Have you ever been given a gift from someone, it looks old like they got tired of having it around… so they “dumped” it on you? Did the thought bring you back a few years? Maybe your grandmother “gifted” you one of her old pairs of slippers, or a thing-ama-jigy that sits on a shelf and stares at you?
Many years ago I was blessed by a very Godly man who cared more about me than I did. That’s called a mentor. He gave me an old yellowed copy of Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends & Influence People.” Seriously, it had a copyright of 1936 and was printed in 1982. Gee golly, thanks man. Am I that hard to get along with? I guess I was back then.
It’s a book about change. Why change, How to change. And most importantly, what you need to change. I remember the summer of that year before he gave me the book, we were all together at a Putt-Putt /swimming park. He put his arms around my shoulders and lead me to a door for the men’s locker room. He pointed to the sign on the door, it said CHANGING ROOM. He opened the door walked me in and said, “Jay…you need to change.”
Ouch. Tough love. Amazing mentor.
One of the biggest jobs you have as a Home Group Leader is to win over your group.
“People don’t care about how much you know
until they know about how much you care.”
Go ahead, read that again. The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.
You can be a Seminary graduate, a biblical scholar, well known public speaker, or CEO of a corporation. It don’t mean squat in the eyes of your group if they don’t think that you truly care for them or are interested in them.
The end of Part 2 in the book ends with this Nutshell, and I think it’s very valuable to you as Home Group Leaders.
PRINCIPLE 1
Become genuinely interested in other people.
PRINCIPLE 2
Smile.
PRINCIPLE 3
Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
PRINCIPLE 4
Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
PRINCIPLE 5
Talk in terms of the other person’s interests.
PRINCIPLE 6
Make the other person feel important – and do it sincerely.
Wow, that's so not normal...It sounds like words out of Jesus' mouth. Remember, your group is not about you it's about getting the people that come to it see that you care about them like Jesus does.
