Connect

Running A Connect Group: Tips

December 01, 2025 0 0

 

Running A Connect Group

Follow the Spirit and do what works for your group!

 

Our Connect material is intended to be flexible and you are encouraged to adapt it to suit your needs and where the Holy Spirit takes you. Below is a completely optional rough outline of how we envision the material could be used in a 90 or 60 minute weekly session. As a leader you are free to shake things up (either as you prepare, or on the fly) responding to the discussion as it unfolds. Our experience of small groups is often the fascinating stuff happens ‘off topic’ when a group has gone on a tangent and ended up somewhere new. Go as the Spirit leads you and don’t feel like you have to cover every reading or topic in each session.

If you are a pre-existing group/community you may have already have a format that works for you. Perhaps you always begin with a song, maybe you read a short liturgy aloud, share a meal together, have an informal catch up before diving into the reading, break for tea and coffee in middle and so on. If so that’s great, just weave our material into that.

 

Optional outline for running a session:

 

  1. Welcome — introducing yourself as the group leader and asking others to do the same, you could share briefly what interests you/draws you to the theme this month/week
     
  2. Brief summary of the overall theme and Sanctuary First/and or specific organisation running individual group
     
  3. An opening prayer, inviting God to travel with us as we explore the Bible
     
  4. Introducing the theme of the week — reading the theme introduction aloud and/or tailoring to your group context, allow space for comments and initial impressions if any
     
  5. Point to videos, podcasts, Daily Worship etc on the Sanctuary First site that links in (there is a short video to accompany each week in the Connect section)
     
  6. Share the Seed to Sow for the week and perhaps return to it at the end of the discussion
     
  7. For each section begin by inviting someone to read the Bible text aloud. Then the leader begins the discussion, reading the prompts out to the group and then throws it over to them to respond. (As a leader you may wish to adapt/expand/edit, for instance only focusing on two readings etc or changing the order, or expanding reading ranges etc). The discussion prompts are designed to go in a number of directions. It can be helpful to ask general questions about what stood out for people in the reading, what questions, insights or personal responses do they have to the text? And then you can link those responses to the topics in the material.
     
  8. A closing prayer led by the leader or the group leaving space for intercessory prayer as the group develops and gets to know one another
     
  9. Telling people about the next session’s topic and pointing them to Connect resources on the Sanctuary First website.