What are You Waiting for?

Our Northern New England Division recently had our 2005 Annual Command Review and our Divisional Commander sent out an email gist of the findings. There were two points that caught my attention and I would like to comment on them here. Whether you see it immediately or not, these two points are related.

1) We are particularly commended for the noticeable “healthy officer comment sheets.” These stand distinctly so in the Territory and is attributed to the officer small group infrastructure in our midst.

2) For the 2nd year in a row, Northern New England holds the highest appointment tenure in the Territory – 4 years 6 months average appointment length.

A few years ago, at the leading of our Associate Divisional Commander, Janet Munn, this division embarked on a "great experiment." I put that in quotes, because to those in the know, it was no experiment, it was a sure thing (I'd bet on it any day, if I was a gambling man). That experiment was Officer Small Groups.

At first, they were voluntary- after a year they became mandatory. Now, every officer in the division is a member of a small group of officers. There are roughly 8-10 groups and each officer has the choice of which group to attend (admitedly, some groups are too far away from a particular appointment to make it sensible to attend, so depending on the location, the officer may be limited in choice). The groups meet once a month and focus on different areas of study (perhaps studying a book). This year, each group is studying the book "Can You Hear Me?" by Brad Jersak (link in my column to the left- awesome book, by the way). Whatever the subject, the intent is to develop real Christian relationship and it's working!

I am a small group believer. I became involved in my first real small group in my last appointment. It was an interdenominational prayer group that became my church family. These people became my life-line and I learned to count on them, through the many struggles we worked through in the group over the years. Yes, many struggles! But we were committed to each other, so we worked through each struggle to a wonderful conclusion that developed trust and a sense of family. I was seriously sad to leave that group when we moved to this appointment in Maine. Some of those people will be dear friends for eternity.

"Church" as we have known it, over the years, is not working. We are not developing real Christian relationships in our body. Listen to the conversations on Sunday AM and you'll see we don't even know each other. So we need to make a change; we need to develop small groups (and our officers need to see themselves as people too- not set apart or higher than; equal with. But that's another story).

When our divisional officer small groups started, I heard it was being watched by all the other divisions to see if it would "work." I heard all kinds of disparaging comments, that frankly made me mad. Now, 5-6 years down the road, we've got a track record of success. To the point of our officer comment sheets actually being measurably more positive than the rest of the divisions in the territory and our officer stay average is the longest in the territory. If you think that doesn't relate, you're out of touch!

This division is committed to growing healthy officers and small groups is a major part of that equation. Healthy officers are happy officers and happy officers are productive officers. Productivce officers want to stay where they are to continue the success they are seeing. And you've got to remember that New England is spiritually tough ground! It's not easy ministering with such a high level of air warfare over us.

So now that we have a proven record- small groups actually do work, where are the other divisions? I think they should have stepped up to the plate long ago, but now that there is proof, there is no excuse. I think if our divisions are not willing to move in this direction, it should be mandated by our territorial leadership. Our officers are just too important. All our people are. I've seen program after program mandated by my territory through the years of my officer tenure. Most die out after a few years. None have produced the results small groups have. And we're just getting started!

And any corps officers out there aren't off the hook either. Small groups need to be implemented in each corps. Our corp's are producing similar results to the officers groups. Yeah, it's hard to get them going. No argument from me there. But you just can't argue with results.

Any Divisional Officers reading this? I challenge you toward small groups. Any Territorial Officers reading this? I challenge you toward small groups. Any Corps Officers reading this? I challenge you toward small groups. Any Soldiers reading this? I challenge you toward small groups.

What are you waiting for?