And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. - 1 Thessalonians 5:14 (ESV)
In the passage above, the apostle Paul makes clear that different kinds of problems in people require different kinds of responses from believers. The idle should be admonished, not helped. The fainthearted should be encouraged, not admonished. And the weak should be helped, not admonished or merely encouraged. If we are going to obey passages like this one, then we must learn to discern what is required for each situation. This is equally true in leading small groups where some students are disruptive or disengaged.
As a baseline, a basic principle needs to be stated, which is that small groups require a bare minimum of decorum and politeness to exist. If students are constantly distracting one another, ignoring the topics, speaking over one another, putting each other down, criticizing each other, or otherwise generally causing enough chaos that those who wish to participate are unable, small group leaders are responsible for ensuring that the bare minimum is met. This is not to set a high bar for how small group should work. Instead, this principle puts forward the bare minimum of what is necessary to have a group at all.
One of the things leaders can count on with small groups is that not everyone will always be interested and engaged. Teenagers are immature adults. Their lives are full of change, and as they enter adulthood, misperceptions, confusion, misunderstanding and emotional upheaval abound. This is normal. It is normal for a small group to have some who are not engaged or who are ignorant of how to behave, or are unwilling to do it. Although this is normal, this does not mean that it is not a problem. Small group leaders need to learn how to navigate disruptive and disengage to students with appropriate grace, winsomeness, and firmness.
Grace
How do leaders express appropriate grace? By grace, I mean favor, which is a basic definition of the biblical term. Leaders can think of the many ways God has shown us grace/favor through Christ Jesus and take that grace as a starting point for how to treat the students. Grace is unearned. The students do not need to earn our favor. We are there to serve them by leading them well. We should think of our very presence as a show of favor to them. As we walk into the room, our mind should be set on the and the good we desire to do to them like a miniaturized version of what God has done for us. Wit regard to disruptive and disengaged students, our disposition should still be one of grace. We want to show them favor. This is often unsettling and unexpected for the students who are disengaged and disruptive because they are often used to adults putting them in their place. The are more accustomed to adults getting them under their thumbs than showing them favor. They are often also used to adults misreading and misjudging them. Leaders can navigate their behavior with grace by being slow to judge and quick to listen.
An appropriate grace disposes leaders to be prepared to ask questions that they might otherwise not. Why is the student acting this way? How do they perceive themselves? God? Other students? The leaders? What can I do to express godly grace toward them in a way they are prepared to understand? How can I surprise them with unmerited favor in hopes that God might use it to draw them to Himself? The potential answers for a specific situation are as unpredictable and unique as the students themselves. However, just by having this kind toward the students, leaders leave themselves open to seeing ways of interacting with disruptive and disengaged students that they never would have seen otherwise.
When we say “appropriate grace,” we mean that there is a limit to the expression of grace and its use in navigating disruptive and disengaged students. Leaders should have a disposition of grace or favor towards students. We should not be unkind, dismissive, demeaning, or condescending. We should not be aloof or partial. Students, like most everyone else, pick up on those things and can perceive them at some level. In addition to creating distance between students and leaders where there should be an increasing closeness, having a disposition of disfavor toward the students is also generally wrong. It is ungodly, unChristlike, and generally unbecoming to a Christian. But we also understand that grace is not a panacea. It does not fix everything in a small group. Favor shown to students is important, but it is not the only thing. For our purposes, we will focus next on winsomeness and firmness.
Winsomeness
How do leaders express appropriate winsomeness? By winsomeness, we mean that leaders seek to win over the students. It is not only having a disposition of grace toward the students, but also developing a facility in expressing it. This is winsomeness. It is not about flattering the students, or manipulating them, or making them think something that is not true. Winsomeness is a way of describing speaking the truth in love. Specifically on the side of love, what is love if not winsome?
I take it for granted that small leaders will speak the truth to students. Speaking the truth is one of the things that ought to be able to be taken for granted. There are innumerable such things because there are innumerable ways to distort what is good, right and true. Winsomeness is worth discussing because it is easy for a leader to fall prey to the deception that a disposition of grace toward the students and a willingness to speak the truth to the students is all that is needed. But that is not true. Winsomeness describes the technical skill, the methods of communication by which a leader expresses a disposition of grace to the students. In other words, leaders should consider things like their tone of voice, their body posture, their volume, rate of speech, facial expressions, hand gestures, and any other aspect of the way they are communicating that they can control. This requires not only an awareness of how the leader is coming across from their own perspective, but also a sincere attempt at seeing themselves from the perspective of the students. Leaders often forget this. They often forget that they need not only to be in their own head, aware of what they are thinking, but also seeking to map where the group is relative to the leader. Does the group understand? Does the group care? Why or why not, and how can I build a bridge from where they are to where they need to be?
With regard to a disruptive or disengage student, why is the student disruptive or disengaged? This has everything to do with how a leader pursues being winsome. Sometimes, a student may simply be doing everything they can to ruin the group. For that, we need to talk about firmness, as will be discussed below. For every other kind of student who may be disruptive or disengaged, wisdom and discernment is needed by the leader from the Lord to make decisions about how to engage the student. In most cases, a direct approach is preferable. Sometimes, students are not paying attention. They are not trying to disrupt or be disengaged on purpose so much as they are not self-disciplined, and so are disruptive or disengage as a consequence of something else. If the leader focuses on the disruption or lack of engagement as the most important thing, they are treating the group as more important than the student, which is a mistake. The group itself, as a time for people to get together and share and learn together, is not as important as any single individual in the group. In other words, the group is not greater than the sum of its parts. The group is less than the sum of its parts. Each individual person is made in the image of God, whereas the group is defined by the time, place, and purpose that individuals have in getting together.
Firmness
How do leaders express appropriate firmness? The simplest way is also the most direct: tell the group what must happen. Grace and winsomeness cannot be without conviction. Grace and winsomeness without conviction is spinelessness, and maybe cowardice. It is a simple fact that a small group full of disruptive and disengaged students is not a small group at all but a mob to be managed. There is a line beyond which students must not be allowed to cross, or they cannot be allowed to stay. But is not this ungracious? Will not this push people away? Is not this the opposite of what Christ did? The answer to all of those questions is a flat no. It is showing no favor to students to leave them at the mercy of a disruptive or disengaged student who is doing their best to destroy any ability to discourse with one another. If a masked murderer came in to the room with a crowbar and starting beating students, would it be gracious and winsome to let it happen? Of course not. The damage done by a disruptive student may be of a different kind, but it is no less real.
The above thought leads to a very important sense of burden that lies on the shoulders of small group leaders: the burden to discern. Leaders must seek to discern the level of disruption and/or disengagement by a student or students that is allowable. At what point is a line crossed beyond which the rest of the group must be defended? It is a difficult question that leaders will have to face armed with knowledge of their unique circumstances and biblical wisdom. However, there are some principles that make sense.
The basic principle is that leaders must have a semblance of control and authority in the room. This is not dictatorial or tyrannical. It is gracious and winsome, but it is still there. Jesus was kind, gentle, humble, meek, etc., but he was also generally in control of whatever situation or conversation he was in. We never read Jesus to be at a loss for words, unprepared, or taken aback by the people he led and mingled with. No small group leader will be as gracious, winsome, and firm as Jesus, but that should not stop us from seeking to imitate the love of Christ in the way that we lead small groups. It is ridiculous to conclude otherwise. It is from hopelessness and cynicism that we would resign ourselves to a mediocre group because we are mediocre Christians who will only ever have a mediocre Christlikeness. Zeal for the Lord is a great antidote to jaded leaders.
To exercise appropriate firmness, leaders must balance it against grace and winsomeness. There is no other way. We can have convictions without being impatient. We can be in control without being dictators. We can draw lines without being legalistic. We can rebuke without insulting. We can warn without belittling. We can lead without condescending. In every case without exception, leaders must seek to walk a middle road between ditches on every side, and with many potholes before them. This is what is included in leading a group of students whose professions of faith in Christ are nonexistent, uncertain, or relatively new.
Conclusion
There are innumerable reasons that a student may be disruptive or disengaged. Small group leaders do not have to attempt to take on the role of the Holy Spirit, knowing everything going on in the heart of the student to choose the exact right thing to do. Leaders do not have that kind of knowledge or control. Instead, leaders engage the students from a disposition of humility, seeking to show grace and be winsome while remaining appropriately firm.
Leaders should seek to be gracious, winsome, and firm. It is the combination of these three, together with all that they imply, which will aid leaders in dealing well with disruptive or disengaged students. As we do this, we seek to respond appropriately to each situation, as the Lord would have us.