The General Meeting Night - Part 5 - Are You Ready?

Part 5?! How many of these are there going to be?? I don't know. Lots I guess.

I'm getting ready for tonight's Celebrate Recovery at Saddleback and I'm teaching the Amends lesson. I love the lessons on Principle 6 because they show us that we don't recover in a vacuum. We all have people that have hurt us and people we have hurt and therefor need to learn to make amends and offer forgiveness. I'm excited about CR tonight!

I was just sitting here thinking though, are we ready? Do we have all of the elements of the night in place? I know who's teaching, but other than that, are we ready? The answer is, yes. We are ready, but not on accident and not without having to think about it some. If you're reading this blog (Hi!) then you probably know about the Advanced Leadership Training Guide. In that kit we have a module on the Large Group, which is of course part of the General Meeting Night (GMN). There's a worksheet in there called the "Large Group Format Worksheet." We use that each and every Friday night. It helps us keep organized and makes sure we don't forget anything.

Have you ever had that moment, maybe seconds before the Large Group begins and you think, "Did we get anyone to read the steps or principles tonight?" If you have, you know that panic. Ok, maybe panic is a bit strong but if you're the Ministry leader at your CR, that scenario probably does make you panic just a little. The worksheet has a place for you, or if you delegate this task like I do, for someone else to find readers and to write their names in that spot. It makes it so easy.

So, before you begin your next GMN, ask yourself, are we ready? Did we forget anything? If so, fix it.

If not, enjoy it. It probably won't happen twice in a row.

Johnny

The General Meeting Night - Part 4 - Information Table

Come on, admit it, you thought I forgot about the General Meeting Night series didn't you? Maybe you hoped? 

Nope, I didn't forget. 

The next part of the General Meeting Night (GMN) I wanted to talk about is the Information Table. 

"WAIT! The information table is the responsibility of the Assimilation Coach. You aren't Mac!" 

You're right on both counts. But, I still want to talk about it. I'll try to talk about it from the Ministry Leader perspective, though. Cool, Mac? Thanks.

The information table is a very important component of the GMN. Having a table with all of group sheets available goes a long way in making the newcomer feel comfortable. And remember, the GMN is all about who?

That's right, the newcomer.

The thing is, not everyone is going to feel comfortable telling someone else why they're coming to Celebrate Recovery. They might be afraid of being judged or singled out. That's why having the group description sheets available can be such a help. I've actually seen people come to our information table and take one of each sheet, both for men and women, so that no one can guess why they're there. Eventually they'll come to understand how Celebrate Recovery works, but that first night, they may want to be as unnoticed as possible.

Next, it's also important to make sure there are people at the table who can answer questions. We like to make sure the people behind our info table here at Saddleback are friendly, experienced leaders. We want people, at least one man and one woman, that know the program, the campus and that are good with people. We want them to be able to answer questions and help connect people if they'd like us to. 

So, make sure you have an information table, that you have people behind it to answer questions and help the newcomer and that you have the right things on it.

As far as what goes on the table and what should be left of, I'll leave that for Mac.

The General Meeting Night - Part 3 - Greeters

One way we can help make the newcomer feel at home is to have greeters. It's a good idea to have greeters stationed at any door that participants come in. That way everyone who attends Celebrate Recovery will have someone say hello to them as they enter.

Greeters don't just make the newcomer feel welcome though, they also get to serve. Lots of people come to Celebrate Recovery and they are ready and willing to serve. When someone first comes to Celebrate Recovery they may not be ready to get super involved in service or become leaders, but they can serve. In fact, newcomers can serve as greeters the very first night they attend. Use your discretion on this, but if someone comes and wants to serve, hand them a stack of bulletins and tell them where to stand and how to greet.

How to greet? Really? Do we need to tell people how to greet? In my experience, yes. We do.

We've had greeters that sing songs as people come in, want to hand out candy, and stop people to chat as they come in. This can be distracting and cause people to feel uncomfortable. We tell our greeters to hand out a bulletin, smile and say, "Welcome to Celebrate Recovery." That's it.

Having greeters makes a huge difference to newcomers and gives people a service opportunity. 

How have you seen greeters make a difference at your Celebrate Recovery?

Johnny

The General Meeting Night - Part 2 - The Basics

Wow, check it out! A part two. Even I'm surprised.

I wanted to touch a little on just what the General Meeting Night (GMN) is and what the components are. The GMN is your main Celebrate Recovery meeting night. Here at Saddleback, it's Friday nights. We've been meeting every Friday night since 1991. We've moved into different buildings and rooms, but we're here every Friday night. Your GMN doesn't have to be on Fridays, there's nothing sacred or special about that day of the week, it's just the day that worked for us.

When you pick the night for your GMN you may want to find out if there are other Celebrate Recovery groups meeting in your area? If so, what night or nights do they meet? Try to have your GMN on a different night of the week so more people can come to more meetings. You'll also be able to have leaders from the other CR groups come to your GMN and give their testimonies. Wait, we'll get to that in another post.

Also, you'll need to check with your church to see what nights are available. Is there a night of the week that allows you to spread out? Choose whatever night works best for you and your church, keeping in mind the other CR groups that may be meeting. I know of lots of places that offer CR meetings every night of the week because a few churches have worked together to make that happen. That is so cool.

The basic components of the GMN are Large Group and Open Share Groups. The Large Group is the meeting that most resembles a church service. This is where you'll have worship, a testimony or a Celebrate Recovery lesson. We'll talk about all of those elements in the coming weeks. The Open Share Groups follow the Large Group and are gender specific and recovery issue specific. The Group Guidelines are used in this time, but the Celebrate Recovery Participant Guides are not.

Another component of the GMN is Fellowship Events, like the BBQ and Solid Rock Cafe. You guessed it, we'll talk about those later too. 

I know this may seem like basic information if you are already doing CR, but I really want to get back to the basics for the next few posts. 

Next post we'll start looking at each of the elements of the Large Group.

Johnny

The General Meeting Night - Part 1 - The Newcomer

So, giving this post a name with "Part 1" in the title is dangerous, because it implies that part two (and maybe even parts three and four) is coming someday. As my track record has shown, I haven't been the most prolific blogger in the world. I'm hoping to change that and to start adding content here at least a few times a week. 

With that, I thought I'd start by spending some time talking about the General Meeting Night (GMN). The GMN is a key element of Celebrate Recovery for a couple of reasons. I'll talk about the main reason in this post and then break down some of the elements of the GMN in the next few.

The GMN is important because it is all about the newcomer. The GMN is the first experience most people will have with Celebrate Recovery. Everything we do on the GMN should be filtered through the eyes of the newcomer.

On arriving to your GMN the Ministry Leader and TEAM members may want to ask questions like these:

• What's our parking like?
• How is our signage? Can our meeting room be found easily?
• Do we have greeters ready?
• Is our room inviting?
• Are the leaders hanging out in a group, or are they spread out, ready to welcome and assist newcomers?

Asking ourselves questions like these every time we get to our GMN, we ensure that as the Ministry Leader or TEAM member, we are focused on the newcomer. 

How do you make sure your GMN is ready for newcomers? Let us know in the comments.

Johnny