It’s pretty easy to sucked into the details of planning Bible
lessons. There are so many options and rarely enough time to get it all
in!
There are two *Critical* things to work out for every Bible lesson you create or lead:
1. Know the objectives 2. Plan Questions and Interaction
Let’s look at each of these in more detail.
The first critical step before you get very far in planning lessons:
1. You must know the objectives for each class.
What do you want to happen? What should your students learn about?
What should everyone experience? What are the key take-aways that lead
to life change?
Give these questions some consideration.
Then WRITE IT DOWN.
I’m serious, write it out. Don’t just mutter, “I know what I want.”
I encourage you to actually, physically get this written down on paper.
Why? Two reasons:
A. The act of writing reinforces what’s important. Sometimes what we
have in our heads looks goofy on paper – and that’s a sign that you
need to think more about what needs to happen.
B. You can make sure there is enough detail to guide your lesson
planning. Often we make assumptions about stuff until it’s written down
and staring back at us.
Now take your written objectives and lay them out before the Lord.
Do what Hezekiah did in 2 Kings 19:14 – physically lay it before the
Lord and ask for His guidance.
Pray confidently that the Lord will confirm, re-direct, and shape these objectives for your class at this time.
If you don’t know your objectives, any approach will get you the results you deserve.
Life-changing Bible lessons take thinking and planning and work!
Once you know the objectives that God has confirmed for this class,
then you can really work at shaping the lesson to meet those objectives.
That’s where the second critical step comes in:
2. Plan Questions and Interaction
Most Bible teachers get so focused on the content (the Bible
passage, the application) that they miss the tools to help people grab
hold of it!
If you want people to learn, you have to do more than just lecture
at them. They will learn 10 times or 100 times more—the kind of
learning that leads to transformed minds and hearts—if they interact
with you as the teacher, and with the material.
This is really a simple fact about how our minds work. The Lord
designed our minds. If anyone would know who to teach so that people
could learn and understand, it would be Jesus, right? So let’s pay
attention to how he teaches.
In the Gospels you’ll see that Jesus uses many questions to help
people understand what he wants them to know. He gets into
conversations with them, speaking back and forth. He’s not asking
questions because He wants to know something. He’s God, so He already
knows! No, Jesus asks questions because it’s one of the best ways to
get someone engaged!
So questions should be one of your principal means for interactive learning.
Here is how to figure out what questions to use:
Look over your material, and pick out three to five points that you
want people to understand. For each one, think of at least two
questions about the topic or verse or word that you want them to focus
on.
Use a mix of questions that have a definite, correct answer, and
questions which are more open ended. For example, “How many sons did
Noah have?” has a definite, correct answer: three. “What would you
have felt if you were Shem and had been working on building the ark for
5 years?” is a question that invites reflection, personalization,
exploring the story—there is not a single correct answer.
This strategy should give you 6-10 questions that will really help with interactivity while you teach.
Make sure your questions are in line with the objectives you
outlined above. Then the questions lead people to where you want them
to go!
If you know your objectives, and plan for interaction, the effectiveness of your Bible teaching will zoom!
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