I am excited about how we as LifeGroup leaders can lead healthier LifeGroups and form community together through reading this book and discussing it on this blog. As a talker versus a writer, I also look forward to our time face-to-face the week of April 9 when we discuss the first half of this book in person (more details to come). Let’s dive in.

Polarity Management is a new term for me. The book by Barry Johnson was published in 1992. Check out a Polarity Map on work/home balance. Has anyone read the book? Been trained in Polarity Mgmt? And/or used it personally or professionally?

“Instead of looking for right answers and nice little definitions, sometimes it’s better to identify and manage the tensions that exist between two desirable truths” This is the basic concept of Polarity Management and I am looking forward to applying it to LifeGroups.

The Learning Challenge – Truth………………………..Life

Where does your group fall on this continuum?

As a church we have chosen to emphasize ‘life’ hence the term LifeGroups. This was partially driven by the realities that unapplied truth creates hypocrites versus disciple makers and how easy it is for a group to simply transfer information. However, there is an equal danger of untrue life creating untransformed/confused people versus disciple makers. We want Spiritual Transformation.

So, how do we manage this tension? Bill and Russ have four suggestions:

• Connect scripture with story

This is exactly what Bob Barker is doing with his Epic project. Bob has stopped preaching and has simple started telling the stories. How good of a story teller are you?

• Turn questions into discussions

You don’t ask a question in order to get an answer you ask a question in order to generate discussion. I really like the statement about ‘stating the truths before asking your question’. This grounds the discussion in truth, but the question allows the truth to play itself out in life.

• Practice active listening

We as leaders must be great listeners and must pray continually in order to discern when a holy moment is near.

• Vary learning styles

Admit it. We like creative things, but rarely spend the time it takes to make them happen in our group. When we do, we usually get tremendous response, whether it is acting out a story, drawing, listening/singing to music, creative praying etc. Here is one idea we did several years ago: Ask everyone to bring a family picture, swap pictures and allow their picture to remind you to pray for them for a week.

Which one of these do you feel you are best at? Need more help in? Will try this week?