Celebrating the New Year With Your Group

The new year always brings feelings of hope and excitement for what’s possible in the next season of life. There’s nothing specifically different about the actual day or month, but we often use it to reset our life goals and aspirations. It’s a great time to kick off that fitness goal, or Bible reading plan, or debt retiring budget.

The hard part is continuing the momentum into February and beyond. Those aspirational goals often become forgotten promises halfway through March. That’s why fitness gyms always plan on selling more memberships than they can handle. They know January’s crowds will settle back to normal levels soon.

Since one of the keys to sticking with a goal is accountability, why not build it into your group experience this year? Research shows that it takes around 21 days for a habit to form. Use this first month of 2018 to help your group build and keep those new productive habits. Here are a few ideas to kick the new year off right with your group.

• Commit to a daily Bible reading plan through January. There are great plans available through online tools like YouVersion.com, and you can keep each other accountable through the app.
• Go through a financial planning study as a group. A group study like Financial Peace University can help establish biblical financial habits with built-in accountability.
• Commit to a balanced discipleship plan for the year. You can see an example of one here.
• Have fun with a group fitness goal. This can be a weight loss challenge (use percentages), or a weekly boot camp class that the group attends together. A group that sweats together, loses pounds together.

Make this the year that personal goals were met because they were tackled as a group. You might also have some fun in the process.

Chris Surratt is a ministry consultant and coach with over 23 years of experience serving the local church. Chris served on the Executive Team at Cross Point Church in Nashville, TN, and was on staff at Seacoast Church in Charleston, SC, for 15 years. He is also the Small Group Specialist for Lifeway Christian Resources. Chris’s first book, Small Groups For The Rest Of Us: How to Design Your Small Groups System to Reach the Fringes, was recently released by Thomas Nelson. You can follow his blog at chrissurratt.com or follow him on Twitter @chrissurratt.