Start your own FORGE Online Virtual Group!

We are excited that you want to form a FORGE Virtual Group! This guide will help you as you navigate the details of starting and facilitating a group.

Step 1: Select a regular date and time for your group to meet.

Often this is done in consultation with potential members of your virtual group. Choose a date and time that you are able to meet consistently week to week. You want every member of your group to be confident of the meeting time and not wonder if it’s at a different time from week to week. Pete’s weekly message is recorded and presented LIVE online on Tuesdays at 7:00-8:00am. While you should set the meeting date and time based on what is best for you and your group members to remain consistent, here are some helpful rules of thumb:

Although the message is recorded and presented live on Tuesday morning, technical difficulties will always creep in from time to time, making the live viewing of the message impossible occasionally. For that reason, many groups chose to watch the pre-recorded version of the broadcast either later that day or that week. In order for your group to always have a message to watch, we recommend hosting your group after noon on Tuesday or even better, later in the week, to give time for that video to become available.

Many groups choose to run “a week behind” the in-person groups. When starting up your group, on your first week, instead of watching this week’s message, watch the previous week’s message. This will ensure there is always a message available for your group to watch together, and it gives you time to collect and disseminate any necessary print materials that may go along with the message.

Step 2: Decide on a venue for your group

A virtual group can be held entirely online or in-person at a remote location. For those looking to do an entirely online group, choose a platform that you are most familiar with and you think would be easiest for your group members to navigate. For many, that means Zoom, however for a coworker-based group, that could mean Microsoft Teams, or for particular groups, that could even be FaceTime. Choose something that you are comfortable using. If you have a professional Zoom account, then you will be able to host a meeting for as long as your group meets. However, if you do not have a professional account, the meeting length will be capped at 40 minutes. For many groups, the discussion portion will run less than that 40 minute limit. However, FORGE does maintain a professional Zoom account and we offer access to set and host meetings from that account if they desire. Just reach out to Zach at forge@forgetruth.com if you want access to that Zoom account.

Step 3: Reach out to your group members

Now is the time to assemble your group and begin meeting. Send an email to all the guys you’d like in your group and make sure to include the following information in your email:

The date and time of your weekly meeting

The location of the meeting

The format of the meeting

Links to the video message

The date and time should be straight forward. For the location of the meeting, that could be either a Zoom meeting invitation, or a physical address where the group will be held. The format of the meeting will vary from group to group, but the essentials are:

Greet and Catch-Up – 5 minutes

Discussion of the Message using the outlines’ questions – 20 minutes

Wrap-Up – 5 minutes

Some groups, especially in-person groups, will choose to watch the video message together, and if time allows, we encourage our in-person groups to watch together. However, for our online virtual groups, we encourage you to send out a link to your group members ahead of meeting together for them to watch on their own. That way, when you come together, everyone will have already seen the message. Internet bandwidth and video buffer issues make it so that watching the video over Zoom together often becomes a frustrating experience for those with slower internet, so sending them a link to the message ahead of time with the expectation everyone will watch it takes away that issue. Also, groups have had great success with first joining together before watching the video, greeting for 5 minutes, then logging off to each watch the video individually at the same time, and then signing back into the group Zoom. Find out what works best for your group!

Step 4: Reach out to Zach and tell him about your group

As FORGE builds up more and more virtual groups, we want to make sure we keep up-to-date on the status of our groups. Once you have formed your group, let us know by emailing Zach at forge@forgetruth.com and give him the following information:

• The date and time of your weekly meeting
• Whether you will be running “a week behind” or in sync with the weekly messages
• The location of your meeting
• The leader (and co-leader if you have one) of your group
• The approximate number of members to your group
• If you are an “open” or “closed” group

For open groups, we will put your meeting info on the website for other people to join if they’d like. For closed groups, that information will not be given out. You can decide if your group is open to receiving new members or if you’d prefer it to just be a select group of men.

Once Zach receives your information, he’ll add your names to our Team Leader mailing list, and you will start receiving weekly emails from Pete with the next message topic and outline.

Step 5: Communicate with your members weekly before the meeting time

A day or two before your meeting time, send a reminder email to your group. Include in this email the topic of the message and the outline for the talk, as well as a link to where they can listen to the message if you want them to watch it ahead of time.

Information You’ll Need

Every week, the message is presented live on the FORGE Facebook page starting at 7am on Tuesday. Encourage your men to follow this page to stay connected to FORGE and get any updates about FORGE. You will be able to see that week’s message here: https://www.facebook.com/Forge.BibleStudy

Each week’s messages are also hosted on the FORGE YouTube channel. Usually the week’s video is available on YouTube by noon on Tuesday, although sometimes it could be earlier or later. You can find the channel here: https://www.youtube.com/c/ForgeTruth/videos

The FORGE website also has the latest video message, outline, and DAWGhouse blog. The current week’s message is usually available on the website by Tuesday evening. You can find that here: https://forgetruth.com/

If you have any other questions about starting your virtual group, don’t hesitate to email Zach at forge@forgetruth.com.