The Crossline Community Groups Podcast

7 Tips on How To Navigate Picking Your Bible Study Topics

• Jordan Gash • Season 1 • Episode 7

Share episode

Have you ever felt the weight of guiding a Bible study group and wondered how to ensure each session is as enriching as it is engaging? I've been right where you are, and in our latest podcast, I'm opening up my playbook to share the winning strategies that have turned my sessions from daunting to dynamic. We delve into the overwhelming choices of curriculum and uncover how to pick the perfect fit for your group, as well as the significance of aligning with your church's vision. It's not just about leading; it's about fostering genuine dialogue and watching as every member's spiritual journey flourishes.

Navigating the dense 'jungle' of Bible study requires the right tools, and that's exactly what I've gathered for you. From discussing the immersive Discovery Bible Study method to the practical LOCK acronym, we're equipping you to slice through the underbrush of confusion and into clear understanding. I share tips on preparing your sessions, maintaining focus, and ensuring lively discussions that connect scripture to life today. The goal is a Bible study that's less about a lecture and more about active, participatory learning where every voice is heard.

Finally, we wrap up with a blessing from Philippians 1:9-11, a prayer for love that overflows with knowledge and insight. Whether you're sitting at home or out on a walk, let this episode be a companion that guides you in faith and devotion. Thank you for joining this journey as we navigate the path of leading a Bible study with grace and wisdom. It's an episode rich with guidance, ripe for those ready to grow not only in knowledge but in fellowship with their group.

Support the show

Speaker 1:

Hello everyone. My name is Jordan Gash, I'm the Community Life Pastor at Crossline Community Church and this is the Crossline Community Groups podcast, and we have a great new episode for you today, as we're gonna be talking to you about how to really decide how to go about leading a Bible study in your group. I'm talking about when your group wants to go through a book of the Bible. What do you do next? So that's what we got for our episode, but even before we begin, I always like to begin with just affirming you who is watching this right now, because this podcast is really designed for those that are either in leadership over a small group ministry, or they're leading a small group, or maybe you're just a small group member and you want more information. Whether you are any of those things, I want to bless you in the name of Jesus and say you are doing a great thing. The work that you're doing is kingdom work and it's having an impact. So God bless you, hope you're encouraged today and hopefully this episode today will give you a little bit more insight on how to go about doing those things. So, small group curriculum that's obviously one of the main things that I deal with as a small group leader here at the church and as a pastor, overseeing this is. I deal with a lot of curriculum and people ask me questions about this all the time about what to do, when to do it and best people to go about searching for it all those different things. And it's interesting.

Speaker 1:

I began this podcast thinking, okay, let's just take a quick Google search on small group curriculum. Okay, so I did a Google search and it yielded 337 million results. I think that is the maximum that you can have on Google, so there is more than enough curriculum out there for small groups. It's a plethora of curriculum and even the platform that we use and right now media has tens of thousands of options in small group curriculum. So there's plenty of options.

Speaker 1:

But that's usually not the problem, right? It's not so much that there's not enough, is that there's too many. There's too many. There's too many good things. How are you supposed to land on something that is going to be effective with your group? It's like I enjoy the Cheesecake Factory. I hate the process of ordering at the Cheesecake Factory. Their menu is far too large and it has every genre of food, and I find myself discouraged as I'm going through the menu because I don't know what I want. And I look at all these things and they all could be good and I usually order something with full doubt in my mind that did I order the right thing? I mean, that's why you gotta appreciate those restaurants, that we make cheeseburgers and you could get a double or a single, and that's what it is and you kind of appreciate that because it's simple. But I hope that as we kind of go through this episode, that you can actually get a little bit more help in the process of going through that ginormous menu.

Speaker 1:

And once you kind of decide that you're going to lead a small group or lead a small group around a book of the Bible, what you typically do is you go off of recommendations. You go off recommendations of a friend or another group that did it, or maybe there's a particular author that you really like I really liked this teacher and I see that he's teaching a book on this or you may actually end up doing it through directions from your church leader. There are times that, as the small group leader of the crossline community church, you know I'll give guidance on specific things to go through and maybe your church is like that, or maybe your church is very, very specific on everybody's going through this at that time, and sometimes that can be a blessing because you don't have to worry about all the choices. Whatever it is the case, again, I want to help you with these different things. So there does come a point, though, where, as you're going through all of these curriculums, you know whether it might be on parenting, and whether it might be on marriage, or whether it might be on eschatology or whatever you might have. You get to the point where you decide I just want to get into the meat of the Bible, I want to crack the Bible open, and the people in your small group are all desiring that, and you, because you're a good leader, you hear the people and you decide that that's what we're going to do and you're going to figure out. And so now, what? What's next? What's next in this process of deciding if you're gonna be getting into the meat of the Bible? You're gonna do a book of the Bible. What's the next step?

Speaker 1:

Because not most small group leaders are seminary educated pastors or Bible professors and, quite frankly, that's probably the reason why they're good small group leaders is because they're not seminary educated pastors or Bible professors. They're people that are normal, normal people seeking to know more about Jesus and seeking to understand him more, seeking to understand God's Word and its entirety and the strength of it and being transformed by that. And so that may be you, and again, that's what makes you a great small group leader is because you can connect to people, sometimes those that are seminary educated or big pastors. It can be a little intimidating, or sometimes you could lose context with the rest of your group because you may know more than everybody else from a education background, and so that, and one thing that I would say as I think about this, and the thing that really that makes it hard and why sometimes, when pastors lead small groups or people that are really, really smart in the Bible lead small groups, one thing that is tough that I see often and if this is you, I'm gonna warn you on this they take the group in the wrong direction with how it should be designed, because, as a small group leader, your goal is dialogue. It's dialogue, it's exploration and discovery. It's not sermons, it's not teaching, it's not a Bible class. That's not the point of small groups. It's supposed to be something that involves everybody in the journey, everybody in the exploration. So you discover together. I mean, that's, that's what Jesus did. Jesus did that.

Speaker 1:

You look at Matthew 11, right, and Matthew 11, you have Jesus coming in and the disciples of John asked Jesus hey, are you the one that is to come? Should we expect someone else? And Jesus then? I love this story. He explains and goes well, let's take a little journey of exploration. Let's see some of the things that I've done. You know I've done this and I've you see the miracles and things. So so what do you think? And he really it puts it back in their court. He doesn't just answer it for them, he allows them to find their own answers, and that's the beauty of how Jesus taught and that's what we're trying to do as small group leaders. And so that's a big tangent, all that to say you are the right leader for your group and you can help people on the discovery. So back to this.

Speaker 1:

Once you decide that you're gonna go through a study on the book of Bible, there are two main routes that you can take and for the fun of this episode, I'm calling the two routes that you could take the the guided tour or the jungle trek. You can take the guided tour, jungle trek guided tour and that's going through the Bible, a book of the Bible, with the facilitation of an already produced piece of literature or curriculum. This could be a books of the Bible collection. It could be something like life-change Bible by life-change Bible study by Nav Press it's a great study. Or it could be crossways knowing the Bible series.

Speaker 1:

Or you could look at like an individual book from an individual author that you really enjoy. It could be people like Matt Chandler or Francis Chan or Priscilla Shryer, somebody that is somebody that you enjoy listening to and you trust, and they wrote a book, a small group curriculum around the book of James or the book of, you know, leviticus. Why I hope Leviticus. I love Leviticus. Nobody ever does Leviticus. I love it, it's my favorite. I want to create a curriculum about Leviticus one day. Come into a book near you, leviticus by Pastor Jordan, anyways, anyways. But going back, I'm dying grassing here. I'm saying you have authors, you have people, you have people that you enjoy. You could find a study that you really enjoy and go that direction. You also can use videos, videos that have discussion questions. You can find a ton of this stuff on right now media. Right now, media has a bunch of different studies on books of the Bible that have really cool interactive videos that are really engaging. They're easy to watch and then you have discussion questions out of that. So when you are on this guided tour it makes it easy because you just you watch the video or you read the chapter, you follow the questions and you're there.

Speaker 1:

But if you're the leader, you do probably want to do a little bit of your research. You want to ask your groups About what they enjoy, maybe some of the things that they've used in the past. And one thing that I would definitely recommend If you're thinking about doing a book of the Bible in your small groups is go talk to your small groups pastor. Or maybe you're a senior pastor, if it's a smaller church and you don't have a small groups pastor. Go talk to them and ask them what they like. It Do they have recommendations on Certain books that they use, certain book collections that they like. That's a good way to find out what's out there and find something that's reliable, that you can trust, and Then when you find one, you can kind of just replicate it. You can replicate that book again if it's, if it's the life change Bible study by navpress, and you do one on Romans and you really enjoyed the format and and the layout. Then next time you do it, find another one from from life change and and so forth.

Speaker 1:

Now let's talk about Actually. Before that, though, I will do shameless plug a lot of the content that we do here at cross line that we produced that you could find on right now. Media are many times these type of Guided tours. We go through a book of the Bible, we look at something and then it kind of guides you through the process of how to have those conversations. We're doing one, actually very Verse by verse, very chapter by chapter in our fall curriculum On second Corinthians. So that's gonna be a good one, that's gonna be coming up and so that's gonna be available to you too. So shameless plug. If you guys are looking for something like that and you like this podcast and you enjoy hearing from Jordy Gash over here and or cross line as though I feel weird Plug plugging myself, but you know what I mean. If you find that you can trust me, then I would say Check out our curriculum because I think it's pretty good and it's pretty solid.

Speaker 1:

Back to the jungle tour. So we went and looked at the guided tour. Now let's look at the the jungle, Sorry, the jungle trek. The jungle trek is Diving into the Bible armed with nothing but the sword of the spirit. It's your, it's your jungle machete as you go through the jungle and you're kind of hacking through a lot of these things trying to find a way Through the jungle. And, as it sounds, it's, it's way more Explorative explore, exploration and many times can be kind of treacherous because you can get into waters that I don't really know all the information here. I'm not totally aware of this, but it's many times a lot more fun and a lot more free-flowing, flowing and Lots of times there's also it's it's far better for for true retention.

Speaker 1:

There is this learning pyramid that I reference often when I do small group curriculums or if I'm teaching on a Sunday and that I always try to think of that there's there's two different types of learning and teaching methods. There's the passive teaching method and then there's the participatory teaching methods. The passive teaching methods are things like lecture Could be audio visual reading, some of those things Not bad ways to teach, but lower retention. And then, as you get into participatory teaching methods, you get into things like small group discussion, teaching it yourself, demonstration Some of these things actually engage more of the senses and more of your brain, the retention of information skyrockets it. I mean, at most, with some of the passive teaching methods, you're at a 30% retention rate, but as soon as you get into the participatory teaching methods, everything is from 50% to 90% retention rate.

Speaker 1:

So that's why some of these jungle tracks are good, because you're finding that you have to have more dialogue, you have to ask more questions, you sometimes have to share things that you've learned and teach others in the midst of all that. So it can be a lot of fun and actually, like I said, can bring about a great knowledge of the Bible and exploration of the Bible. It's kind of like a choose your own adventure kind of thing as you go through this. So if you decide to go this way and you're going to go that direction, I do want to say that it's not easy. There is sometimes some challenges with it because you hit obstacles and there's some things that can be a little bit complex. I do want to leave you, if you go this direction, and with seven tips on how to successfully navigate your jungle track. Seven tips that I'll leave with you that will help you.

Speaker 1:

Number one is as a leader facilitator, it's helpful to have done a little bit of prep for the section of scripture that you're going to be going over each session. You, as a leader, if you're the facilitator of your conversation, you definitely should read the passage that you're going to go through beforehand. I'm not saying that you have to go through and make a bunch of notes and do all this study on commentary and all these things, but you definitely should have a baseline. You should have read the passage and thought about it a little bit so you know kind of where you're going. And then at times there probably is some benefit to maybe looking into some commentaries. Or maybe you look at one of those guided tour books and you have that there about the book that you're going through and that gives a little bit more insight. It is helpful as a leader to kind of have a little bit of knowledge already in the tank as you step into that conversation.

Speaker 1:

Tip number two have an established and routine discussion flow. An established and routine discussion flow and what I mean by that is from week to week, have something that is consistent in how you're going about the book of the Bible, because what happens sometimes when you just read a passage and you just open it up to a random conversation, it's going to go every which direction. So make sure that you establish for yourself something that is structured and how you're going to have that conversation. There's a couple of ways that you can do this. There's a couple examples of this. There's one style is the Discovery Bible Study style, where you read the passage and you ask just questions like what does this teach me about God, what does this teach me about people? And if this is truly God's word, then what are we supposed to do about it? I mean, it's simple questions that you can walk through. Or you can use the acronym LOCK L-O-C-K.

Speaker 1:

You look, you look at it. First, you look through the passage, you read the passage, then you observe what observations do you make about the passage of scripture? What observations do you see that maybe you didn't see before? And then bring about some conclusions as the see. What can we conclude from this scripture? What can we conclude about how we're supposed to live our life? Can we conclude about certain characters or lessons and things that are in the passage?

Speaker 1:

And then the K means keep focused. I always throw that in there because with these jungle treks you very much can get off topic and go totally different direction. As somebody mentions, as you're talking about something around, let's go marriage and healthy marriages and men and women and caring for each other and then all of a sudden you find yourself talking about whatever. You talk about battles, because you're talking about men and somehow you talk about battles and that leads you into some of the greatest battles of the Bible. And then you're all of a sudden you're in Joshua and you're reading all these things. And how do we get here? Keep focused, look, observe, conclude, keep focused.

Speaker 1:

Another easy way that you can do this with this simple structure is you can ask the questions of how did it apply to them Back then? How does this apply to us today? Those are two questions that can take your conversation very wide and then have an idea too of like how you're gonna actually read it. Are you gonna read paragraph by paragraph you know paragraph and take a break and talk about it. You're gonna read another paragraph, take a break and talk about it. Are you gonna read the whole passage and then go back and go by verse by verse, kind of just have an idea. There's no right or wrong way to do this, but you should have something that's consistent for your group so that as the weeks go on, that they're not worried about how the conversation's gonna go, that it's actually valuable and structured. And, on course, you, as a leader, you can do that and you can build that.

Speaker 1:

Tip number three bring your study bibles. I know it's a simple tip, but it's actually something that some people forget. When you come to your small group, bring your Bible, and if you have a Bible that has great study notes commentaries, then bring them. If you have a couple and you don't mind getting extra bicep curls on lifting all those Bibles, then bring those. Bring those, bring multiple. It's okay to have that and then you can use that to help facilitate conversation in your group. What are the what's the commentaries that say there, what is the cross references that you look into, and you guys can all work on that together. Okay, that's tip number three. Tip number four make sure you have different people read. In every group there is that person that wants to read all the time and pray all the time. They are the vocal ones, they're the talkative ones. Okay. Make sure, as a small group leader, that you are inviting multiple people to read the scripture. Again, if that's paragraph by paragraph or certain passages, make sure everybody's involved. It's a simple tip, but it's quite helpful because it makes sure everybody's engaged. Tip number five and this is a big one, I want you guys to hear this Don't try to do too much.

Speaker 1:

If you're trying to go through the book of Revelation in five weeks, it's not gonna work. You're not gonna be able to do it unless you have whatever 10 hour long small group meetings, which nobody has. But you're not gonna be able to do it. So don't try to do too much. Take your time. It's okay to pace yourself and something that works for your group. Don't push along and too far ahead. If people are lost. Take your time, slow it down. Don't try to do too much. Maybe you do. We're gonna do one little section of scripture. It's gonna be maybe 20 verses and we're gonna hit that Something that actually has a start point and a finish point.

Speaker 1:

Just don't try to do too much, because when you try to get too much in there, you'll have information overload. For some people that's okay and they'll retain all of it, but there's a lot of people that when there's a lot of words being said and there's a lot of information coming, their brain shuts off. It's like I'm out. This is just. It's too much. I'm already kind of drowning in all this knowledge and all this information. I gotta step out. So don't do that, don't have information overload.

Speaker 1:

And then also, if you try to do too much, you end up having watered down lessons from the Bible. There's things that you can learn from the Bible, that you can gain from the Bible, that if you try to pack in too much, what happens is you just get a lesser version of that thing that the Lord maybe wanted to give to you and wanted to pass on to you. Because you're rushing through it, allow all of the scripture to kind of wash over you and to really set with you and discuss it in your group, because you can find that you can actually extract all of the great spiritual nutrients that are in each of those verses that you're reading. So don't try to do too much. That's tip number five. Tip number six and this goes to leaders specifically don't have a predetermined objective.

Speaker 1:

The beauty of the Bible is that it it's the living word and it speaks to people in many different ways. As you read the Bible, the one thing may one person may be hearing something from the scriptures and another person could be hearing another thing from the scriptures, and both of those things could be Good things and true things that are coming from the scriptures, but just that, based off the season of life or their experiences, they may read that and get something different. So it speaks in a great way. So, as the leader, don't be locked into your way Like this is what I want to make sure everybody gets and then you end up just kind of trying to push the conversation To get to that predetermined objective. You're trying to guide the conversation to get people to say what you want them to say.

Speaker 1:

It's just like the other day I was listening to my buddy, david, and he was preaching and he had a, a question that he wanted to answer to specific ways. So he asked the audience you know what's something we all have? You know that we all can say that we all have, and he was trying to look for that. They answer that we all have a family of some sort, but he ended up getting probably 15 different answers that were not family, in different ways and then he's like, okay, I got to scrap this because none of you guys are saying what I want you to say and so Don't have that kind of mentality with your small group. They're like, okay, I just want to make sure that they hear this and they get this and the end of our conversation it we get this objective, all right. Be open, because when you have that, it shuts down energy. It prevents some of the learning that can happen.

Speaker 1:

Just make sure the key thing you want to make sure as a leader is Be going in the same direction. Be going in the same direction, but it's okay to explore multiple paths. Don't go full tangent on a totally different direction. But you can go the same direction on this jungle tour and explore multiple paths and be welcomed for people to try and to lead you those different directions and you guys can talk about it and explore. So it's important for you as a leader that if you're doing the majority of the talking, I'm sorry to say you're facilitating it wrong. You should not be doing most of the talking. You should be inviting others to really be participating with you in that. So ask lots of questions, ask lots of questions about a lot of that about the passages and go that direction.

Speaker 1:

Tip seven our last set tip that I want you to hear again, it's the what is it? Last but not least? Last but not least, had a brain fart there. I totally forgot what I was trying to say. Last but not least, tip number seven Be with, be okay with I Don't know. Let's all practice it together, even right now, as you're listening, say it out loud. Ready on three, ready, I Don't know? See, it's okay, it's okay to not know sometimes. So People may ask questions and they may be asking questions to you, or they may be asking questions out there and they want to have the answer. And you guys, you're exploring and you're exploring and you're exploring. In the end You're like, okay, we have different thoughts, we have different feelings.

Speaker 1:

Where we've looked at the scripture, we can kind of even do more exploration on this, but in the end I gotta say I Don't know. I don't know, and that's something that Christ will reveal to me when I meet them in heaven, you know is that? But right now I can't give a hundred percent certainty on that, and that's okay. The key thing that that Jesus wants from you and for your, the people that are in your group Comes in Matthew and Jeremiah 29 and it talks about him. Jeremiah 23, right, and if you seek me you will find me. If you seek me with all of your heart.

Speaker 1:

It's the seek that he desires, it's the pursuit that he desires which makes sometimes the jungle trek method of going through the Bible, just cracking it open and starting to go that direction To make it fun, because it truly is a lot of seeking. Now that's not to just say that a guided tour is the wrong way to go there. I we've had done, we as a group have done tons of guided tours and Through the Bible and they've all been great. Then we've had great fruit that comes from it. But there is sometimes fun to just kind of go this direction and just to crack it and and to see what happens and see what Jesus reveals. So that's a little bit of insight for you today as you look into how to go about leading your small group through a book of the Bible. You're doing a great job, don't be discouraged. Have fun with it.

Speaker 1:

The Bible is is the best book ever ever made. It's more than a book. It's God's living word given to us and it's a great joy to be able to read it and to explore it, and I know that you're gonna have a blast in your small group, regardless of whether, whatever direction you go. So I'm actually I'm Heading off to that later today that we are beginning our first one and first Peter tonight, where we are going to be doing our jungle trek. So I'm not just somebody that's telling you it, I'm somebody that's actually practicing it myself.

Speaker 1:

So I want to leave you with this. I want to bless you before we go. I want to bless you with the blessing that we always say at the end of these things Philippians, chapter 1, verses 9 through 11. So if you're if you're there unless you're listening to this in the car I just invite you to open your hands and receive this blessing. Keep your hands on the steering wheel if you're driving, but and this is my prayer that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. Amen. Thank you, guys. Have a great rest of your day, and we'll catch you next time.