How are Bible study groups like boats? A boat in a river drifts. Groups, Sunday Schools, and churches have a tendency to drift. Without intentionality, focus, and purposeful guiding, you will drift downstream far from where you want to be. While rowing toward your goal requires time, attention, and effort, keep in mind that it does not all have to be yours. Think team!
Time for Rowing Toward Your Goal
Imagine that your group functions best with an investment of 12 hours every week in lesson preparation, prayer, caring contacts with absentees and friends, event planning, and more. While each of us has the same number of hours each week, 12 hours would be a heavy toll from one person. But what if those 12 hours were shared? With 4, the work required becomes more manageable. With 6, the time invested becomes easier.
Attention for Rowing
Having been whitewater rafting several times in my life, I can tell you that attention is heightened in a group by even a little leadership. When the rafting guide points out a problem, the group pays attention and awaits instruction for managing the problem. Too many groups lack a guide. No one helps them notice they are drifting toward trouble until it is too late. I am not advocating multiple guides, but what I want to encourage is teamwork. The work of teaching, discipling, and caregiving benefit from paying attention to the people in our care and how they are managing the river of life. Many eyes can be guided to see and respond to potential problems before it is too late.
Multiplying Effort for Rowing
My wife and I enjoy canoeing. On a calm lake where there is little drift, she does not need to paddle as much; I can propel and guide the canoe from the stern (back). But on a river, drift is inevitable. The ideal plan is to use the flow of the river to go where we want to go, but there are always hazards to avoid: rocks, tree limbs, rapids, sand bars, splits, and more. If she is in the bow (front), she can see better than I can. So we have to work together.
When we see a hazard to avoid, we adjust our direction by paddling and steering in advance. I give her simple instructions about paddling on which side of the canoe and how much. Change of direction is much faster with two people. In a raft on a fast river, change has to be much faster and is possible because there are several people in the raft.
In a Bible study group, members have multiple spiritual gifts, sets of friends, and experiences from which the group can benefit. Not to use them is to allow the group to drift and to waste their abilities. When they are given assignments that benefit the Bible study group, everyone benefits.
Toward Your Goal
In a boat, you drift or you row/paddle toward your goal. If the people in a boat have different goals, the result is disaster. The same is true in a small group or a Sunday School class. The greatest effectiveness comes when group member gifts, friendships, and experiences are all focused on a common goal, a common direction.
That means that someone has either to (1) set the goal and lead the group to own it or (2) lead the group to set the goal. Pursuing too many goals simultaneously is confusing and counterproductive. Focusing your time, attention, and effort toward one goal will usually result in the greatest reward.
For posts about goals, check these out: Sunday School Class Growth Goals, 5 Goals for Sunday School This Year, Two Simple Sunday School Class Outreach Goals, and others. Pray and set goals together. Doing so will increase ownership of those goals and willingness to work on them together. Determine the priority of place to start. And work your way through your goals one at a time. Make disciples. Be revolutionary!
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
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