The Greening Of A Discussion Leader
Good discussions don't just happen. Here's how one leader started out and failed--but through trial and error discovered what makes discussion work.
Emory A. Griffin
January 1, 1981
I was one of the few Christians in my fraternity at the University of Michigan. I hit on the idea of leading a Bible study as a way of sharing my faith with the guys in the house. As president of the local Inter-Varsity chapter, I felt an additional pressure to have a successful discussion, for not only did I care about the guys, I also wanted the Bible study to be a model of effective evangelism.
Seven fellows joined me the first night, coming for a variety of reasons. One was a philosophy major interested in batting around ideas; another was my best friend who felt obligated to come. There was the loner who admitted he was curious about what the Bible had to say, while two were openly scornful of anything smacking of religion and came out of curiosity. The final two were Christians who had prayed with me ahead of time for the venture.
I announced this would be a free and open discussion concerning God and life, kicked off each week by a passage from the Bible. Privately, I was committed to using the time as a way of convincing them to believe the gospel. I was excited so many had shown up, and vowed to not waste the time with idle chatter. From that point on, it was all downhill.
The first night we looked at John 3. I'd prepared some questions to stimulate discussion. Most were so simplistic as to be obvious to even a high school dropout: "When did Nicodemus come to Jesus?" "According to John 3:16, what is necessary for us to inherit eternal life?" "When Christ talked about being born again, was he talking about physical birth?"
Other questions required special biblical knowledge: "What was Christ referring to then he spoke of Moses lifting up the serpent in the wilderness?" "Who were the Pharisees?" Since I was the only one ...
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