How Do I Grow If I'm The Most Mature Person In My Group?
Have you ever wrestled with the question, "How do I grow spiritually if I'm the most mature person in my group?"
What do you do if as a Group Leader, you are continually pouring yourself into the people in your group, but you don't have anyone in your group who is ahead of you spiritually?
What do you do if you find your Community Group tends to be community through you, but not community for you?
This is a tension that comes with leadership. Who leads the leader? Who mentors the mentor? Who pastors the pastor?
If you have not experienced this tension yet, you'll likely wrestle with it at some point as you continue to grow in your faith.
So what's the answer?
There is more I'd like to say than you probably have time or would like to read in 1 post.
We've got lives to live, work to be done, and enough emails to get through. So instead of writing 1 long essay for you to read today, I'd like to take a few weeks to wrestle with this tension with you.
Today I just want to raise the tension and define what we are pursuing.
In the next posts we'll talk about practical answers.
Before we answer how we can grow spiritually, we need to define what growing looks like.
Spiritual growth can simply be defined as "becoming more like Christ".
Paul makes this clear in Ephesians 4:13 when he prays that Christians will "become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ."
As a Group Leader and a follower of Christ, this means that the end goal of our spiritual growth must move beyond simply learning more information about God to living like Him.
Some of the signs that we are growing spiritually include:
Love for God and love for people (Matthew 22:27-39)
Displaying the fruit of the spirit: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23)
Looking like Christ is the essence of spiritual growth and the end goal of becoming mature.
So that's the goal, but how do we get there? How do you grow when there are a lack of spiritually mature people in your group? How do you grow when you are the most mature member of your group?
We'll talk about that next time.
What do you think? I'd love to hear how you've wrestled with this tension. What questions or thoughts do you have? Just email me HERE.
Additional Resources
2 Ways To Help Your Group Know God Better
Staying Spiritually Vibrant (3 minute video)
How Do You Know If You Are Succeeding As A Leader?
4 Sure Ways To Burn Out As A Group Leader
Northridge Leaders Facebook Group
Questions?
Contact your Group Coach or search this website. We'd love to be a resource to you!
