This is a suggestion for how to lead an online Connect Group, based on the talk that David Stroud gave on Sunday 5th July. It lasts around 80 minutes, but feel free to extend sections, remove sections, add your own or just do your own thing entirely! Whatever works best for you and your group.

The discussion questions and reflections will work without having listened to the talk, but if you are going to use them you may want to send out the following link to your group so they can listen/watch before you meet:

David’s talk

Information for Connect Group leaders

Our next pastoral care seminar via Facebook Live will be at 8pm on Thursday 9th July. Go to the Christ Church London Facebook page to watch and also invite friends too 🙂

Tips for hosting Connect Group online

• Make sure you are online a few minutes before the start of the group so that you are there to welcome people as they arrive. 
• If you have a lot of people in the group, you may want to ask everyone to keep their mic muted unless they are talking in order to keep background noise to a minimum. 
• In the Gratitude & Concerns round where you want everyone to speak in turn you will need to let people know who is next. We’ve found it helpful to be very active in directing this, and to ask people to end with something like ‘Thanks for letting me share’ (very STEPS!) so you know when they are finished:
  •  Group Leader: ‘X is next then Y.”
  •  X: “… thanks for letting me share.”
  • Group Leader: “Thanks for sharing X. Y is next then Z”.
  • Just make it clear that people are welcome to say ‘pass’ if they’d rather not share.

• If your group is small enough, during the discussion you may want to suggest people unmute their mics so they can jump in when they want. This will help discussion flow more easily. With large groups you may need to keep people’s mics muted unless they are talking. This will take more active moderation – we’ve found it helpful to ask people to raise their hand when they want to speak, then wait for the moderator to bring them into the conversation. 
• If your platform has a chat function, make use of that by pasting discussion questions, relevant quotes or Bible verses, and the links to the talk. You may also want to ask people to write their prayer requests, which could be emailed around after the meeting. 
• Have the link for your next group available to share. 
• You might also want to think about planning a short group chat either directly before or after one of the services as a way of offering another touch point for your group and to make it feel like you’re ‘going to church together.’ 

Note: Read out everything in italics. You may want to post these in the chat too. 

Welcome & Prayer (5 mins)

Welcome everyone to the group and remind people of the following: 

• As a general rule it’s helpful to keep your mic muted unless you’re talking to reduce background noise. 
• During the discussion if you want to speak, raise a hand and I’ll throw the conversation to you. 
• We’ll be using the chat function to post links, quotes, Bible verses and prayer requests. 

Start your time together by praying, thanking God for the opportunity to be together and asking the Holy Spirit to lead and guide your time together (you may want to ask someone else to pray).

Gratitude & Challenges (15-25 mins)

Ask everyone to introduce themselves and share one thing from the last week they are grateful for, and one thing they are finding particularly challenging. 

Don’t forget to make it clear who is to share next, and to let people know they can pass if they want to. 

Overview & Group discussion (20 mins)

On Sunday David finished off our ‘Good Fruit’ series by looking at the gentleness of Jesus. David described gentleness as ‘controlled strength’ and spoke about our need to be gentle towards those in our own household, those the world considers weak, and also those the world considers strong.

Q1. What might being gentle in your interactions with your household/close family and friends look like for you practically?

Q2. Being gentle towards those we consider weaker than ourselves is probably not suprising. Being gentle towards those we consider stronger probably is. What were your initial reactions to this idea? Do you agree or disagree with the call for Jesus followers to be gentle to the strong? What might being gentle to those with power and authority over us look like?

Meditation (5 mins)

Read through Philippians 2:3-11 and reflect upon the character of Jesus:

3  Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves,  4  not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. 5  In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6  Who, being in very nature [ a ]  God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7  rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature [b]  of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8  And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9  Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10  that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11  and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

Prayer (10 mins)

Move into a time of prayer for one another, for the church, for London and the UK, and the world.  (You may want to break into smaller groups of 2s and 3s for prayer if anyone wants to pray into particular areas that have come up in discussion). 

End your time by praying the Lord’s prayer together. We often treat this as just a template for individual prayer, but it was given to a community and was intended to be prayed as a community.

Our father in heaven
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done, on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours
now and forever. Amen.