While honor can come from leadership, I consider it high priority that honor should be initiated from small group members.
My reasons are:
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It helps create a culture of honor, not criticism, of leadership.
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It models how members apply appreciation to others in their lives.
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Honor that comes from “above” is important but not as intimate.
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Small group leaders see that they can receive honor from members as well as hard work.
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Honor this way can and must embrace the leader’s family, including their children, so they see and are recipients of that honor.
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Honor can be more personal ,e.g. the small group probably knows the love language of their leaders, knows their struggles, interests, etc.
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It encourages personal creativity in giving that is not finance-dependent.
Small Group Leaders can honor their coaches, too. What might this look like?
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Reminders should go out to the groups, maybe through the interns/key group members.
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Each member could offer to take a meal to the leader’s family so they experience different foods and there is not cooking to be done for that period of time.
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The whole group could make a Christmas gift basket by contributing different goods/gifts.
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Each member has a $10 (for example) limit and is set the challenge of finding a gift or using the money to buy the materials to make a gift.
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The group could do a skit, write a song, etc., honoring the coach in a fun, yet appropriate, way.
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The whole group could do a “love language” test and use those results to honor the leader, his wife, and children.
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A member could take the meeting and devote it to leadership appreciation by giving every member (including the children and teens) an assignment for that meeting, e.g. write a poem of appreciation, lead a time of prayer for the leader and their family, sing a song of appreciation, give a testimony of ways the leader has impacted your life.
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Ask the leader and their family to meet you at a certain location and surprise them with an outing of some kind.
Essential: Whatever appreciation is decided, every member, including the children and the teens, should write a card expressing why they appreciate the leaders. (Ensure that separate cards are done for the wife and husband …if at all possible for their children, too.)