Hi All,
Here's the situation. One of the members of our congregation would like to have a women's group do a "sermon study" for their meetings and wondered if we have resources on how to go about doing that. Nothing comes to mind except the preacher. Of course, this is a little tricky if two of the three preachers are men and the one female is about to go on mat leave.
Have any of you done sermon-based small groups? Any of you have any good advice or resources on how best to do this? Other thoughts?
In Christ,
Mike
Comments
Mike,
Sorry for getting to this so late. The forums were incredibly slow for awhile so I haven't been back for awhile.
To answer your question. Yes, we do sermon-based small groups. Larry Osborne's book, "Sticky Church" is a big help here. But the truth is the pastor is the one who knows the best questions to ask. I tend to write out questions as I'm prepping and studying a sermon -- especially questions that would take people further into the text and especially particular to personal life application.
Another source that I frequent is the Serendipity Bible which is the small group leaders' best friend. It has good discussion questions for every pericope in the bible. Get one -- you won't be disappointed. I use it to fill in gaps for each lesson. And since I do a lot of my sermon study on Logos 4 I can make the handouts for discussion right there with the "handouts" app.
Works great.
Hope that helps.
Allen
Thanks Allen!
I haven't read "Sticky Church", so I will have to add that to my reading list. I haven't decided if I want to drop the money to get Logos 4 yet. But I will have to look into that too.
We have done one test run with a group and it went well. They talked for two hours before they cut themselves off (and we only provided 6 questions!). Folks seemed to really appreciate digging a little deeper, particularly with application. I think it will be interesting to see what the long term effects will be on a congregation in a very busy urban-suburban context.
Blessings to you in CO!
Mike
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