Northridge Groups

How do we get our group members to drop the mask, be honest about who they are, and how they are really doing? We want to lead our groups to be a safe place for people to be known for who they are not for who they project to be. Until we drop the mask, we'll never experience true community. Jason DeGraaff (Community Groups Director), Brad Files, Kristen Jamison and Ally Pearson addresses this tension and talk about how to get your group to open up and be real. This teaching took place at our Re:Group Leader Training on February 2nd, 2025 at the Rochester Campus of Northridge Church.

At the Re:Group Leader Training for our Community Group Leaders on February 2nd 2025, Drew Karschner shared updates and info about what God has been up to at Northridge in 2024-2025 and some of the new things we are rolling out this year, including sermon series, Northridge's growth.

At the Re:Group Leader Training for our Community Group Leaders on February 4th 2024, Drew Karschner shared updates and info about what God has been up to at Northridge in 2023-2024 and some of the new things we are rolling out this year, including sermon series, Northridge's growth.

While you are honored by the opportunity to be a group leader, you may feel overwhelmed with the thought of connecting with everyone in your group. Who has capacity for that? Your goal as group leader is not to have everyone connected to you, but connected to each other. So how do we do that? Jason DeGraaff (Community Groups Director) addresses these questions and gives 6 practical ways we can help our group members connect. This teaching took place at our Re:Group Leader Training on February 4th, 2024 at the Webster Campus of Northridge Church.

We were created for deep relationships with others, and yet our world is lonelier than ever. This is a problem the church must address. But can we expect to experience deep relationships or genuine friendships in group? Leaders can't be close to everyone in group, so how do we help our group connect? How can we create an environment where each member of our group can be truly known? Jason DeGraaff (Community Groups Director) addresses these questions at our Re:Group Leader Training on February 4th, 2024 at the Webster Campus of Northridge Church.

We've been married for 44 years and mentoring couples for the past 18, including leading the Art of Marriage courses at Northridge. We know from experience that marriage is hard and we've walked alongside many struggling couples in group. Not sure where to start in helping the marriages in your group? We'll explore that in our breakout.

If you are a new leader or have never attended a Northridge Group Leader Training, you should listen to this breakout. We'll go over the responsibilities and requirements of leading as well as the practical nitty gritty of leading your group each week.

How do you find new people for your group? How do you get them to attend? If they do attend, how do you get them to stick? We'll attempt to answer those questions in this breakout.

What is better, groups open to new people or closed? Should groups multiply or is that bad for us? Does multiplication hurt community and kill relationships, or is the opposite true? Multiplication is hard and most of us don't want to do it. As Northridge Church has experienced growth, we need to create room for more people in groups. In this teaching from our Fall 2023 Group Leader Training, Jason DeGraaff shares the vision for why we need to provide Community For Everyone by opening our groups to new people, developing leaders, starting new groups, and multiplying existing groups.

At the Re:Group Leader Training for our Community Group Leaders on September 10th, 2023, Drew Karschner shared updates and info about what God has been up to at Northridge in 2023 and some of the new things we are rolling out this year, including sermon series, Northridge's growth, and the details of our Brighton Campus Launch.

Maybe you feel like you have been leading alone for a while? Or maybe you would like to multiply someday but never seem to have enough leaders to pull it off? This breakout provides practical information on how to find the next great leaders for your community group! Most leaders try to develop the best strategy while the best leaders are obsessed with empowering the right people.

Is your group considering multiplication, but not sure you are ready? Are you ready, but are not sure how? Have you been through a bad group multiplication? In this breakout we'll discuss what we've learned from 150+ group multiplications and consider best practices to prepare your current group, and your next group to thrive after multiplication

How do you lead a Group when you feel empty instead of full? Maybe it's been a while since your relationship with God has felt vibrant and exciting. Maybe you've been in a long season of stagnation instead of growth. How do you lead others when your own faith is a struggle? Jason DeGraaff (Pastor of Spiritual Formation) addressed these questions at our Fall Group Leader Kickoff while focusing on Group Leader Essential #1 - Pursue Christ

At the Re:Group Leader Training for our Community Group Leaders on September 11, 2022, Drew Karschner shared updates and info about what God has been up to at Northridge and vision for our future as we look at launching new campuses and spreading the Gospel across our city and region.

How do we get out of a place of spiritual emptiness when we struggle with the motivation to pursue Christ? In this breakout we'll examine what to do when your love for Christ has grown cold and your heart is weary, frustrated, or empty.

In this breakout I want to share with you my own journey of pursuing Christ. After serving in vocational ministry for years, I thought my walk with God was good. Then one day God got my attention and not only renewed my desire to pursue Christ, but changed my whole life in the process. We want to share that story with you and spend some time together figuring out how we can all make sure that we have our first domino in place as we pursue Christ together.

In this breakout we'll share how to lead discussions that are engaging, authentic, and lead toward spiritual growth through the application of His Word. We'll also include some curriculum recommendations for your group this fall, whether you'd like to discuss a book, a book of the Bible, or Sunday's sermon.

We all want to grow spiritually and yet for many of us, conflict in our relationships seems to make that harder instead of easier. In this breakout we'd like to explore how God can use your relationships, inside and outside of group, to help you grow.

If you are a new leader or have never attended a Northridge Group Leader Training event, this content is for you. We'll go over the responsibilities and requirements of leading as well as the practical nitty gritty of leading your group each week.

The last 2 years have been rough. There have been so many ups and downs, with more downs than ups. Everyone has experienced loss to some degree or another. How do we lead ourselves during these times let alone a whole group of people looking to us for help?

At the Re:Group Leader Training for our Community Group Leaders on February 6th, 2022, Drew Karschner shared updates and info about what God has been up to at Northridge in the past few years, and some of the opportunities and challenges we face as we seek to fulfill our mission of making more and better disciples.

One of our 6 Group Leader Essentials is to Replace Yourself - What do you do if you are leading alone and you don't see anyone in your group who has potential to lead? - How long can you lead your group without having co-leaders? - How do you find and develop new leaders in your group? - Whether your group multiplies or your circumstances change, there will be a day when you are no longer able to be part of your group. Who will lead when you are no longer there? Jason DeGraaff (Pastor of Spiritual Formation) and Noah Bixby (NYA Director and Group Coach) address these questions and help you think through how to find and develop leaders in your group.

At the Re:Group Leader Training for our Community Group Leaders on September12, 2021, Drew Karschner shared updates and info about what God has been up to at Northridge in 2021 and some of the opportunities and challenges we face as we seek to fulfill our mission of making more and better disciples

How do you care for the people in your group who's needs go beyond what anyone seems capable of providing?

Have you ever experienced group members who are not only spiritually immature, but who also have very little desire to grow spiritually? How do you lead your group members from spiritual infancy to a growing faith?

Anxiety and depression are not just common struggles of our group members, they are an epidemic. In fact, you may put yourself in this category. Whether or not you've experienced this yourself, how do you help those in your group who are going through a season of darkness?

What do you do when someone in your group makes a bad relationship decision? Whether it is dating an unbeliever, living with their boyfriend, sleeping with their girlfriend, or dating while in the process of getting a divorce. This breakout will give you a Biblical framework for how to think about these issues and practical steps on how to carefully address them with the members of your group.

One of our 3 purposes for Community Groups is to care for each other. (Apply the Bible, Build Relationships, Care for Each Other) One of our 6 Group Leader Essentials is to provide care. -It's hard enough to keep up consistently with the people in your group, is it even possible to really care for them? - What level of care can you and your group realistically be expected to provide? - How do you provide care without burning yourself out? - What do you do when care issues go way past what you feel capable of handling? Jason DeGraaff (Pastor of Spiritual Formation) and Adam Congdon (Counseling Pastor) addressed these questions and helped train the Community Group Leaders of Northridge on how to effectively provide care for their group.

Whether or not you have any formal training, education, or experience in counseling, this breakout will help you build a framework that anyone can use to provide Biblical care and counsel as we aim to lovingly walk side by side with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

If you are a new leader or you've never attended at Group Leader Training at Northridge, this breakout is for you. We'll go over the responsibilities and requirements of leading as well as the practical nitty gritty of leading your group each week.

At the Re:Group Leader Training for our Community Group Leaders on January 5th & 7th, 2021, Jason DeGraaff, Drew Karschner, and Aaron Hixson talked through what happened at Northridge and in our groups ministry in 2021. We share ideas from what worked for groups this fall, so we can better lead groups in 2021 as we face the challenges of the COVID-19 Pandemic

At the Re:Group Leader Training for our Community Group Leaders on September 1 & 3, 2020, Drew Karschner shared updates and info about what God has been up to at Northridge in 2020 amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic and some of the changes for Northridge Church this fall.

At the Re:Group Leader Training for our Community Group Leaders on September 1st and 3rd, 2020, Jason DeGraaff talked through how to plan a Community Group amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. In this talk Jason addresses what has happened with Community Groups since the pandemic began, talks about what success looks like for groups during this unique season, and shares some practical ideas for what your group might look like this fall.

At the Re:Group Leader Training for our Community Group Leaders on January 5, 2020, Jason DeGraaff and Brad Files talked about Group Leader Essential #4: Model Authenticity In this talk we address barriers to authenticity, realistic expectations for how open our group members will be, and practical steps to create an environment where our group members feel safe enough be known for who the really are.

At the Re:Group Leader Training for our Community Group Leaders on January 5, 2020, Drew Karschner shared updates and info about what God has been up to at Northridge in 2019 and some of the new things we are rolling out this year.

If you are a new leader or if this is the first Group Leader Training event you've attended, you should attend this breakout. We'll go over the responsibilities and requirements of leading as well as the practical nitty gritty of leading your group each week.

Are you making the most of your prayer time in group? Need a few ideas to increase participation and transparency? In this breakout we will answer these questions and more to help you maximize your group prayer time.

Facilitation is probably the hardest Community Group role to give away - Isn't facilitating discussion what a Community Group Leader does? In this breakout we'll talk about some of the best reasons to allow others to facilitate, and we'll discover the best practices in that tricky process.

What if sharing participation is less about delegating and more about the heart of the delegator? What if leadership-level spiritual transformation is dependent upon stewardship of equipping group members more than "doing" for group members? Join us for an interactive time of studying the ministry of Christ and learning how our Redeemer can reorient the worship of our hearts to transform how and why we share participation.

Leading alone is hard but finding coleaders can be even harder. How do you find leaders when no one in your group is ready to lead?!? In this breakout we will share a few practical ideas to address this challenge and share why there is hope that you'll eventually have all the leaders you need.

It's hard enough to keep up consistently with the people in your group, let alone provide care for them. What level of care can you and your group realistically be expected to provide? And what do you do when the care issues go way past what you feel capable of handling? In this breakout we will address this tension and share with you a clear plan for how you and your group can provide care without burning yourself out.

At the Re:Group Leader Training for our Community Group Leaders on September 8th, 2019, Jason DeGraaff talks about Group Leader Essential #3: Promoting Participation. In this talk we address the challenge of moving group members from simply showing up to full participants in Biblical community.

At the Re:Group Leader Training for our Community Group Leaders on September 8, 2019, Drew Karschner shared updates and info about what God has been up to at Northridge in 2019 and some of the new things we are rolling out this fall. Drew also addressed a tension that we may have experienced in leading our groups.

Ever been there? You don't know what to do. How do God's will and God's glory play into your decision making? Join us to find out.

What are the top five companies in the world? Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook. All five cooperate with one goal in mind - stealing your time and attention. Why is technology so addictive? How can we push back and find the time, energy and space for what truly matters?

It's one thing to say we trust God, it's another thing to live as if we do. Is it possible that it's easier to trust God with our eternity than in the day- to-day? If so, what keeps us from trusting God, and how do we grow to trust Him more? In this breakout we'll wrestle with this tension and give practical tips to help us to authentically say, “In God we trust.”

IF YOU ARE A NEW LEADER OR HAVE YET TO ATTEND A GROUP LEADER TRAINING EVENT, THIS BREAKOUT IS FOR YOU. WE'LL GO OVER THE RESPONSIBILITIES AND REQUIREMENTS OF LEADING AS WELL AS THE PRACTICAL NITTY GRITTY OF LEADING YOUR GROUP EACH WEEK.

Everyone is wired differently, but there are struggles we all have in common. Do you ever feel like the time you spend in God's Word isn't helpful? Do you ever feel like you're “wandering” through your reading, and just trying to focus for more than a few seconds? This breakout won't fix those problems. But it will introduce you to the tool that changed the game for me - it's the most important part of my spiritual growth process, and this breakout will lay out WHY it's awesome for me, and HOW you could get started with it.

Do you have the desire to disciple others but are not sure how to start, or who to start with? Whether you are a new group leader or a seasoned veteran, this breakout will better equip you to intentionally and effectively begin to disciple one person, for God's glory, their good, and your joy!

Admit it! There are times as a leader you are frustrated with an individual who you feel you've poured loads of energy and attention into, but who doesn't seem particularly interested in changing. What is a leader to do with these individuals in their group? And what are the expectations on you as a leader for dealing with them? In this breakout we will explore how to handle those who show little or no progress in their spiritual lives.

How do you find new people for your group? How do you get them to attend? If they do attend, how do you get them to stick? We will attempt to answer those questions in this breakout.