I really appreciated one of our veteran small group leaders named Matt from our High School Ministry. He was telling me about this great tool and exercise he did with his guys last week – then was great enough to allow me to share it on the blog! Here’s what he did:

Here’s that worksheet we used with our Lifegroup guys. The premise is that this survey is completely anonymous. Everyone gets the same identical form, the same color pen, we spread them out so they could fill it out without anyone seeing what they were checking off as a struggle in their life. They fold them over one time and put them on a table so that each one looks identical when its turned back in. I then shuffled them and handed them back out so everyone has one but its not their own sheet.

We told them that if for some reason they got their own sheet, don’t say anything about it. No one will know that was your sheet. We then went down the list one item at a time and told them that if that particular struggle was checked on the sheet they were holding, to stand up. That really showed them the stuff they struggle with is probably something that someone else struggles with as well and they are not alone.

Because it was completely anonymous, I think they felt more comfortable admitting to some issues in their lives. It led four of our guys to reach out to us to talk about some pretty tough issues and to seek help. I don’t think this would have happened if not for doing this worksheet in the anonymous way that it was done. Its lead all of them to realize the importance of accountability partners and I’ve seen a couple of them start ministering to each other (love that by the way!).

Grab the form right here!

JG