Initial Thoughts Leading to Formulating a Study

Begin with prayer, invoking the Lord’s presence as you open up the Word and for His wisdom and understanding. Read the section of Scripture several times, making notes of key words or phrases (look at several versions). Ask yourself questions, such as Why is the author saying “this” to his audience “at this time”? or Why is this word(s) repeated? Jot down some of your first impression (feeling, thoughts, reactions).

Use a Bible dictionary to understand the geography, culture, philosophy, definitions of certain words and much more. Formulate a main point of the section you’re studying, which will help you formulate questions for your group study. Consider what the Lord is saying to you through the text, which will lead to application questions. Check out some commentaries to compare and contrast your notes.

For many small-group leaders, one of the more intimidating things we do is facilitating a group discussion. Very few of us feel like we’ll have all the right answers, or that we can handle whatever curve balls will be thrown our way (and there will be some!). To make matters worse, it’s even challenging to gauge whether we’re doing a good job or not. But here’s the good news: that’s not what facilitating a group discussion is really about. We don’t have to have all of the right answers. We don’t have to lead the perfect discussion every time. We don’t even have to get through all of the material in each meeting! When we’re facilitating in our small group, our main goal is to create discussion. We want to challenge people to think about the topic at hand, and to create a safe environment for people to share their thoughts—to help everyone feel valued about the input they’ve offered.

That’s all we’ve got to do. Thankfully, there are some established practices and principles that can help us accomplish those goals.

One of the most important skills in small-group facilitation is not having all of the right answers, but asking the right questions. Here are a few approaches to good question-asking:

Avoid the yes/no, true/false, multiple-choice questions—“Is Jesus the sheep or the shepherd in this parable?” Similarly, avoid questions that let people off the hook with a simple Sunday-school answer—“Why did Jesus die on the cross?” You want to ask questions that require people to share some actual thoughts and feelings.

Many people default to staying pretty surface-level with their answers to your questions, so get in the habit of not letting them off the hook. Ask more questions that follow up on their response. Here are some examples of good follow-up questions for the short/simple answers that people often give:
• What makes you say that?
• How do you feel about that?
• How do you think that would’ve affected you if you had been living in the time of Jesus?
• How would you explain your answer to a non-Christian friend or neighbor?

Understanding questions lead your group members into a deeper understanding of the passage.
Examples:
What can we learn from the actions of the characters?
How do you feel about…?
What do you suppose the implications are regarding…?
Imagine yourself being in _________shoes. How would you act/respond?

(Taken in part from Jim Egli, Leadership Pastor at The Vineyard Church, East Central, Illinois, 2013 Christianity Today)

What words or phrases jump out at you, or appeal to you, in this passage? Whether you have new or non-believers in the group or Bible scholars, anyone will be able to respond to this question. The objective is to have your group members looking at the passage, allowing the Holy Spirit to speak to them, whether they understand it to be from Him or not, and listen to each other’s responses. You don’t have to feel rushed. Allow people time to digest the passage.Even if your group members struggle with the passage, don’t feel you need to be the Bible answer person. The primary goal is not about having all the “right” answers, but establishing an atmosphere in which your group members feel safe enough to ask questions, share their struggles, or express their thoughts.

How does your main point relate to your own life? Once the key idea has been established, it’s time to make it personal by discussion how the passage impacts or ties in with your group members’ everyday lives. By this question, you are building a bridge or bond between the truth of Scripture and your lives in today’s culture. It’s about making it real.

 A question on the Bible or theology will inevitably come up that rubs you the wrong way or you don’t feel you have a good or adequate response. Here are some possible responses for you to consider:

“Great question/comment!” “However, my response may open up a dialog that will take too much time. So can we table it for now?” Since you will most likely have only 45 minutes to an hour for the Bible study portion of your small group time, this is often the best approach. But be sure to let the group member know that you will get back to him/her yourself and/or have a group discussion at your next group’s gathering.

Provide a brief answer before getting the group back on track. This is particularly helpful when you feel you can respond in a concise manner and it will be beneficial to the rest of the group. To voice this option, be sure, as a leader, that you are sufficiently confident in the subject matter in question.

Be aware that the Holy Spirit may be nudging you to change course and have the group enter into a new dialog. This comes with relying on the Spirit and experience with your group members to get a sense that they would like to change the discussion. Usually this works best with more spiritually mature believers. (We’ll talk more about this in a latter session.)