How many times have you walked away from a sermon, gone on to lunch , gone into your week and tried to remember what you learned from Sunday’s sermon? Too many to count for me. And those around me.
I was once did a social experiment by asking people in the lobby after church what they learned from the sermon we were just in. Many, many couldn’t even remember much or the main point. Let alone how they were going to be different because of it. Which begs the questions, why do we jump through this hoop? Sitting through an hour sometimes more of hearing a monologue on someone else opinions of the bible. My spiritual growth and learning is up to me, not my pastors, and there are many ways to go about it.
Look up anything on Adult learning and you will discover that lecture and monologue teaching are not effective ways of learning.
But interaction and discussion are. Here is a simple, very reproduceable list of questions that are the healthy building blocks of any church community (Praise/ prayer/reaching out/learning from the bible/obediance/sharing). You can do it alone but preferably with others.
Connect-
- 1. What are you thankful for?
- 2. What is causing you stress? (Spend some time praying for eachother)
- 3. Who needs your help? How can this group help them?
Remember last week- (story #2 and beyound)
- Retell story from the previous meeting.
- 4. What did you do differently because of this story?
- 5. Who did you tell and what was the reaction?
Read this weeks story- One person reads, second person reads
- each person tries to tell it in there own words from memory, the group can chime in to help out
Read the passage again
- 6. What do you learn about God, Jesus, or his ways?
- 7. What do you learn about humans?
- 8. How is God inviting me to respond to this text personally?
- 9. Who needs to hear this story this next week?