Last week in our men’s group, in preparation for our Bible talk by Jim Ramsey on the prodigal son, I did this bible study from Luke 15 which I wrote just beforehand.
What’s unusual about it is that it has 15 questions, and rather than go through them one by one I said “Let’s take a few minutes to read over all the questions and then if there is a question that you’d like us to think about, you can pick that question and we can all have a go at answering it”
I said ” Who’s picked a question?”
Someone said, “Um, Question i”
I said ” Why did you pick that question?”
They answered and then I gave them, and the others an opportunity to answer it.
Then I said “Who else has picked a question?”
And on we went. I think it’s one of the best Bible studies we’ve had at a men’s group, and it went deep very quickly.
We didn’t answer all the questions but the people picked questions that resonated with them, people gave really honest and revealing answers about why they had picked that question, which led to a great discussion about what the Bible had to say about that issue.
I wouldn’t use this method every week, I kind of stumbled on it by accident, but I think I might reuse it again.
Often in Bible study it can be hard to go from the passage to people’s lives. But getting them to pick a question and then asking why they picked that question went straight to their lives and then the Bible spoke right into their lives it’s hard to explain but it worked really well.
Fantastic idea! Love it.
Of course, it assumes that at least SOMEONE will like at least ONE of the questions!