iLead: Renew your strength, refocus your vision

Orland AND Lockport!

2 to 3 times a year we’ll be pulling our small group leaders together (leaders, co-leaders, hosts, facilitators, etc.) for encouragement, a look ahead at what’s coming in the next 6 to 12 months, and some important skill training.

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I’d really like to hear from you today about your plans to join us this Sunday.  If you haven’t responded, please do that right now.  Much as we’d like to call you…it’d just be better if you’d respond.

Click here to RSVP

Click here if you CANNOT attend iLead this Sunday

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Our first chance to get together this year will be Sunday, May 2nd, from 12:30 to 2:00 p.m.

• Pastor Tim will be sharing some exciting news about what’s coming this fall.
• You’ll be able to preview the new and improved small group finder that will launch in mid May.
• You’ll be able to connect with other small group leaders and hear what’s working.
• You’ll learn how to use the Purpose Driven Life Health Assessment and Plan to encourage and challenge your group members.

I hope you’ll make this hour-and-a-half meeting a priority. I know the weather’s getting better, there’s a lot going on, and the Sox will be playing the Yankees…but I really want to encourage you to join us. What you’re doing is very important. We all want to make sure we’re leading in a way that will hear “well done.”

iLead: Renew your strength, refocus your vision

2 to 3 times a year we’ll be pulling our small group leaders together (leaders, co-leaders, hosts, facilitators, etc.) for encouragement, a look ahead at what’s coming in the next 6 to 12 months, and some important skill training.

Our first chance to get together this year will be Sunday, May 2nd, from 12:30 to 2:00 p.m.

• Pastor Tim will be sharing some exciting news about what’s coming this fall.
• You’ll be able to preview the new and improved small group finder that will launch in mid May.
• You’ll be able to connect with other small group leaders and hear what’s working.
• You’ll learn how to use the Purpose Driven Life Health Assessment and Plan to encourage and challenge your group members.

I hope you’ll make this hour-and-a-half meeting a priority. I know the weather’s getting better, there’s a lot going on, and the Sox will be playing the Yankees…but I really want to encourage you to join us. What you’re doing is very important. We all want to make sure we’re leading in a way that will hear “well done.”

Late breaking news…the Spring Cleanup operation is RAIN or shine!

Every year Parkview’s summer picnic is at Camp Manitoqua. If you’ve been, you know it’s a great time. If you haven’t…this year’s picnic is September 12th and you won’t want to miss it.

One of the best ways to help your group really connect is to find a way to serve together. Your group can make a difference by helping get Camp Manitoqua ready for action:

When: Saturday, April 24, 2010 9 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.

What: Camp Manitoqua is looking for about 200-300 people to help start the year with Spring clean up. The following projects will be needed:

• Painting – various buildings, touch ups
• Inside Office Repair – light sanding and painting around windows, staining trim work
• Planting Trees
• Reset Bridge
• Decoration Creation Project for Summer Camp
• Build 2 initiatives
• Repair bench boards (around pool & chapel & ARC) & repaint
• Fence Repair & possible paint
• Cleaning & resetting picnic shelters
• Gardening & Mulching
• Collecting Leaves
• Cleaning windows, etc.

Need more info? You can email Leah Meskis or give her a call at 815-469-2319.

Ready to sign up? Email Lisa LeRose-Hoerler.

Every year Parkview’s summer picnic is at Camp Manitoqua.  If you’ve been, you know it’s a great time.  If you haven’t…this year’s picnic is September 12th and you won’t want to miss it.

One of the best ways to help your group really connect is to find a way to serve together.  Your group can make a difference by helping get Camp Manitoqua ready for action:

When: Saturday, April 24, 2010 9 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.

What: Camp Manitoqua is looking for about 200-300 people to help start the year with Spring clean up.   The following projects will be needed:

• Painting – various buildings, touch ups
• Inside Office Repair – light sanding and painting around windows, staining trim work
• Planting Trees
• Reset Bridge
• Decoration Creation Project for Summer Camp
• Build 2 initiatives
• Repair bench boards (around pool & chapel & ARC) & repaint
• Fence Repair & possible paint
• Cleaning & resetting picnic shelters
• Gardening & Mulching
• Collecting Leaves
• Cleaning windows, etc.

Need more info?  You can email Leah Meskis or give her a call at 815-469-2319.

Ready to sign up?  Email Lisa LeRose-Hoerler.

Looking for a way to serve together on a one day project that will make a difference? 

Shady Oaks Camp “creates outstanding camp experiences that enrich the lives of  our campers by providing outdoor fun and recreational opportunities for children and adults with Cerebral Palsy and similar disabilities.”

Here’s an opportunity to serve:

When: Saturday, May 1st, 8:00 a.m.

Where: Shady Oaks Camp (in Homer Glen, IL)

What: The build will be supervised by Recreation Concepts, the playground company.  You do not have to have any building experience or bring any tools.  If you can hold a screw driver and/or lift some equipment you will be great!  If you can help, please shoot me an e-mail.  It will also be a camp cleanup day so if you want to bring the family out they can help with raking leaves, cleaning buildings, etc.

Interested?  You can sign up to help by emailing Scott Steele or call 708-301-0816.  For more information about Shady Oaks Camp, you can check out their website at www.shadyoakscamp.org.

When you meet with a personal trainer one of the first things they ask you is what do you wish was different?   They may phrase it a lot of different ways, but essentially they’re asking, “Where do you see that you need to change in order to be healthy?”

What if you learned to have that same conversation with the members of your group?  Think that would be a good conversation?   Think there would be some movement in the right direction?   Me too.  Here’s how to become a spiritual trainer.

1. Recognize that before you can help your group members…you’ll have to go there first.  You don’t have to have arrived there to help your members.  Remember, Paul wrote, “I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me.  No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead,  I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us (Philippians 3:12-14 NLT).”  As you’re moving toward where you want to be you can begin to show your members the same next steps.
2. Take a look at the Purpose Driven Life Health Assessment.   This is a dynamite tool.   It’s free.  And you don’t have to be purpose driven to really get a lot out of it.  Much like an annual physical, this can be used to get a snapshot of a person’s spiritual health.  10 minutes spent answering these 25 questions will do some very important things: (a) It will give all of us a common language to describe how they’re doing spiritually, (b) it will provide a snapshot of spiritual health or balance, and (c) it will provide the basis for some very important goal-oriented thinking.
3. Once you’ve completed the Health Assessment, total up your score in each of the 5 areas.  How’d you do?  Where are you strongest?  Where are you weakest?
4. The next step is touse the results from the Health Assessment to establish spiritual growth goals using the Purpose Driven Life Health Plan.   This is huge!  The assessment is gold but the Health Plan is where the really good stuff happens.  Taking what you’ve learned on the assessment and developing goals based on their strengths and weaknesses will help you have a way of thinking about spiritual growth.  As you look at the Health Plan you’ll see that each of the 5 areas has a section for goals and some examples.   Each section also includes a key question.
5. Once you’ve learned how to use the Health Assessment and Health Plan it is very easy to take the exercise to your group. This can provide a rich source of encouragement and challenge. It will also give your members a way to talk about what is happening in their spiritual lives.
6. The health assessment can also be used by individual small groups to help choose curriculum. Simply have members total up their individual scores and then see where they want to grow as a group.

Just wanted to thank many of you who have asked how the Connections went.  It says a lot about Parkview to know that you see the value of GroupLife and want others to have what you have!

As you know, we had 3 connections (2 at Orland Park and 1 at Lockport).  I was really pleased with the turnout and the result.  We started 10 new groups at Orland Park and 2 new groups at Lockport!  That really is a good thing.  The most exciting part about the connection process is that it identifies new leaders very effectively.  In a fast growing church that is huge!

Many of you have also been asking ‘what’s next for the existing groups?’  All I can tell you today is to stay tuned!  We’re about to add a great new web-based group finder that will make it much easier for unconnected people to find a group.  We’re also in the early planning stages of a really good church-wide study that will happen in October.  I’ll have more on both of these next steps next week!