10 Ways to Kill a Discovery Bible Study (and How to Avoid Them)
By S. Crawley
Photo by Maxim Hopman on Unsplash
Have you ever watched someone try to dig with a shovel held upside down?
Discovery Bible Study (DBS) is a powerful tool for helping people encounter God through His Story. It is a process that creates space for spiritual discovery and transformation in communities that might never step into a church service. When facilitated well, Word and Spirit speak powerfully to open hearts.
You can dig a hole with the wrong end of a shovel, but it won't be as good.
Here are some tongue-in-cheek things to AVOID in order to harness the full power of Discovery Bible studies for helping people discover and respond to God.
To kill your DBS:
1. Be the Expert
Be someone who explains every detail, provides historical context, and answers every question.
Instead: Leave space for people to discover answers and lean on each other's perspective from the passage. What's the one thing God wants to communicate to them today through this passage?
2. Skip the Application Questions
To avoid powerful life transformation, make your DBS into a purely academic exercise by avoiding any discussion of how the passage might actually impact daily life or bless other people.
Instead: ALWAYS ask the application questions (“How do I need to apply this to my life?” and “Who would benefit from what I’ve learned today?”). They facilitate Spirit-led, concrete change in peoples’ lives.
3. Lead Like a Teacher
Create a classroom atmosphere complete with lectures, corrections, and the subtle message that there's only one "right" way to understand the passage.
Instead: Recognise that only God has full understanding of His Word. We’re all on a learning journey and we are all enriched by other's perspectives. The best protection against false doctrine is to train the group to rely on the authority of the Bible rather than a knowledgeable leader.
4. Fix People's Problems
Jump in with solutions, verses, and advice when someone shares a challenge.
Instead: Leave space for Word and Spirit to speak. What is God’s priority for this person right now? What does He want to say? Bring the challenge to God in prayer and see if there’s anything He wants to ‘say’ or reveal. His thoughts are higher and better than ours.
5. Chase Rabbit Trails
Allow every theological or apolagetic issues to sidetrack the discussion, ensuring you never dig deeply into what God is communicating through this specific passage.
Instead: When a question or issue comes up, turn the question back to the asker and the rest of the group. "How would you answer that from this passage?" will resolve most honest questions. If it doesn't, place the question to the side and continue with the DBS. The question can be picked up again after we've finished listening to God in this particular passage.
6. Manipulate the Outcome
Subtly steer the discussion toward your convictions and conclusions.
Instead: Trust the sovereignty of God and the ability of the Holy Spirit to speak through the Bible to honestly seeking hearts. By creating a space for people to drink directly from His Word you are making a profound contribution to their spiritual journey - well done! When they taste Him through the Bible, they will want more. Then watch and see what He does with it.
7. Rush the Process
Limit your DBS to an unrealistic amount of time and/or rush through the questions.
Instead: Allow time for each question and don't be afraid of silence! Silence usually means people are thinking and really engaging with what they are reading and sensing. It's a very very good sign. If your time is limited, consider ways to meet for longer or do some of the questions ahead of time in offline mode.
8. Make It Complicated
Add extra steps and requirements until the simple discovery process starts feeling more like an elaborate formula.
Instead: Resist the urge to add things. Remember that the goal of DBS is to help a group of people encounter Word and Spirit in a way that can easily replicate. Simple things replicate, complicated things don't.
9. Play Bible Trivia
Turn discovery time into a game of "spot the cross-reference," pulling participants away from the current passage to bounce through every remotely related verse in Scripture.
Instead: Stay grounded in the story or passage in front of you. When people gain confidence that they can ‘hear’ God speak to them through a single passage it sets them up for a lifetime of growth.
10. Forget the End Goal
Focus so much on perfecting the method that you lose sight of the Master and turn a dynamic tool into a dead ritual.
Instead: Get comfortable with being a work in progress and remember the goal - to create a space where people can LOTR: Listen, Obey, Trust and Respond to God. If people who don't normally do church are willing to let you help them open the Word, you clearly have credibility in their eyes which opens up opportunities for God to reveal Himself. You're doing awesome! Relax and enjoy the journey.
Conclusion
Many of these mistakes have a common thread – they stem from our natural tendency to take control rather than create space.
Discovery happens best when we step back and trust both the process and the Holy Spirit's ability to guide discovery. Our role is to create space – space for exploration, for discovery, for transformation, and most importantly, for God to show up and speak.
For Reflection
1. A Scripture - Acts 17:10-12
- What does this passage tell us about the relationship between personal discovery and spiritual growth?
2. A thoughtful question
- Which of these 10 ways are you most tempted to follow, and why?
3. A possible application
- In your next DBS, try identifying one area where you tend to over-control and consciously practice stepping back. What differences do you notice in the group's engagement and discovery process?
Discipling the Urban Harvest provides practical insights and encouragement to walk with God in multiplying discipleship in an increasingly urban world - growing as children of the Father, serving the communities He has called us to, and discipling those hungry to know Him.