My Bible study group finished Brian McLaren's We Make The Road By Walking (highly recommended). Due to our schedules we couldn't meet every week, so it wasn't possible to follow the church year as the book does, but after two years we had made our way through.
The others saw a C. S. Lewis play and wanted to pick one of his works next. I had always thought The Screwtape Letters would be great for a group study, because each letter is only a few pages long and packed with great content.
I wrote these four points on an index card and gave one to everyone. Here's what our study covers (for each chapter):
What struck you? We take turns sharing this.
What can we learn? This is a time for general discussion.
Scripture. The goal is to find Bible passages that relate to the theme. [Sometimes this is complex and we take turns being the one to find the passages. More than one of us has spent hours on Bible Gateway (etc) finding just the right passage, or the right N passages.] We read them out loud and discuss some more.
If we can find a prayer, pray it. Many letters explicitly include a prayer, as when Screwtape says, "Try to prevent them praying like this..." Others suggest multiple possible prayers. We try to do the praying ahead of time but at this point we'll discuss what this chapter's prayers feel like. (We also do the standard small group practices of prayer for each other, etc.)
This has been wonderful. And with "social distancing" we're suddenly able to meet every week.
These questions are specific to Screwtape but I bet there are many other books for which we could develop a DIY study guide. Would be interested in others' ideas!
Edited: I understand that there's a C. S. Lewis hoax quote going around. Go to the original.
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