Using Zoom –
a guide for church and small group leaders
I’m Ian Crossley. As well as owning Performance – Workplace Development, I’m a regular preacher at Chichester Baptist Church (CBC), a presenter since 1990 of Walk Through the Bible live events, and co-lead one of our small groups, the imaginatively named ’18-25s’ at CBC.
We’ve successfully switched our small group to a virtual community as some are self isolating, Uni students have moved back home, and wisely our church has put a hold on group meetings of any size.
Over 2.5 hours we caught up, checked in, laughed, studied the Bible and prayed for each other. Using the same Zoom meeting we broke into small groups of 3 for a fun activity and into groups of 6-7 for discussion around the Bible passage (Esther Chapter 7 in this case). And at the end the group was raving (enthusiastically) about how much they had enjoyed it.
Here are 11 of the 13 we had participating (I’ve added the pixelation to keep them anonymous):
Small group Zoom
Below you will find two guides:
Download Small Group Leaders Zoom Guide v2
Download Small Group Members Zoom Guide v2
Version Update: v2 of the Members guide, I’ve replaced a link. No changes in Leaders’ guide.
Please download them and use them to help your small group maintain community during the restrictions imposed on us by the spread of COVID-19.
If you spot anything that needs correcting, or have any tips that we could add, please use the Enquire link at the bottom of the page to get in touch. If I need further information, I’ll contact you.
Do keep an eye on this web page for updated versions (we’re currently on v2). And I may add other links if I find them helpful.
Within the Leaders’ document, there is an offer of a 30 minute 1-2-1 Zoom tutorial. Please sign up for one it if it is going to help you in your part of God’s Kingdom here on earth.. The link finds free spaces in my calendar and allows you to choose a slot. If demand for these grows, I may hold some open Zoom tutorials for Church and Small Group leaders. Watch this space.
Using Zoom Safely
There have been some accounts of Zoom meetings being hijacked, and ‘Zoom Bombing’ has entered our vocabulary. I’ve added this document to help you steer through some security concerns.
Download Using Zoom Safely v1
Can you help me?
Of course, I run a training and development business. If you are or know any of these types of people, please do introduce me to them:
- Owns or runs a small business and would value some objective input – I offer (over Zoom) a complimentary 90 minute business coaching session. We can talk about coping with the current crisis, or preparing the business for post pandemic growth.
- Has a team/is part of a team working from home, and would like to provide some bite size chunks of soft skills/team leadership development via Zoom
- Has or is part of an under-performing team and would be interested in knowing more about transforming the team using Insights Discovery profiling or CliftonStrengths (StrengthsFinder) coaching
Do use the Enquire link at the bottom of the page.
