Introducing ‘On The Trail’, resources for small group Bible study leaders

At Trinity Church Scarborough, one of my roles is to oversee our Life Groups, and to look after the Life Group leaders. These are our midweek groups. They are much more than just a Bible study group (they’re about doing life together, as the name suggests), but they are certainly not less than that.

As part of that role, I produce resources for our leaders each term, to equip them to guide their groups through a book of the Bible (or part of a book). I am hugely grateful to God for a wonderfully gifted and committed team of Life Group leaders, who are godly and give sacrificially of their time to lead and serve their groups. It is a great privilege to serve them.

It started on camp…

… as many things in Christian life and ministry seem to.

The vision for this goes back a long way, to 2002. I was on the team of leaders for a Christian summer youth camp; on the camp, as well as leaders and members we had assistant leaders. That year, I was heading up the team of 8 or so leaders who looked after them. I had a bit of time that summer, so I produced some notes on the letter of James, to equip those leaders as they led the ALs through a Bible study each afternoon.

Preparing those notes had a life beyond that summer. I’ve been asked for copies a few times since, but more importantly the letter of James got under my skin. As useful as those notes were as a summary of what I’d learnt, I had come to love that short and practical letter, and felt I was just scratching the surface. So, from then on, whenever I was asked to teach or preach, and the context allowed for James’s letter, I'd get it out and work on it again.

Scarborough ministry

Fast forward to my role in Scarborough. I had an opportunity to produce some Life Group notes on the letter of James (yippee!), but we've also had series in 1 John, Ephesians, Acts 19-28, Isaiah 1-6, Isaiah 7-12, Deuteronomy 5-7, Matthew 1-4, and some topical studies on prayer. Again, I would occasionally be asked if these resources could be made available more widely.

So last summer I chipped away to edit 4 of the Life Group notes, and turn them into something that might help others too. I reworked the details that were tied specifically to our context here on the Yorkshire coast. I added a section at the beginning on how to use the notes, since readers elsewhere won’t be using them in the context of the training given to our Life Group leaders.

On The Trail

I called the result “On The Trail”. I needed a series title, and this came from a picture from Col Marshall in his small group training course, Growth Groups.

“Leading a group Bible study is like guiding a hike in the mountains. It requires:

1. Leader preparation
2. Group member preparation
3. Getting it started
4. Keeping it going
5. Winding it up

“Like a discussion, leading a hike involves a balance of control and freedom. It is reprehensible for the leader not to be well prepared, with clear directions and resources to reach the final objective. Likewise, the party must be adequately prepared, although usually there will be within it various levels of expertise. During the hike, the leader will need to keep motivation high and be firm in pushing on toward the final destination. Whatever else happens, the leader needs to keep studying the map and checking the landmarks. The guide needs to keep control.

“But this is a hike, not a forced march at double time with full pack and a sergeant barking orders! The group can set its own pace to some extent and stop at points of interest along the way. The new hikers can learn a lot from the old timers who often know the terrain even better than the leader. Sometimes, they would like to get off the beaten track and find a new way home. To enjoy the experience and to come back for more, they need a fair degree of freedom.” (Page 45 of the 1995 edition of Growth Groups)

The picture is of a group going exploring together. There is a destination and a goal, but there's also freedom to explore and enjoy the route. The leader guides the group as a whole as they hike, and the leader is guided by the map (in this case, the Bible). It is a group activity. Maybe some of the group may go off the road for a while, but nobody gets left behind. The joy is for the group to dig for treasure from God's word, quite different from a sermon where the nutritious fare is served up for them.

That’s enough mixed metaphors!

I approached a few publishers, and they were all very kind, but hadn’t got space in their publishing schedules for such a series. Maybe they were just being kind, and there were other reasons! People kept asking, so I wanted to find an easy and cost-efficient way to let people use this material if it would help.

So I went the self-publishing route.

Now Available

The first 4 volumes are now available: Isaiah 1-12, Matthew 1-4, James, 1 John.

They can all be bought from Amazon. They are available as paperbacks (with the usual delivery options), and as Kindle e-Books (included in Kindle Unlimited).

I've also created a simple website for On The Trail. That gives space for a bit more information on each book. Amazon’s “look inside” feature tends to show you just the first few pages of a book, but that’s introductory and before the actual studies begin, so I've included a few more sample pages. There’s also a whole sample study (on Matthew 4:23-25) to help people see what you get for each individual study. People need to know the approach to group Bible study these notes follow, so I’ve included a couple of sections from the introduction to each volume: How to use these notes, and the two approaches to leading a study that the notes are designed for.

The website also gives a way for people to buy multiple copies at a discount, to make it affordable for churches to use these across their small groups if they wish.

I’m planning to edit the Life Group leaders’ notes from some our other series into On The Trail editions, so watch out for new volumes to be added to the series in the months to come.

Explore. Buy. Use. Recommend.

Here's what I'd love you to do.

• Explore. Head over to the website and see if this might be a resource that would help you in your setting.
• Buy. If you buy from Amazon, it also registers in their sales ranks, which means others are more likely to see them.
• Use. I'd love to get these out there and being used. Having served our own leaders in this way, it would be such a joy to see others also benefiting elsewhere.
• Recommend. You know how the internet-driven world of today works. Everything hinges on recommendation. So if you use these and think others might appreciate them, please leave a review on Amazon, or create an account on the website, and leave a review there.

And if you've got any feedback or thoughts that would help me serve our Life Group leaders that bit better, I’d love to know. That’s the other benefit of giving the material a wider audience: There are more people to feed back to me, which means I can benefit from you as well.