Developing Leaders

Training For Small Group Leaders

About the Authors 

Laurence Singlehurst founded Cell UK over twenty years ago. He is passionate about equipping churches to reach their environments. His emphasis is on friendship evangelism. But he desires to see holistic small groups with a missional heartbeat. He is a regular speaker at conferences and has authored several other books. 

Trevor Withers was also instrumental in founding Cell UK and has a strong drive for establishing, training and coaching small groups and their leaders. 

About the Book 

This small manual is a very easy-to read resource on the training of small group leaders. The goal of the book is specific – training and empowering small group leaders. This book of 94 pages in 8 chapters, is written with the motif of moving the church from an attractional model to a missional model where every member is equipped and empowered to make friends for God. The other motif of the book is the necessary shift from a leader-centered church (pastor-centered) to equipping and motivating individual members for discipleship, mission and ministry. 

Singlehurst and Withers argue succinctly that the training of small group leaders and assistants is imperative in seeing the mission of the church succeed, and a key criterion in the empowering, supporting and developing of ministry in church members. Issues of beliefs, values, use of Bible in small groups, group dynamics, and small group evangelism are all discussed. 

An outstanding quality of this manual is that it can be used for personal as well as group training. The aim of the book is to create a more viable way to train and equip people to lead small groups, thereby making it possible for more small groups in a church. Since everything rises and falls with leadership, as many have opined, it is therefore crucial that every church should have a program for the training of small group leaders. This book will certainly prove beneficial in such training; therefore it is recommended. 

Reviewed by John Okpechi