By Rev. Dr. Rick Jordan
As a Bible Study teacher, I create my lesson plan with three movements. First, there is a fellowship question. That is followed by a longer information session. I conclude the lesson with a transformation exercise. It happens that this process fits an acronym FIT (Fellowship, Information, Transformation). My goal is that my students will have a FIT Faith.
In my recent article, I wrote about questions that had to do with people’s spiritual or emotional journeys. As teachers and leaders, we want to be curious more than dogmatic. How did someone come to this opinion? We ask this type of question in a nonjudgmental and low-risk way.
Fellowship questions, likewise, are nonjudgmental, low-risk questions that may at first hearing seem to have nothing to do with the Bible study theme of the day. However, the way I use these questions is deeper than merely having a “break the ice” exercise. For example, last week’s lesson dealt with the conversation between Jesus and Pilate. It concluded with Pilate asking, “what is truth?” Before reading that passage and beginning our study of the text, I asked a fellowship question. “How do you know when someone is telling you a lie?”
The fellowship question is designed to be non-threatening because the person answering is the expert. All of us have been in conversations in which we doubted that the person was telling us the truth. Everyone’s experience with this is valid. As a bonus, the question sometimes leads to a funny story. The ice is broken! But that is not my only goal. I want us to think about truths and falsehoods. During the Information segment, I am often able to refer back to a student’s insights or stories shared at the beginning of the lesson.
As you prepare, I encourage you to think intentionally about what questions you will ask and when you will ask them so you can better help your students along their spiritual journeys.
These thoughts are from Rev. Dr. Rick Jordan, our partner based out of Lewisville, North Carolina. He is a 20+-year member of Ardmore Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, NC where he leads an adult Bible study, serves as a deacon and on the Vision Navigation Team. He has also ministered in various leadership roles from local churches to state and national levels. Contact him for more information on how our partner can help you.