September 30th, 2009 
alandanielson In honor of the fact that Star Wars The Clone Wars season 2 begins this Friday night, I thought it would be fun to write about what my favorite philosopher Yoda would have to say about small groups. [Luke] “I’ll try.” [Yoda] “No! Do or do not, there is no try.” Tons of people (group [...]
Posted in Small Groups, Special 
Tags: 2, clone, group, groups, philosopher, philosophy, season, small, star, two, wars, yoda 
6 Comments » September 29th, 2009 alandanielson Five years ago I began my position at LifeChurch.tv as the LifeGroup pastor on their big campus, and I was tasked with getting a small group coaching system in place. There were only four problems: I was relatively new to the whole small group scene, our campus was running around 6000 people, I had only [...]
September 28th, 2009 alandanielson This year’s Willow Creek Group Life Conference has one major difference from preceding years: no breakout workshops. Many pastors and leaders think this is a real bummer, so to prevent a Breakout Freakout, Dave Treat of ThinkingSmall.net has arranged for a day of breakouts in Chicago the day before the conference, Friday October 23rd. A [...]
Posted in Small Groups Tags: chicago, conference, dave, group, grouplife, groups, life, ministry, multi, multi-site, site, small, thinking, thinkingsmall.net, treat No Comments » September 24th, 2009 alandanielson Originally posted 03-18-2009. Reposted 09-24-2009. —————————————– Okay, true confessions time: on March 17, 2009 I made a big mistake while I was shaving. The good news is that no blood or hospitals were involved. Here’s what happened: I have this nice litte beard trimmer that had various length-settings. I always choose level 3 for the small beard-like-growth [...]
September 23rd, 2009 alandanielson I’ve been writing about sane and insane small groups this week. In case you missed it, the insane groups are the good ones. Here’s more evidence. People who like pain are by definition “not right in the head”. I believe the technical term is “masochistic”. The sane thing to do is to avoid pain, and [...]
Posted in Small Groups, Spiritual Growth Tags: change, crazy, group, groups, insane, masochism, masochistic, small, transformation No Comments » September 22nd, 2009 alandanielson Last time I wrote about groups that are Insane. Today I’m writing about the sane ones. Most people don’t want others to think we’re nuts especially when those “others” are in our small groups, so we perform for our groups in ways that maintain the appearance of sanity and/or normality. The result is a highly dysfunctional, but “sane-looking” small [...]
September 21st, 2009 alandanielson It’s way to easy to play it safe when it comes to our own small groups. It’s easy to meet at the same time in the same place with the same people and talk about the same kinds of things. One of my favorite passages from the book of Hebrews tells us, “And without faith [...]
September 17th, 2009 alandanielson Stop The Rain…Wait That’s Not Rain Here in Oklahoma City it’s been raining for a week. That’s a long time in the heartland of America to see no sunshine. Everywhere I go people comment about the nasty weather. My kids want it to stop raining so they can play outside. My cat absolutely hates the [...]
September 16th, 2009 alandanielson I spoke to a friend of mine a couple of weeks ago who always blows me away with his amazing faith. In the 4 years I’ve know this guy he’s never made a “logical” transition. Most people change from one job to another but always within the same or similar career path. This guy ran a [...]
Posted in Special Tags: Faith, God, Hebrews, job, jobs, leap, Please, risk, transition, transitions, trust No Comments » September 5th, 2009 alandanielson This week’s “Small Group Bite” podcast addresses an email about a small group member who travels a lot for work. Here’s how you get the mp3 podcast file: Go to the iTunes store and click “subscribe” (Please rate the podcast and write a review) Subscribe to the RSS Feed. Click Here to download this one episode of the podcast.
