This is a follow up to my last post in a series of the Characteristics of Successful Groups. As I mentioned the 5 things that pretty much all of our successful groups do well are:
I want to talk in this post about being an officially recognized group and having well run/organized meetings. These are two areas that I have touched on in the past for this blog.
We have found that being an officially recognized group by the college, while not necessary, has major benefits. This allows you to book rooms on the campus, hold events, advertise, have easier access to new students, and get a budget among other things. While you can hold meetings and events off campus so you don’t run into these problems I have noticed that groups that meet on campus tend to have more student involvement and can do more outreach to the campus. If we’re going to effectively reach a campus we need to be actively involved there and providing ways for students to easily access us and get involved. After all, if you were going to be a missionary to Cleveland it wouldn’t make sense to live in Cincinnati.
Most campus administrations also tend to be upset with organizations trying to run on campus without being recognized as official groups. Being on the administration’s good side can definitely be of help to your ministry. I can only think of one group in our network that is not an officially recognized group on their campus that has been successful and I know that not being recognized has created problems for them at times and I think they could be even more successful if they were to get recognized.
If your group is not officially recognized I would strongly encourage you to begin working on this as soon as possible. At this time of the year you may have to wait until the fall semester, but don’t let this drop off your radar. BASIC has staff members who can assist you with the process of getting recognized at your campus and most campuses require a constitution as part of the process, so we have made sample constitutions available to you here.
I’ve also talked a little bit before about having well run and organized meetings. The two things that students can pick up on almost as soon as they come to your ministry are if there is a good community and if meetings are run professionally and are well organized. If meetings are not well organized they can be frustrating, awkward at times, and even accomplish very little. I’ve been in meetings that are very awkward and uncomfortable and I’ve been in meetings that are very well run to the point where you don’t even think about how great the experience is until it’s over. Two of the best ways to have well organized meetings are things I’ve talked about before. Make sure you are holding regularly scheduled leadership meetings. Here’s my post on how to make them the most effective. Also, I posted a couple months ago on using rundowns in your meetings in order to make sure everyone is on the same page.
I can’t encourage you enough about the importance of being an officially recognized group and having well organized meetings. They are essential aspects to having a solid ministry. I’ll be covering the last two characteristics of successful groups next week.
Also, most of these topics I’m touching on will be covered in much more depth at the Propel: Leadership Summit May 13-14. This will be an awesome time of networking, training, and planning for your group. We’ll be giving out tons of free resources and the first 10 groups that register at least 4 people will receive the first 3 DVD’s of Francis Chan’s new series BASIC free! You won’t want to miss this, register here!