time during the week. This also has the advantage that you can practice a discipline from the study for two weeks, embedding it more in your life.
MATERIALS
There is room in the book to answer all of the questions. If there are women who don’t want to write in the book, encourage them to keep a journal of their study answers and experiences. Having everything in one place - the book or a journal - may help moms recognize transformation over time.
Moms will need to bring their copy of Moms at the Well each week. If they are not writing in their books, they should also bring their journals.
Participants will need to bring their Bibles to read each week’s passage. Alternatively, you may wish to print copies of the text before the session. Printed copies can be nice if people want to mark them up.
Any additional materials you will need for the week will be mentioned in the Leader’s notes for that week.
