Expert Advice for Small-Group Facilitators

 Just found a great resource for Small Group Facilitators. If these 3 ideas are helpful to you, check out the link below for more from the same author.

• The biggest challenge for facilitators is staying focused on why the group has gathered together—to grow and develop people. It's all about people. It's not about your agenda; it's not about the great lesson you wrote; it's not about all of the social things that the group likes to do. It's about life-on-life learning. So the facilitator has to help the group avoid getting sidetracked by knowing that there are a lot of good things and bad things that can hijack group discussions, but the group has to stay focused on helping people.
• Tactically, something you can do with dominant people is to seat them right next to you. This takes them out of direct line of sight. When they get eye contact, they often take that as a green light to talk. So having them on your right and left side minimizes that.
• Once you've built the relationship capital, you can start going deeper. Tactically, you can start with the curriculum you study and the tools you use. Americans tend to know more of God's Word than they actually apply. So if you want to take your group deeper, the issue generally isn't how to get more biblical knowledge into them; it's how to get them to act on it.

Source: Expert Advice for Small-Group Facilitators | Building Small Groups