Leading a Bible study: Part 6

Today is the final post in my series on leading a Bible study (Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5). Here are my concluding Do’s and Don’ts:

DON’T: Forget the heart
I’m a very “head” oriented person. When I study the Bible I like to pull apart texts, examine the words, look at the historical background and get straight to the meaning of the text. It is only after I’ve done all this that I’m ready to engage with the Scripture on a “heart” level. However, I know that in this I am an oddity! I find that most people engage with Scripture on an emotional level much earlier in the process. Therefore, to lead an engaging bible study I must accommodate this and allow people to respond emotionally to the Scripture before we’ve dissected every technical detail of the text.

DON’T: Forget the head
…having said that, don’t neglect the exegesis. I have been to Bible studies before which have been nothing more than a “feeling sharing group”. That was all anyone ever talked about, how they felt about the text! The actual meaning of the text wasn’t even examined.

DO: Keep the hippy, tree-hugging stuff to a minimum… 😉

A balance must be struck between head and heart.

DO: Spot divisive issues early
Sometimes people want to use a Bible study group as their personal soap-box to complain about a particular issue. This issue is almost always unrelated to the text at hand. It is up to each leader’s prudential judgement as to how things like this should be handled. However, my preferred way of dealing with this is to (1) simply clarify the Church’s official teaching on that subject, (2) indicate that the subject is off-topic and (3) suggest that we continue discussing that particular topic after the meeting or on another occasion.

I’ve seen Bible studies and small groups get hijacked when the leader has tried to fully address every issue raised. Usually the meeting has descended into an unproductive argument, an “Us vs. Them” situation.

DON’T: Let people wander off too far
This is probably one of the hardest things to do well in a Bible study. On the one hand, you want to encourage people to speak and, quite often, tangential discussions can be rather fruitful. However, one must keep a very close eye on these discussions to make sure that they don’t go too far off-topic.

It’s also very difficult when someone is talking and talking and talking and talking… When someone is monopolizing the conversation I usually try and interject with a question about something they’ve said, thus bringing it back on topic and then putting that question to the group as a whole.

DO: End in prayer
You begin with prayer, you end with prayer. In you can pray extemporaneously, I’d suggest you focus your prayer around the themes and promises of the passages you’ve been studying.

DON’T: Finish late
It’s always tempting to overrun, particularly if the conversation is flowing nicely. However, I would suggest always to try to finish on time. The discussion can always continue afterwards (at a coffee shop?). If you don’t wrap things up on time some people will not come back.

So there you go. Those are all my Do’s and Don’ts of leading Bible study. I hope this has been helpful to leaders and aspiring leaders of Bible study groups. Whether you are a leader or not, I’d like to hear from you in the Comment Box below: What makes a great Bible study? What makes a terrible one?