"A PiVAT Small Group is the most powerful Group dynamic I've ever been a part of! It's changed how I live my everyday life. " What is a PiVAT Small Group? - Several Daily Call partners meeting one hour a week sharing their PiVAT Weekly and praying for each other.
Why do it? This is possibly the most powerful Small Group you have ever been a part of in your life! You will see God move, you will hear Him speak. He is no respecter of persons. This is a life changing experience. You have never experienced anything like the power of daily obedience together with a group of obeyers. It will alter your mindset, it will establish you, it will enable things that happened in the New Testament Church – in this day, in this generation. Ask God if He wants you to lead others through this life-altering journey. You don’t have to be an expert, just an obeyer who is humble, willing, who loves God and loves people. It will change lives, it will change your church, it will change your family, it will change your future, it will change you!
How does it work? Format: Similar to a Daily Call - this is a Weekly Call with a Small Group of people sharing PiVAT Weekly and praying for each other.
Attendees: Six to eight Daily Call Partners. Limit the participation to no more than ten so the small group dynamic is not lost, and everyone gets the full opportunity to overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony.
When: Perfect for a Sunday School hour, or any weekday or weeknight time slot that allows for one uninterrupted hour. Saturday's, Sunday's or Mondays are best - since they closely align with the week's calendar. You can do a PiVAT Small Group for six weeks, or a 13 week Sunday School Quarter, or a one year journey of intense spiritual growth. Let God lead you. You’ll never run out of content – God speaks.
Venue: An in-person small group experience is best - but a conference call or video conference (facetime, skype, zoom) also work if the participants are geographically dispersed.
Uninterrupted: Please encourage participants to find babysitters, or even hire a couple of teens to provide childcare. The format of this group opens up to true intimacy and the one hour free of the responsibility of children will re-energize parents for their calling. PiVAT Small Groups are not for adults only. Teenagers, and even Junior High kids get the same powerful experience (there is no junior Holy Spirit). We just encourage separate groups for younger followers of Christ - who don't share full adult responsibilities quite yet, so adults won’t feel hesitant about what they are able to share.
What are the PiVAT Small Group Requirements?
1) A Daily Call with someone in the group (not your spouse). The class material comes from what the Holy Spirit reveals to each person this week as they are learning to obey daily in time, thought and money decisions - and sharing their testimony daily with one other person.
2) Attend the one hour weekly meeting - with your PiVAT Weekly already filled out.
3) Pray daily for other group members. This is easier than you think - as you will grow to really know and really love one another in a very short time.
Note: A PiVAT Small Group is really not for observers or visitors, but rather Daily Call Partners who are walking together throughout the week. Most small groups have a teacher who talks most of the time and listeners who only talk once in a while. In a PiVAT Small Group - God speaks through every person's testimony. And they have one because they have been seeking God’s plan for them each day, obeying what He tells them to do; they are reading God’s Word every day and are sharing on their Daily Call what God did and revealed each day.
The PiVAT Small Group is each person sharing their Testimony of what God did this week (as they grow better at hearing and obeying), and what God revealed this week (through their PRISM time in His Word).
The PiVAT Small Group is not an observation experience, but an immersion experience. Not that a visitor could never come, but if they are not in a Daily Call, growing in the habit of hearing God's voice, following His specific plan for their day, sharing their testimony daily on their Daily Call (what God did and revealed from His Word yesterday), then the only thing they can offer the group each week, is their opinion.
What makes the PiVAT Small Group so powerful is that people are not to share their opinion, but only what God did last week, and what God revealed to them last week (the difference becomes glaring). Everyone will see the awesome things God does as we grow daily in simple obedience, giving our testimony, praying for one another and walking together.
The reason this works - is every person is in daily relationship with another person in the group. Everyone is learning how to hear and obey better with time, thought & money decisions. They are already experiencing God direct them daily, watching Him speak through His Word, and learning to overcome daily with their testimony.
Then, when they come together and share PiVAT Weekly their testimony of what God did and revealed; the Holy Spirit speaks every time, and every member is challenged and encouraged. God moves, He’s in control, we yield.
What to expect in a PiVAT Small Group.
1) You can expect God to move miraculously! This is unavoidable every time people truly surrender the three most important daily decisions of their life to His full control. (Time, Thoughts & Money) "It's shocking!" "I've grown more in 10 days than I have in 10 years!" (Testimony from a PiVAT Small Group member)
2) This is like nothing you have ever experienced before. Most small groups have study materials, a book, a course, a pre-designed curriculum. Most Sunday School Classes have a teacher teaching from prepared material.
3) The PiVAT Small Group has no study materials except the Bible, and no teacher except the Holy Spirit. Each person testifies in turn what God did this week as they walked daily with each other – obeying in the little things.
PiVAT Weekly Prayer: What do you need most from God this week? Vision: What is He telling you to do this week? (Top 3 things) Accountability: When is He telling you to do it? (The specific day & time) Testimony: What did God do last week as you are learning to hear and obey daily? What did God reveal last week during your PRISM time in His word?
4) Each person will share what they need most from God this week, the #1 Thing (or Top 3 things) He's telling them to do this week, and the specific day and time He has told them to do it. Each person will also share their testimony of what God did last week as they are learning to hear and obey daily - and what He revealed last week through His Word, during their PRISM time with Him. These testimonies will be the highlights of the week which they have likely already shared daily with their Partner during their Daily Calls.
5) You can expect to see amazing answers to prayer during these 13 weeks, God's provision like you've never before seen, and accelerated spiritual growth in a very short time. How can we set this expectation? Well, first, we have experienced it ourselves, but second: it’s impossible for God not to move in the lives of people who truly allow Him to take over their time, thought and money decisions obeying His command in Hebrews 3:13 - to exhort, admonish and encourage one another daily... Extreme spiritual growth automatically happens under these conditions. Because His ways are higher than our ways. (Isaiah 55:7-9) He is Faithful! and He is looking to show himself strong on behalf of those whose hearts are fully devoted to him. (II Chronicles 16:9)
How2 Conduct a PiVAT Small Group
PiVAT Small Group Agenda:
6:55-7:00 – (5 min) Calculate Sharing Time and Assign a Time Keeper. Divide the discussion time 7:05-7:45 between the participants. (40 min / 10 people = 4 minutes each.) Remind everyone that we will be sharing for approximately 4 minutes each and praying for the person on our left at the end of the hour. Assign a Time Keeper who will hold up one thumb when the speaker has one minute left. As the Holy Spirit moves be flexible, others will know to make up the time.
7:00-7:05 – (5 min) Opening Prayer - Join hands in a circle and pray on your knees. This is a simple outward expression of an inward surrender of the heart to the Lordship of Christ over every area of our life.
7:05-7:45 – (40 min) Share PiVAT Weekly - Prayer, Vision, Accountability for the coming week and Testimony from last week. Each person shares clockwise in sequence, starting with the facilitator. Share only what you have written on your PiVAT Weekly Sheet - so you can be faithful to the time frame. There is no teacher - so conversation is one to all - not a dialogue back and forth with a teacher. The Facilitator keeps an eye on the time, gently drawing people out, or helping them stay within the time allotment so others can share also. A Timekeeper - gives "one thumb up" at one minute to go - so they can stay within their 4 minutes. Let the Holy Spirit lead - but generally stay within your 4 minutes per person - to enable everyone to testify to what God is doing and revealing in their life each week!
7:45-7:55 – (10 min) Pray for one-another - Each group member prays for the person on their left. If there are ten group members, it leaves about one minute prayer per person which is typical of what most people would pray anyway. By assigning the prayer partner before the group begins (always "the person on your left" - which will hopefully be someone different from their normal Daily Call Partner), people can pay special attention to what the person after them shares, so they can pray specifically for the things most important in their life this week: what they need most from God and what He is telling them to do. They can also thank God on behalf of their friend for His great faithfulness to them last week, and for the specific things God did in their life as they are learning to obey daily with their DAILY CALL Partner.
7:55- 8:00 – (5 min) Closing Prayer - Join hands in a circle on your knees as an outward expression of the heart.
Agenda Notes: Please be truly humble, and completely faithful to follow the PiVAT Small Group Agenda - without deviation or modification. This simple, very specific format removes the distraction of differing leadership styles or preferences and most effectively gives the Holy Spirit full reign during the brief meeting time. Consistency every time without fail - enables each member to know exactly what comes next. Members can then focus only on what the Holy Spirit says through each person - as they testify of His goodness they experienced while learning to fully obey Him this week in daily relationship with one other. The specific format gives equal opportunity to share, so the Holy Spirit can speak through everyone. He does, He will, you will see. The leader is almost not needed after one or two meetings, only to facilitate, love, encourage and gently be sensitive to the Holy Spirit's leading, to ensure the class ends on time honoring God’s next assignment for each person for the remainder of the day. Also, ask God to provide a Co-Leader with you for the group (not your spouse; a second couple or individual) who can share the responsibility of loving others, and whom you can train to lead future PiVAT Small Groups of their own.
PiVAT Small Group Facilitator Training –
What are the PiVAT Small Group Facilitator Responsibilities? (Humility, Faithfulness, Love people)
1) Model Faithfulness: Be faithful yourself with PiVAT before dinner each day, your Daily Call, and coming prepared with PiVAT Weekly filled out to be able to lead with integrity. Both you and your Daily Call Partner will be full of testimony by the time your PiVAT Small Group meets each week!
2) Stick to the PiVAT Small Group Format: We’re not ‘The Leader’ – that’s the Holy Spirit’s job, we are just the facilitator. We only facilitate, we don't 'teach' the class. The Holy Spirit does that - through the testimony of each person's obedience throughout the week, and sharing what God revealed to them from his Word - during their PRISM time this week. The PiVAT Small Group process is a peer-to-peer dynamic, not a Teacher-to-student dynamic like most small groups. Your job is not even to facilitate conversation as much as "get the rotation started” and stay out of the way. This replicable time sequence - enables the most sharing time possible. In one or two weeks your group members will already "get it" and the process should really run itself, putting all the focus on what God is saying, versus the leadership style or personality of the facilitator. The best PiVAT Small Group Facilitators speak little, and enable their fellow group members to share.
3) Start & End on Time: Tell people in advance that the group will start and end promptly to honor God and the next assignment He has for their day. Then start exactly at 7:00 with prayer on your knees. People will catch on quickly and be in their seats before 7:00. You can ask someone to pray, but the first couple of weeks demonstrate it yourself. The opening prayer should invite the Holy Spirit to lead, asking that only His heart would be shared, not human opinion, and that God would give grace to each one to be faithful to encourage each other daily and live a life of complete obedience as they grow in grace, learning to walk daily in God's perfect plan for them.
4) Begin Group Discussion at the "Amen" of the opening prayer. As soon as you say or hear "Amen" the Facilitator immediately begins to share their personal PiVAT for the Week - carefully modeling how to be led by the Holy Spirit, and how to stay within their allotted time, so everyone gets the opportunity to share - and 'overcome by the word of their testimony.' The other participants will typically be getting up from their knees in the center prayer circle and returning to their seats in a circle. But by beginning immediately after the opening prayer ‘amen’, no time is wasted on tangent conversations. (If you allow random conversation at the beginning - the time will slip away - and your group members will be cheated out of the opportunity to share concisely and completely what God prompted them to write on their PiVAT Weekly Sheet.
5) Model the Group Discussion. The Facilitator should always share first. This will model for the participants how to share only what they wrote down on their PiVAT Weekly, within the apportioned time frame, leaving time for every person to share what God has revealed this week. The Time Keeper will give them one thumb up when they have 60 seconds remaining to enable them to bring their comments to a close. As soon as the Facilitator is finished sharing they should immediately turn to the person on their left and ask, "So John,(or Sally) What do you need most from God this week?" This begins their 4 minutes of sharing and proceeds clockwise around the circle.
6) Close on Time: Be faithful with 1 hour. It will model faithfulness to others, and will allow people to fulfill the remainder of God's To Do's for their day. If you continually go over the scheduled time, some people are sharing too much, others don’t get their full time, attendance drops, and members miss out on what God has for them.
7) Gently Guide the Conversation: Be sensitive to the Holy Spirit's leading. Some group members may need to be drawn out - who have left "time on the table" during their turn to share. Help others who tend to be verbose, to limit their sharing to only what they wrote down on their PiVAT Weekly. This ensures everyone gets their full time to share. The focus of the group is the Holy Spirit speaking and encouraging as people share. Leave enough time to pray at the end. Don't cut this short. The prayer time for the person on your left is where the Holy Spirit can use people to speak the very Words of God over others. God is faithful, He does it all the time! All glory will go to God! Members will come away tremendously encouraged to continue in daily obedience to Christ in time, thought, and money decisions and to keep walking daily one with another - where the real growth happens!
8) Love the Group Members outside the Weekly Meeting. You are obviously loving your own Daily Call partner each day, by listening, sharing and praying for one another. But also make an effort each week to contact - by phone, email, text, letter, or even a personal visit - the other members of your group. You may want to enlist your own Daily Call Partner and Co-Leader to help. Your group members experience will be heightened greatly when they know that someone besides just their own Daily Call Partner loves them enough to lift them up in prayer, and check on their progress. This is a key element of PiVAT Small Group Leadership - loving the people God has entrusted to you. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you and show you how. He will.
9) Pray for your group members. If you will be faithful to pray for them, they will have the most accelerated season of spiritual growth they have ever experienced in their life. Because this is not man teaching them, it is the Holy Spirit himself, leading them in daily obedience of Christ. If you neglect to pray for them, the group will not be what God intends it to be for them or you. Be faithfully diligent in this vital area of prayer. God will bless you.
10) Call us before you begin and let us know when your PiVAT Small Group will be starting! We want to pray for you, lift you up daily in prayer, and encourage you along the way. 513.260.6908 kelly@hearwelldone.org
The PiVAT Small Group experience is life altering! Prayer for each other is powerful as the Holy Spirit speaks revelation and encouragement through what God did this week. Members see other Daily Call Partners building deep friendships and growing in the joy of daily obedience. People become focused on simply hearing and obeying – the full surrender of their life to Christ so they can walk in the purpose He has for them. The PiVAT Small Group experience will significantly impact your church, building mature Christians who hear and obey the voice of God, who learn to share their faith effectively, and who are enabled and trained to disciple others daily.
(Option:) If the Holy Spirit leads, you may train others to facilitate. Humility, not ‘experience’ qualifies them. The best facilitator will likely be your Co-Leader preferably your Daily Call Partner who is being trained daily by your personal faithfulness. Every member isn’t required to facilitate a week, and only use humble facilitators who understand the role – we’re not teachers. Don’t sacrifice the experience of the whole group for someone who reverts to the traditional teacher-student model, PiVAT Small Groups use a different kind of leadership. If God leads, ask them a couple weeks in advance to facilitate (Only use them if they have been faithful in their Daily Calls and group discussion, teach them to pray for all group members, review the one-to-all format (how to draw out some, gently curtailing others) reminding everyone to let the Holy Spirit lead while being sensitive to time frames so everyone gets an equal chance to overcome by the word of their testimony. Don’t go to a new facilitator too soon. Be faithful and invisible first, everyone will best learn to facilitate through your example.
Warning: The devil will try to come against you and this group. He has to - his kingdom is at stake. The first thing He will do is try to disrupt and eliminate Daily Calls. If he can do that - he can isolate each one, discourage them, and they will stop submitting time, thought and money decisions to Christ, and overcoming by the word of their testimony every day on their Daily Call. Without this, people just come to the group to share their opinions - no power there… But if a small group of people are walking daily one with another - learning to fully submit their time decisions, what they think about and even how they think, surrendering every spending decision - walking daily with another person in full obedience to Christ – like Jesus commanded? Your adversary will come against this in every way he can imagine. This is The Great Commission taking place daily! People “learning to obey everything Jesus commands them.” Matthew 28:19-20. The adversary will try to stop it.
Encouragement: Matthew 16:18 - And I say also unto thee that thou art Peter (Petros, ‘a piece of rock’) and upon this rock (Petra, ‘a mass of rock’) I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Isaiah 54:17 - "No weapon formed against you will prosper, and you will refute every tongue that accuses you. (the devil is the accuser, always accusing) This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and this is their vindication from me, declares the LORD." I John 4:4 - You are of God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.
Dear Humble and Faithful PiVAT Small Group Facilitators: Thank you for your willingness to do PiVAT before dinner, a Daily Call, and PiVAT weekly - for the length of this group to model faithfulness. Obeying in time, thought and money decisions are key to your Spiritual growth. You will see what God will do in your own life as you surrender to him. Thank you also for being willing to facilitate a PiVAT Small Group in the format that has proven most effective, so members get the best experience.
You will be helping others to fully surrender their time, thought and money decisions to the full obedience of Christ - even though I'm sure there might be days - when you wonder how well you're even doing yourself. Persevere! God will bless your faithfulness - His grace is greater, His love is deeper, His faithfulness is wider, and His mercy is longer. He will help you - not only to be faithful yourself, but to encourage and love others to faithfulness also!
You're in for the experience of a lifetime! You will be continually amazed how the Holy Spirit will interweave a divine message each time your group meets - through the tapestry of what each person shares. Not opinions, but what the Holy Spirit is speaking to them that week through the Word of God. You will have the privilege of praying for each other - what each person needs the very most from God this week and the specific things God is telling them to do. You'll be reminded to lift them up in prayer during the time frame of their obedience this week, and will delight in rejoicing with each other - at what God does in each member’s life, and what He reveals to each person from his Word.
This is a truly unique and dynamic small group experience - walking with God daily, one with another, and in a small group of equally committed obeyers - a body of Christ experience that cannot be described.
You will see The Holy Spirit write the material week by week. And you will see believers grow significantly in their Lordship relationship with Christ, coming to maturity, one step of obedience at a time. We can't wait to hear what God does in you and through you in the lives of others!
Blessings, Kelly and April
Daily Call: A 15 minute call before work sharing sharing PiVAT and PRISM with a friend. (5 min you share, 5 min they share, 5 min pray for each other). That’s it – 15 min tops. Stay within your fifteen minutes by sharing only what you wrote on your PiVAT sheet for today. To talk further, call back on a different phone call. Set a daily call time. Before your workday begins is best. (Mon-Fri only – Sat & Sun off) Do PiVAT before Dinner to get God’s plan for your day tomorrow. Text each other when you did it. The devil will do anything to stop this daily call. Eccl 4:12- Though one may be overpowered by an adversary, two can withstand him... Ask God who to walk with for 3 days, 7 days (or 30). This is Life-changing! Hebrews 3:13 - Exhort one another daily…