The Problem: How do we start small groups at Metro, the high school environment of God’s Design Church in Chisinua, Moldova?

Contributing Factors: 60% of the students are not believers.

A Solution: Alyona, the Service Programming Director, came up with an idea for the summer.  Metro divided the students into 5 teams of 20, each led by a staff member, for an 8-week competition called “Love, Fun, Rock and Roll” to teach them to express love while experiencing community. The five groups discuss questions given to them at Metro after Andre speaks, and during the week they do loving things for others, sending pictures of what they do, such as passing out balloons or ice cream to kids. Points are given based on how the students serve others, and at the end of the summer the winning team gets to spend a weekend at a huge house with a pool, a DJ, and food!

The Outcome: Three weeks ago they launched this at Metro and it was the best Metro they ever had, and the next week was even better with energy and excitement from giving the teams assignments for the competition and discussing what they had been doing so far. Students who were not friends are becoming friends!  This living room environment is changing Metro. When the competition is over, they will take the teams and form small groups out of them this fall!

We recently hosted seven of our globalx Partners and had a few guests for a two day conference called OverDrive immediately following North Point’s Drive Conference. I learned when you have some Moldovans, Macedonians, Estonians, Brazilians, South Africans, Philippinos, Venezuelans and a touch of France and Germany, look out! Things are going to get a little crazy!

We started our two days together with an Amazing Race adventure game on the North Point Community Church campus. It was so much fun to watch each group of five, comprised of people from different countries with different personalities, work together to try to win the race. We had some of the ladies running in high heels faster than some of the guys in tennis shoes! This game was a great way to get them connected with each other right off the bat.

We then dove into what their impressions were of the Drive Conference. Drive was put on by North Point Ministries for more than 2,000 leaders from around the country and world. We spent most of our debriefing time discussing the major points from Andy’s talks in the main sessions. Our partners got to hear how the messages impacted each leader from different parts of the world.

After spending the late morning and early afternoon debriefing Drive, we all headed off for an International Whirly Ball Championship with all of our globalx partners as the participants. It was quite a tournament. Whirly Ball is basically croquet in bumper cars. We had two courts and the teams would finish the game and run to the next game. After some fantastic goals and obnoxious penalties, a champion was crowned and we headed to an evening picnic together. When we have all of our partners in one place, we feel it is so important to have connection time socially as well as time to dive into what’s happening in their ministries and churches.

Friday we got into some new subjects and had people gather in groups related to the area of the church they work in. We split up into communicators, service programming, and people that work in family ministry or administration. We finished up our time hearing about the export tool that some of our staff members at North Point are working on. The tool will be online and will help all of our partnerships, foreign and domestic, to implement different environments in their own churches. It will be a great “How-to” guide.

The globalX team did a great job working together as one to make a great event for our international family. I recently got comments from some of our partners and guests and thought I’d share those with you:

“It was so great to get to know other partners and their team members better.”

“I was encouraged to see and hear some new faces on the block who seem to have really caught the vision, like Lorenzo [France] and Theo [Germany].”

“We really enjoyed having the time to process the DRIVE messages and it was great to interact with other teams as we processed.”

“Our guys really loved the time together at OverDrive. It was great to spend more time with our international partners. It doesn’t feel like they are NP partners, it feels like they are also our own partners.”

“I also loved the way your team seemed to be united and behind the same vision. You could sense it.”

“I guess the best way I can put it , once again we were able to feel how you care and love us as people. That means so much and is the biggest encouragement of all.”

Rod Brown

Like many of you, in the spirit of continual improvement, we at globalX are striving to tweak what we do in order to create a more organized, understandable, and simple system. One of our main strategies in globalX is encouraging and equipping international church leaders who have seen North Point and think this kind of church can work in their country.

We have four stages in our approach to partner development:

1. Prospect

2. Apprentice partner

3. Strategic partner

4. Mobilizing partner

As we have been focusing on these four stages we realized that alignment is crucial as we go forward toward a partner relationship. We’ve discovered that the earlier we can determine alignment, the better it will be not only for us but for the potential partner as well.

In order to determine alignment, we have developed a tool called “The 33 Weeks” that consists of DVDs, MP3s, and books that outline our vision, mission, core values, and practices. We believe these are core to understanding who we are and what we do as a ministry. Many times people visit NP and see the bells, whistles, lights, and more, and think they know what we are about. It’s easy for leaders to get excited when they walk through the doors of NP, but we know that there is more to it than what people see. When international leaders see the “whys” behind the “whats,” they are more equipped to contextualize it in their country. “The 33 Weeks” has been an important tool in determining who to move forward with and who not to move forward with.

What “The 33 Weeks” is intended to do:

1. Inform a prospect about our vision, mission, core values, and practices.

2. Help their core leadership team determine common ground and clarify who they want to be as a church.

Some leaders have realized the direction the church wants to go is not the direction they want to go. Even though this can be difficult, it surfaces misalignment within their team, which is ultimately a positive step.

3. Helps us (globalX and prospect) verify alignment with the North Point model allowing us to move ahead confidently in our relationship.

As this is a new tool we are encouraging our current partners to go through “The 33 Weeks” as well. As Andy has often said to our staff, “Vision leaks.” So it’s important to continue to cast the vision to your core team and the next tier of leadership in order to stay aligned with the direction you’d like to go.

We’ve been using this tool for about a year now and have already seen it be a positive addition to our partner process. If you are interested in going through this tool, we have included the exact steps (the-33-weeks) and encourage you to complete it with your core leadership team.

Relationships are incredibly important to me.  That’s why I’m involved in so many ministries at Buckhead Church.  I feel that God has gifted me with the ability to interact with people for the purpose of encouraging them, motivating them, connecting them, inspiring them, and investing in them.  My focus on globalX trips is first and foremost to create a unified team that is connected emotionally, spiritually, and relationally.  I make sure that the team has already connected and is firing on all cylinders before we even start planning for the trip.  I always reserve the first 3 or 4 meetings for team building, ice breakers, spiritual development (using the field guide), and personality tests.  Testimonies are something that I believe are incredibly important.  In my past experience, I believe that the team really gets to know each other when each team member is able to have space to share their personal story of coming to know Christ.  One of my favorite ice breakers involves play-doh.  I have each team member craft something about themselves or something they enjoy in play-doh and then share it with the group.  It creates a very loose environment at the first meeting.  That’s the other key.  Creating a fun and welcoming environment for the team members.  I also use the team retreat as a way for team members to connect.  I try to do very little trip planning at the retreat.  The weekend consists of team building activities, down time, prayer time, worship time, and testimonies.  One of my favorite team building activities is based on a Food Network show called “Chopped.”  I have the team members split into groups of two.  Each team gets a basket of the same ingredients and then they have 30 minutes to create a meal that will be judged on a number of categories.  This is a fun activity that my past teams have enjoyed.  Other than the retreat, I also build in at least one, if not two, socials for the team prior to the trip.  It’s usually something fun like bowling or a Braves game.

The last thing I will share with you is my reason for leading a trip this year.  It was a tough decision to lead again this year.  I was pretty burned out and felt like I needed at least a year off to recharge my batteries.  I started asking God to provide guidance on whether or not I should lead again this year, but instead of praying selfishly, I asked God to let me know if He wanted me to go and why.  Because a number of guys from my small group were interested in going and because of my desire to continue to pour into them as their small group leader, I felt God showed me the reason that I needed to go: to continue to pour into and disciple a group of younger men who have the potential to be rock stars for Jesus.  I feel incredibly blessed to have 6 younger guys on this trip that are fairly new to faith and are all excited about this experience and what it might mean for their spiritual growth.  I also plan on developing a true apprentice this year.  That’s another reason why I feel like I’m supposed to lead this trip.

If I were to encourage other leaders on how to keep this year’s relational goal in the forefront of their mind, I would focus on the following:

1. For the first few meetings, focus on team building and ice breakers.  Do very little trip planning.  It’s okay to talk about the trip and get everyone started on support, but really focus on the team members getting comfortable with each other.  Going through the globalX field guide helps this as well.

2. Plan socials outside of team meetings.

3. Use the team retreat as just that, a retreat.  That time should be focused on team building, testimonies, and really getting a chance to develop that connection and unity that will be so critical when you go overseas.

4. Communication is key.  Friends have told me that they have gone weeks without hearing from their trip leader.  Communication needs to be there from the leader.  That will keep team members informed and make them feel like they are in the loop.

5.  Meet regularly (at least every other week).  This is important.  In order for team members to connect with each other, they need to meet often.  I’ve had friends tell me that their leaders only schedule meetings once a month.  In my experience, that’s not enough.

6. Invest in those that you feel might be seeking to grow spiritually and keep an eye out for opportunities to disciple your team members.  This includes keeping an eye out for a potential apprentice.

At my team’s debrief last year, I remember sitting around a table at lunch and asking the question:  “What will you remember most from this experience?”  Every team member expressed how much they grew individually in their faith and how they all felt incredibly encouraged and loved by each team member.  That’s a big win in my book.

Jeff

Check out our latest blog at www.GOglobalX.org for one way to look at it. Click on Stories/Read our Blog.

As an example, check out the blog entry below (originally written for Buckhead Church’s blog site - http://blog.buckheadchurch.org). This was written by one of our trip leaders (Carolyn Norton) who recently led a trip to a church we work with in Spain. Our trip leaders are essential to a successful trip. Many team members never even meet a staff person, but they trust and rely on their team leaders completely. We are so thankful for people like Carolyn, who choose to lead trip teams over and over again because they have such a passion for impacting people overseas and a desire for people to know what it means to have a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Reasons to go on a mission trip to SPAIN:

When someone says they are going to Spain, thoughts of beaches, bullfights, ornate cathedrals, siestas and sangria often come to mind.  But the last thing people think of is doing a mission trip there!  So when I told people that I was going to be leading a mission trip to Vilanova, Spain for my third time in May, you can imagine the questions that followed.  “WHY SPAIN?” is often everyone’s top question.  So let me take a moment to answer that for you.

Many people choose places in Africa or South America for mission trips, and for good reason.  But you don’t typically think of Spain as a place that needs more “missionaries” or even churches.  In reality, Spain DOES need more people to be a part of God’s “bigger plan” for their country as much as any other country!  To give you a little background… Spain endured a long period of enforced Catholicism under the rule of General Franco. When Franco left power, faith had largely become a cultural issue for the population. The emergence of a strong post-Modernist culture in Western Europe did little to help the situation.  Now, there is a spiritual void in Spain, as religion and church are considered irrelevant to today’s culture, and less than 1% of the population are protestant Christians.  In addition, with the recent arrival of a large and thriving Muslim population in Spain, there is a strong sense of urgency for existing Christians to seize the opportunity to reach a very disenfranchised and passive culture.  So, yes, there are beautiful, ornate Catholic churches all over the country, just as you might imagine, but most of them are empty, especially void of those in my generation, many of whom no longer believe in anything because of what they’ve been told to believe in the past.  There is no praise or worship, and certainly the majority of Spaniards have never heard of what it means to have a “relationship” with Christ.

But that concept is changing, thanks to churches like Iglesia Cristiana del Garraf - the church we served in Vilanova (just outside of Barcelona).  Much like Buckhead Church, they too have a vision to help others “build a growing relationship with Jesus Christ” and present a church environment with relevant messages, where people will feel welcome and loved.  I believe the Lord is accomplishing that mission in this small church in Vilanova, Spain because I have seen it first hand!  In the past year, since my last trip there, their church has grown from 40 to about 60 consistent attendees, which makes it one of the largest Protestant churches in Spain!  That is a huge praise, but there are still over 80,000 “unreached” people in the surrounding area (and almost 42 million more around the country) who DON’T know Christ yet.  There’s more work to be done!

So that’s why I signed up this year to go to Spain for my third mission trip.  God blessed me with a team of 8 other committed people ready to encourage and support the church in Vilanova.  So from May 15-26, we worked with Iglesia Cristiana del Garraf, to help with some of their most immediate desires/needs including:
a.     Training “Starting Point” leaders
b.    Training small group leaders
c.    A service project with their church and our team (reaching out to help the local community)
d.    A RETREAT (weekend get-away with the whole church, to learn more about how to build community within their church and with outsiders)
e.    Prayer and Connections (building relationships, with each other and GOD)

It was an amazing experience, and I would love to talk to anyone considering a mission trip there or wondering how to get more involved.  We have a partner church in Sevilla as well, which is another great trip from what I hear.  Please continue to pray for the country of Spain and especially for these two special churches in Vilanova and Sevilla, who are trying to build a church community where people grow spiritually and come to know the love of Christ.  Specifically at ICG (Vilanova) they need prayers for God to bring forth a pastor for their church (they are currently without one) and funds for a new church building that they are trying to finish. ¡Gracias por tomar el tiempo para leer sobre y rezan para el movimiento de Dios en España!
To learn more about Iglesia Cristiana del Garraf or read about our mission trips to Spain, check out these links:  http://www.spainupdates.blogspot.com and http://www.iglesiadelgarraf.com

Durwood Snead
Director of globalX