Just Say Yes! Participant Guide: Unleashing People for Ministry

In Just Say Yes! Robert Schnase shows church leaders how to unleash people for fruitful ministry. He teaches leaders to spot their own nay-saying, and gives specific instructions for reversing the culture of ’No’ that has become so prevalent in many churches. Step by step, Schnase shows readers—pastors, other church leaders, and congregants—how to make significant change in their attitude and actions, to become a permission-giving church.

This set of resources is the next step in the author’s effort to reshape church leaders across the mainline denomination. Just Say Yes! Becoming a Permission-Giving Church give church leaders what they need in order to begin implementing the principles in the original book. It starts with a group study experience for church leaders, facilitated by a senior leader (typically the pastor). The study can be done in as little as 3 hours or, if groups watch all the videos and do all the optional exercises and activities, up to 6 hours total. The sessions can be used as a single-day retreat or broken up into 3 or 6 separate sessions. They can be stand-alone sessions, or incorporated into meetings for staff and lay leaders.

The Leader Guide includes instructions and guidance for leaders in planning, hosting, debriefing and following up after the experience. Using this resource, plus the included customizable PowerPoint slides and the video Stories of Permission, a pastor or other key leader can effectively facilitate an extraordinary group experience resulting in transformation for the congregation.

The Participant Guide is a complete workbook and devotion guide for church leaders—staff and laity—who participate in the Permission-Giving group experience. These will typically be church councils, staff teams, committee chairs, ministry team leaders, and the like. The Guide includes prompts to reinforce the material shared in the videos and by the facilitator, questions for reflection and discussion, and specific action steps for becoming permission-giving leaders in the church. It includes plenty of room for writing and note taking during the group experience. It also includes a 7-day Devotional, which the participant can complete either during or after the group experience. The group experience includes 6 inspiring and compelling videos from real church settings. Several additional video clips are also available, for groups wanting to spend more time exploring ideas together.

A printed 4-Week Devotional is also available, and can be used by individual church members autonomously, or (ideally) used by every member as a personal study guide accompanying the 4-Week Sermon & Worship series. The material is flexible and accessible for all adult readers, and can be done in one sitting or spread throughout the week.

This study consists of a Leader Guide, Participant Guide, DVD, a Devotional Guide and free Customizable Downloadable Resources. The DVD has 8 video stories showing the Permission-Giving Church in action, 3 brief videos essays demonstrating the essentials of a permission-giving church and 1 video promo for inviting participation in the Just Say Yes! experience.