This is one of the hard parts for a lot of guys. When a group gets close, they fight to stay together. I see it with the leaders I launch. They instinctively want to stay with their group, and many will do two years together. It is perfectly fine for men to want to stay together, and perfectly fine for them to do it. I have seen great friendships form through these groups over the years.
But understand what that group is now. Those men are no longer discipling each other. They have already been discipled. They are in the Word together, holding each other accountable, and encouraging each other, and that is fantastic. That group exists for each other, not for anybody else. So they also need to be doing something to help and serve others. If they are not investing in others, that is a fail.
My role in their life is different. I usually lead guys when I am a couple of steps ahead of them, in age, in spiritual growth, or in stage of life. My kids are grown and theirs are little. They are trying to figure out how to stay married 30 years, and I have some gray hair. The group itself is usually all at the same stage. That means when the group ends, our circles don't naturally overlap outside of discipleship. We are still great friends, and we still talk, but over time that connection gets weaker unless someone works at it.
After this season, the nature of the relationship changes. Your role as a mentor shifts toward a supportive partnership, encouraging them to take ownership of their growth and to begin discipling others. Every resource I have is available to them. In year two, your guys will be leading groups of their own, and they will need your support and encouragement. In year three, they will be leading men who are leading groups, and they will need your wisdom and experience.
Expect three kinds of guys. In most groups, the men end up in three categories.
- One or two will stay very close to you for years, even decades. They want more, and they make the effort. They are in your life group, you cross paths all the time, or you are helping them disciple others. They become like spiritual children to me.
- Some stay around. You run into them and naturally see each other often.
- Some you just don't see much anymore. The group was the thing that brought you together, and now your paths don't cross.
What I do to stay connected:
- Share what the current group is doing. Every once in a while, when my current group has an assignment or a challenge, I send it to the groups from the last three or four years. I tell them, "This is what we're doing now. Just thought I'd share it with you." It always gets some feedback and starts some conversations.
- Find the connector. There is usually one guy in every group who likes to keep people together. I reach out to him, or I give him the job: "I need you to keep us together. Get the group together a couple of times a year for breakfast or lunch."
- Hold a yearly retreat or event. For about 15 years I held a retreat every year, only for men who had been discipled. It did more to keep the guys connected than anything else. It fell at the end of one discipleship year and the beginning of the next, so one group was launching out as another was coming in. Other leaders did the same with their groups, and most of them were my guys or the guys of my guys. We celebrated the year together, talked about what God had been doing, and encouraged the next group. It is fun to see those groups overlap, and even more fun to see the men from 5, 10, and 15 years ago.
- Keep the accountability going. The men I have discipled continue to gather long after our year ends, driven by the desire to walk in accountability. By the end of the year, the goal is for each man to have at least one strong, accountable relationship.
I am still close to a couple of men from my very first group. We go to the same church, and I see them all the time. We started as a group of young married guys, and now their kids are out of college and getting married.
Know your calling. My calling is to make disciples, so I lead a group and then move on to the next one. Some leaders will stay with a group and keep building those relationships, and there is nothing wrong with that. It is just not what I was called to do.
