Overview of the Small Group

Title of Class: Proverbs: wisdom, knowledge, sayings

Purpose of Class

To help people to contextualize the wisdom of proverbs in their cultural context.

Describe Class Members (Who is taking the course?)

I serve as a Campus Minister and Associate Pastor, and as such, I wrote this study with college students in mind. I am thinking particularly about 18-22 year old that are connected at least nominally to the church. People who spend much of their time and effort accumulating knowledge, but who don’t have a ton of forces in their life encouraging them to pursue wisdom. Particularly in the cultural context of the student population students are used to short sayings, short videos, bumper stickers, and on-liners. It not uncommon for a student engaged in our campus ministry to be scrolling through social media and see the text of a proverbs with a background of a picturesque, yet staged, scene of a local coffee shop.

Goals

That following the study students would be able to articulate something of the narrative arc of the Book of Proverbs.

Students would be able to describe the genre of wisdom literature in the biblical canon and distinguish it from other genre’s present in the Biblical canon

Students would be able to articulate the hermeneutics of the proverbs. ie. articulate them not as guarantees, but as general rules or probabilities and be able to make some implications about how to apply them to their life.

Students would be able to identify 1-5 proverbs that feel helpful and fruitful to their daily life, and be equipped to apply them to their daily life.

General Expectations - age, level of background knowledge of the subject, ability to use the Bible, ability to articulate, answer and ask questions.

The population that this is crafted for often doesn’t have very extensive knowledge or understanding of the Bible, but they are often very critical thinkers. As a result of being students, I would expect both high levels of critical engagement with the text paired with limited, if any, history of the text. I will not be making the assumption that these students have had a history with the Bible or the Book of Proverbs. I will make the assumption that they are able to think critically and engage meaningfully in a new topic. I also know that for these students life is busy and they may not be able to make it to each and every session, as such, I have put together a daily reading plan. In my own context what I would do is set up a system that would email the students the reading each and every day. I have done that with others in the past, and our church has the technology to be able to make that happen. For clarity here I have simply added a reading plan throughout the weeks

How is this Bible Study relevant to your current (or anticipated) ministry setting?

This is relevant because it is the population that I serve, and I plan on utilizing this study in the Spring semester with an existing group of college students that gathers on Wednesday evenings at Collegiate UMC and Wesley Foundation. In order to be able to ground myself in making this relevant I put it together with the assumption that I would be leading the group in my context.

Objectives

1. What must students already be able to do before this lesson? - Read a text that they are unfamiliar with and be able to critically engage with it.

2. What will students be able to do during the study? - Be able to share space with other students and enter into meaningful dialogue.

3. What concepts have to be mastered to be successful?

Articulate something of the narrative arc of the Book of Proverbs.

Be able to describe the genre of wisdom literature in the biblical canon and distinguish it from other genre’s present in the Biblical canon

Be able to identify 1-5 proverbs that feel helpful and fruitful to their daily life, and be equipped to apply them to their daily life.

4. How will students know they have learned and met your objective?

I won’t have any formal test, but the questions in week 4 near the end as we wrap up really lend themselves to being able to identify with these objectives. I will know that students have adequatly met the objectives if they have clear and compelling answers to those questions in week 4.

Materials needed:

A room to meet in, preferably in a circle. I am planning host this small group in our student lounge which is an area with comfortable seating in a circle, with a candle in the middle as a grounding mechanism.

A screen

Some of the presentations will have both definitions as well as scriptures. I find that giving people the ability to read along is really helpful.

Laptop/tablet to run the presentation

Software to be able to send out daily emails.

Our church has a subscription to a software called Text-In-Church that I plan on using for this function for my study.

Paper handouts for participants