Sermon-based Sunday School

A popular trend in church world is to have your groups study the same biblical passage as the pastor's sermon. Here is what Larry Osborne, author of Sticky Church, says about his experience with sermon-based small groups:

As you may know, our church is built around sermon-based small groups. It’s a lecture-lab model in which the groups dig deeper into the subject of the previous weekend’s message. For over two decades, we’ve had a participation rate of over 80 percent of our weekend adult attendance.

One of the great advantages of this approach is that it aligns our congregation around the contents of each sermon. It takes the drip method and amplifies it exponentially.

My first church experiences were close to information overload. I heard a sermon on Sunday, studied a different subject in Sunday school, listened to a third message on Sunday night, and then came back to study a fourth subject during a midweek service or home Bible study.

I’m not sure I ever could tell you what we were studying (something from the Bible, I guess). It all blurred together. Everything was too diluted to remember.

In contrast, our sermon-based model sharpens churchwide focus by making sure that everyone is on the same page. My book Sticky Church covers this model in great detail, so for now, suffice it to say that it’s been a powerful tool for congregational alignment. --Osborne, L. (2010). Sticky teams: Keeping your leadership team and staff on the same page. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

If you are interested in pursuing sermon-based small groups and would like some help with the lesson preparation, I might could help. Here is what I have in mind.

The lessons I would write would be along the lines of Good Questions Have Groups Talking. The difference would be I would write them to go along with your sermons. The farther ahead your pastor plans the better this will work.

Of course, you could write the lessons yourself, and that might be the best way to go. After all, you know what you want said so writing lessons yourself might be your best option. Here are a few reasons you might want to ask me to do it for you:

• Experience. I would estimate I have written more lessons than any human, living or dead. I write four new lessons a week and have done so for years. I have written thousands of Bible Study Lessons.
• Resources. I have thousands of books in electronic format that I can quote and include in lessons. These resources are indexed and cross-referenced with scripture passages that make them easy to find. I love including great material from writers like Max Lucado that make the lesson come alive.
• Perspective. Getting an outside voice to write lessons gives an additional perspective on the topic. Perhaps you want lessons that are on the same text or topic you will be dealing with in your sermons, but you would like them to come from a different perspective.
• Time. It takes me about half a day to write a lesson. You may not have the time to devote to this. It may be a better use of your time to out-source this.
• Customizable. Lessons are delivered in Word format. If you wish to customize them further, you are free to do so.

My core ministry is writing Bible Study lessons. If I can serve you in this way, I’d love to help. Cost is negotiable. Think in terms of what you pay your Pastor for half a day.  You would also have the savings of not paying for the literature your are currently using. Contact me at josh@joshhunt.com or 575.650.4564