Centers

Sometimes the study of a passage or topic allows for many open doors. This is where centers are useful. If the leader wants those studying to explore unrelated items throughout the study session, I would call the activities used “centers.” There may be a center where the participants are asking all the questions they can think of to build their level of critical thinking. There may be another center where they will be drawing a picture or writing a summary of the passage to build their comprehension of the passage. These are both tied to the passage, but in different ways. Below is a description of centers that have been used. Sometimes the centers have increased in difficulty throughout the course of the study. These changes are simply monitored and arranged at the discretion of the leader. Many of the centers have adopted nicknames. This is simply for familiarity and they can easily be changed.

Inquiry: In the Discussion Director station, the group will start out by reading through the passage and look for questions about the text. There are no limitations placed on this section. Any question they find in the section covered will be valid. Many times group members insist that they do not have any questions. In that case, they simply are reminded that they need to produce a list of questions. Without fail, they search and start to find questions. Critical thinking is one of the most important skills to develop for personal Bibles study. This center also saves time trying to answer questions in the middle of other centers because they are told to write the question down and save it for this center.

Word Analysis: In the Word Wizard station, the group looks at specific words and their meanings, as well as their significance to the study. As the study progresses, we have introduced the use of a concordance and a Bible dictionary. These take time to teach the students how to use them. We first had the students look up words in both books before we had them use the two tools in conjunction. As students know how to use more resources and become more curious, when they ask a question, they are simply given the tool to find their answer. This center allows for them to grow in that area.

General Comprehension: In the illustration station we draw and color the passage or topic under study. Now this might seem like a waste of time and even a little demeaning, but this is one of the favorite stations for the university students at the study! (The tool it teaches is comprehension because you cannot draw something unless you understand what it is you have to draw!) As the study progresses, so does this station. We went from drawing one large picture of the passage to drawing a flow chart of pictures to follow the progression of thought. This led into just creating flow charts without the pictures. It took months to progress to this point, but it transitions the students from thinking just about what is happening to the order of events through a passage. Using this first in a narrative with a natural outline helps student to be able to find the flow of thought in an epistle of doctrine.

In the Summarizer center, the students write a summary of the passage or topic that they are studying. No matter the breadth or depth of study, the summary should only be a few sentences long. It is harder to write a complete and succinct summary than a really long one. As the study progresses, we would add to this center other aspects of summarizing. Although the students would still write their short paragraph summary, they would also have to write a five-word summary that encompasses all major ideas. This really causes the students to think about the theme in what they are studying.

Connections: In this center, the students make three main connections with the text.

1. 1. text to text connection: relating the text to either more scripture or a book/commentary the instructor has provided;

   2. text to world connection: relating the text to something in the world around us;

   3. text to self connection: how does this text apply to me?

This center was introduced later into the study so that by this point we had fostered the thinking in the students where they could make these connections more easily. This center is excellent for making biblically-based applications. This is also the station where we introduced the use of commentaries. We introduced the commentaries when we felt there was some background information they all needed to know. In this way we don’t have to tell them the background facts; they can find them for themselves. We had a place marked in a commentary the first time they used it. After that, we showed the students that commentaries don’t always agree. This was an exercise in discernment. Which one was more biblically based? How could you prove it? This showed that commentaries are not the easy way out, but actually require more thinking in proving what is said within the text.

Text Analysis: This station is used to show comparisons and contrasts between two ideas, people, or passages in the Bible. The students simply fill out a Venn Diagram concerning the two items in question. This involves an engaged thinking process that can allow students to reach deep and go as far as the text goes. This does not limit an individual by answering simple questions from a group leader.

Individualized Centers: Centers need to be flexible. Sometimes there would be a very different text feature or element in the passage that was being studied. In these situations, a new center would be created for that week only. A study leader cannot be timid about creating and trying out new centers. That being said, consistency helps in a study. It is not suggested to change the centers every single week, but if a new center appears throughout the weeks of the study, it can be a happy change for those studying, and a fresh approach for the passage at hand.

Reviews & Overviews

Sometimes it is best to cover a large amount of material in a short amount of time. However, the focus must change with the implementation of a different strategy. When looking at a large selection or topic from the Bible, it is the goal to identify the central focus or themes. It can be very rewarding to look at an entire book in a session after taking time to walk through it. This places all the puzzle pieces together and allows everyone to see the bigger picture. If a book or topic is small enough, it can be covered in a single session. This gives a taste of the book to those in the group and hopefully promotes further personal study.

Problem-Based Learning

This is an exciting method of teaching. Simply provide a problem to the students and allow them to use their study to solve it. This requires creativity on the part of both the leader and the learners. With this style of learning, the students need to already know their way around their resources, and how to glean truth from the Bible on their own so they are equipped to find the answer to the question given to them. Providing a real world application problem will cause them to search the Scriptures to find their stance on issues they may not have confronted before. This is extremely authentic because this is one of the ways that Christians should use the Word of God. It should be a guide in this dark world, providing the light of God’s wisdom which can illuminate even complicated issues.