Host a space for your group
A short walkthrough for starting a Shared Space in Harvous—invite your people, keep prep private, and give each week its own thread.
If you already use Harvous for personal prep, Shared Spaces are the group layer—not a new product to learn from scratch.
Here’s the short version of how I’d host one for a class or small group.
Create the space
Open Harvous and create a shared space for the group. Name it after the people or the series—“Wednesday James,” “Room 12,” “Young adults spring”—not after the app.
You’re hosting. Hosting is included with Harvous Plus. Your members don’t need Plus to join.
If you’re still deciding whether a shared trail is even the problem you have, read Keep what the group finds first. This post assumes you already want the room.
Invite your people
Send the invite link the same way you’d send a GroupMe or text: one link, clear label, low pressure.
Joining is free. That’s intentional. You shouldn’t have to sell a subscription for someone to add a question to week three.
You stay in control of who belongs. If someone leaves the group, they can leave the space. You’re not building a permanent parish directory—you’re holding study for this season.
One thread per week
This is the habit that makes the space useful.
Don’t dump everything into one megathread called “notes.” Make a thread for the week or topic:
- “James 1 — week 1”
- “Sermon follow-up: Hebrews 4”
- “Easter class — week 3”
Then add what the room finds there. Questions. A scripture reference someone brought up. The one sentence you don’t want to lose.
The thread becomes the week’s record—same idea as personal threads, just shared.
When someone misses a night, they can catch the trail without asking you to recap from memory.
Keep prep private
Your personal notes stay yours.
Prep the lesson in your own folders the way you already do. When something is ready for the group—an opening question, a passage aim, a follow-up—add that to the shared space.
The boundary matters: private prep stays private until you choose to share it. Members see what belongs in the space, not your half-formed Tuesday scribbles.
That’s how you keep the tool from turning into performance.
Keep it light
A Shared Space fails the same way a Drive folder fails: when it becomes homework.
Aim for less than you think:
- One thread per gathering
- A few keepers, not a transcript
- An open invitation for members to add one line between weeks if something follows them
You’re not replacing conversation. You’re giving conversation a place to land.
More detail on the product page: Shared Spaces. If you lead groups for a living (or for love), group leaders is the wider home for how Harvous thinks about the role.
