Life Stories/Testimonies/Background information

Experience has told us that it is useful for both leaders and other members of a group to understand the background a person comes from when it comes to interacting with them and interpreting their words and actions.

There are two main methods you can take for approaching this. One is to have each member of your group give a full-fledged testimony, or life story, preferably in less than 10 minutes. Most people choose to write theirs out ahead of time, and one method for helping them would be to have them tell you about: their general bio, their faith walk, and one or two key events in their life.

The second method, which we recommend, is a bit quicker. On the first night of group, when setting expectations, you just ask each member of the group the following three questions -

1) Tell us about your childhood/how did you grow up (i.e. parents christian or not, married or divorced, happy childhood or tough one)

2) How did you come to faith in Christ and how has knowing him changed your life?

3) What do you hope to get out of this group?

Either method is fine. Our recommendation is based on the hope that you get to know a little about one another on day one and get it all out of the way as an efficient time saver. If your style is to dive into life stories in a deeper way, that is also great.