Our small group meetings are running long. Ideally, how much time should we schedule for spiritual partners to meet?

If you meet in pairs, twenty minutes should give each person ten minutes to talk. During this time, partners should encourage and challenge each other. If one person doesn't know how they should be serving God, his partner should identify gifts in him and suggest ways he should be serving.

Stay on task and time the ten minutes. Notify them when they should shift focus to the other partner. Finally, give them a one-minute warning before their time is up. If you have circles of three, they'll need to trim their sharing time accordingly. If you don't watch the clock, you'll lose time to pray and worship as a group.

Copyright © 2005 Lifetogether.