Study Leader Guidelines

Make your role known to others so that other participants know there is an ‘authority’ to guide the discussion.

Make people aware of guidelines and ensure that the group sticks to them.

Ask someone in your small group to read the text again to refresh your thinking.

Keep an eye on the time to ensure that an equal amount of time is given to reading each text.

Don’t be afraid to facilitate a scripture that isn’t your own! Good facilitation isn’t about ‘owning’ the text; it’s about enabling everyone to feel comfortable sharing his or her reflections in a respectful way.

Set an example for hospitality. Hospitality is at the heart of SR, as we invite others to read and reflect on our scripture, and we are ‘guests’ when others’ scriptures are being read; modeling this will help others to do the same.

Enable everyone to contribute
SR may feel natural to some, while others need encouragement. Also, actively invite contributions from people who are shy and may not feel confident in sharing their reflections or may feel overwhelmed by more outspoken participants. One way to engage everyone from the beginning is to ask each person to mention a word/phrase that strikes them in the text.

Keep an eye on the participants in your group
This is very much related to the point above, as body language often indicates whether people feel comfortable, have something they want to contribute to the discussion, and so on. As a facilitator, you may need to look around at participants more than at the SR texts.

Keep the conversation focused on the text
You can prompt this by asking questions such as, ‘Where do you see that in the text?’ or, ‘Shall we draw this conversation back to the text?’

If someone gives a definitive interpretation of a text, invite other opinions
For example, by asking, ‘What do others make of the text?’ or, ‘Does anyone read the text differently?’