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The Discussion Write-up Process

It's Wednesday afternoon. Youth group is in 2 hours. Tonight you want to talk about the topic of friendship, but you don't have a clue what direction to go.

You pull out a piece of paper to try to brainstorm some ideas. You stare at the blank piece of paper for 10 minutes.

Nothing.

Maybe it's time to pop on the web and find something "ready-made."

Sound familiar? If you're reading this article from our web site or EZINE right now, this probably sounds all too familiar. You're not alone. You're among the 50,000 to 80,000 youth workers a month who come to us looking for ideas or even "ready-made" programs.

But should we really give up trying to do it ourselves? What about those ideas that pop in our head that just need a little molding and massaging into something usable? Aren't there illustrations that happen in every day life that could be developed into a teaching tool? And do you ever read an article or see a scene in a movie that you know would be the perfect discussion starter?

If only we had the tools to take these ideas and shape them into an effective illustration, object lesson or discussion launcher. If we only had a process that we could follow to help us, in essence, create our own discussions or curriculum.

Look no further. Here's the process we use to take small ideas and develop them into thought provoking discussion starters or full blown curriculum.

THE SEVEN STEP PROCESS:
Our goal with this process is to find creative ideas to communicate one main point that is supported by scripture. This process will help you line up these three elements: your discussion starter, your main point and your scripture. If the three don't match, then you're defeated before you even began.

We're going to look at seven steps to developing your own topical curriculum. Then we're going to walk through the process and actually create a discussion agenda. First let's look at each step of this process.

Step 1: What is your Main Point?
Go through the painstaking process of developing a sound-byte of the one point you want to hammer home. What is the one thing you want kids to leave with? Everything you write will point toward this.

This process can take a while. It might be something you have to visit and re-visit. I also recommend bathing it in prayer. "God, what do these kids need to hear?" The spirit of God knows what those kids will need, and he'll lead you during this process. (The Spirit doesn't have to wait until that night!)

This is very similar to the process we use when developing a talk. I write about this process in great detail in my article about "High Impact Speaking." (CLICK HERE)

Step 2: What is your Opener?
Is it a video clip? Is it an article? Is it an object lesson? Whatever it is, it needs to naturally point to your main point. Almost without any help from you, it needs to make people come to the conclusion of the main point.

Step 3: What is a Passage that also conveys that point?

Find a passage that supports this main point. Not just some verse that happens to have the same word, but a passage of scripture that if read in it's context would convey the same point as you are trying to get across.

Sometimes a passage may use a different word. For example, you may be talking about an eternal perspective during tough times. A good place to look in scripture might be in a passage about the hope that Christ offers or the joy available in Christ.

Note: An outreach discussion or agenda might not have a scripture that we go through. I like to teach a "scriptural" point convincingly without using the scripture in the body of the discussion, but then read from the scripture in the wrap up. But growth or discipleship discussions should have scripture.

Step 4: Outline your Wrap-up.
How are you going to summarize your main point? Only outline the wrap up at this point, because you will finalize it after you write your discussion questions and are clear exactly where your discussion led.

Step 5: Develop some Discussion Questions
Write questions to help students explore the subject and draw their own conclusions. Your questions should be cleverly constructed to help students see the validity of the main point, and understand application of that point in their own lives.

Step 6: Write the Intro Statement to your questions
Now that you wrote your questions, what statement acts as a bridge from your opener to your questions? Make a comment about the opener and connect it to the discussion you are about to embark on.

Step 7: Finalize your Wrap-up
Now write out your wrap up, finalizing your summary of the discussion and reiterating your main point.

Note: When you're done with this entire process, if you deleted your Main Point and your final Wrap-up, your discussion would still lead you toward the direction of, and imply your main point.

EXAMPLE OF HOW TO DO THESE STEPS:

Step 1. Come up with a bunch of ideas for your main point, and see which one is closest to the direction you want to go.

In the example below, we found a newspaper article that gave us an idea for a discussion. We took that article (see step 2 below) and asked ourselves, "What main point can we teach from this?"
    Brainstorming Examples:

    The garbage of this world ain't gonna fill ya.

    Why are you trying to fill yourself with the garbage of the world?

    Why are you looking for answers in all the wrong places?

    You don't need to go through the garbage to get what you want?

    You're better than garbage.

    Don't surround yourself with garbage if you're looking for something of value.

Here's the one we finally chose:

    MAIN POINT: Don't surround yourself with garbage when you want something better.
Step 2. Find an opener to express this main point.

Woman Taken Out With Trash
Tuesday, July 06, 2004
(www.FoxNews.com 7-6-04)
    A Mississippi woman is lucky to be alive after being picked up and nearly crushed by a garbage truck. The unnamed woman was looking for her keys Wednesday morning in a Dumpster behind her Ridgeland, Miss., apartment complex, reports the Clarion-Ledger of Jackson. As tends to happen, the Dumpster was picked up by a garbage truck, turned over and emptied into the truck's waste compactor. The truck put the Dumpster down and kept going on its rounds. A couple of miles later, someone heard screams and told the driver, who was about to start crushing the load of garbage. The woman, who complained of joint pain after climbing out of the back of the truck, was treated at a local hospital and released, according to Waste Management (search) district manager David Myhan. Myhan advised people who think they've lost something in the trash to call his company instead of diving into Dumpsters. "We take this real seriously," he said. "We do not want people getting in our containers."
Step 3. Get a passage that has the same main point:
    Col. 3:2-5,17: Let heaven fill your thoughts. Do not think only about things down here on earth. [5] So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual sin, impurity, lust, and shameful desires. Don't be greedy for the good things of this life, for that is idolatry. [17] And whatever you do or say, let it be as a representative of the Lord Jesus, all the while giving thanks through him to God the Father.
Step 4. Start your wrap-up. You will finalize it later. This step simply helps you keep your eyes on your main point. That's the direction you're heading.

Hint: Since you know that your wrap-up is going to include a reiteration of your main point, start by simply pasting your main point here.

Don't surround yourself with garbage when you want something better.

Now ... what can you say to your group of kids to help them remember this point, understand this point, and apply this point?

Step 5. Discussion Questions! What are some natural questions that come from the opener and/or the scripture and lead you toward your main point?

General principles:
  1. Start light and get deeper
  2. Move toward application
  3. Pull from the "opener" early in the questions
  4. Pull from the passage later in the questions.
  5. End with a question that puts the icing on the cake for understanding and applying the main point.
Developing questions is a brainstorming process. Just start writing questions down as they flow out of you. You can go back and edit, delete and re-order questions later.

Note: If you start with a question, then realize it's too deep ... keep it, and see if you can work up to it. (this might be a good way for you to start. You might want to start with some of the deeper questions you would like to ask, but shouldn't start with. Then go back and add light questions earlier.) For example:

What is some of the garbage you surround yourself with?

Note: That's pretty deep. So see if you can start with some lighter questions that will lead up to this one. See the example below- I started by asking lighter "general" questions, then I worked up to asking the above question by question #4.

QUESTIONS:
1. What is some of the garbage that kids today surround themselves with?
2. When they surround themselves with this ... do they realize it is garbage?
3. Why would we do this? Why would be let "pleasure win over truth" or "the temporary thrill win over what we know is best for us in the long run?"
4. What is some of the garbage you sometimes allow to creep into your life?
5. Are you satisfied the next day? The next week? The next year?

Read the following passage:

    Col. 3:2-5,17: Let heaven fill your thoughts. Do not think only about things down here on earth. [5] So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual sin, impurity, lust, and shameful desires. Don't be greedy for the good things of this life, for that is idolatry. [17] And whatever you do or say, let it be as a representative of the Lord Jesus, all the while giving thanks through him to God the Father.
Note: Now ask questions about the passage. You can ask simple observances about what it says. For example- in the passage above you could simply ask, what does the verse say we should fill our thoughts with?

6. What does the verse say we should fill our thoughts with?
7. How can we fill our thoughts with "things above?"
8. The verse also says "have nothing to do with" certain "garbage" that's out there in this world. What does "have nothing to do with" mean?
9. What actions could you take this week to not only avoid, but "have nothing to do with" some of the garbage that you've allowed to creep into your life?
10. Who is someone that you can talk to tonight who can keep you accountable to doing this.

Other questions that we thought of:
(Is thinking about garbage having "nothing to do with" it?)
(How does our thought life affect our choices.)

Step 6. Go back and write your intro statement.

After writing a few of the questions, I went back and wrote this intro statement because I knew the direction I was going to head, and I headed there. I wanted to get from the opener, to the questions. This intro statement was my bridge to do so.

Intro statement: Now that story is silly. But isn't it funny how we sometimes look in the wrong place for something. And I'm not talking about keys. I'm talking about when we're looking for significance, value, purpose, or even pleasure ... and we look for it in the wrong place. Maybe even a place that we swore we'd never venture.

Step 7. Wrap Up
Don't surround yourself with garbage when you want something better.

Hint: What have we learned tonight?

Your wrap up might contain these elements:
  • summarize your main point
  • reiterate some of the conclusions they came up with from the questions
  • point toward some application of "how to actually do this" this week.
Tonight we took a peek at how sometimes we give garbage a chance to creep into our life even though we know better. We also learned what the Bible has to say about that. We should have nothing to do with this stuff. And many of us now have a game plan of how to get rid of this garbage, and who can help us. (this is a weak wrap up- but it's serves it's purpose)

Hint: Is there a story or illustration or object lesson that could hammer this point home? Tell it, then wrap up your thoughts.

FINAL STEP: (we didn't even give this a number, because it's so simple!) Organize your discussion into it's logical order.

Here's the order we should organize the discussion we just wrote:

Order of the Discussion.

Main Point

Opener

Intro Statement

Break up into small groups for Discussion Questions

Pull back together as one large group for Wrap Up


AGENDA:

And here's what the discussion looks like:

MAIN POINT: Don't surround yourself with garbage when you want something better.

OPENER:
Woman Taken Out With Trash
Tuesday, July 06, 2004
(www.FoxNews.com 7-6-04)
    A Mississippi woman is lucky to be alive after being picked up and nearly crushed by a garbage truck. The unnamed woman was looking for her keys Wednesday morning in a Dumpster behind her Ridgeland, Miss., apartment complex, reports the Clarion-Ledger of Jackson. As tends to happen, the Dumpster was picked up by a garbage truck, turned over and emptied into the truck's waste compactor. The truck put the Dumpster down and kept going on its rounds. A couple of miles later, someone heard screams and told the driver, who was about to start crushing the load of garbage. The woman, who complained of joint pain after climbing out of the back of the truck, was treated at a local hospital and released, according to Waste Management (search) district manager David Myhan. Myhan advised people who think they've lost something in the trash to call his company instead of diving into Dumpsters. "We take this real seriously," he said. "We do not want people getting in our containers."
INTRO STATEMENT: Now that story is silly. But isn't it funny how we sometimes look in the wrong place for something. And I'm not talking about keys. I'm talking about when we're looking for significance, value, purpose, or even pleasure ... and we look for it in the wrong place. Maybe even a place that we swore we'd never venture.

BREAK UP INTO SMALL GROUPS:

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
1. What is some of the garbage that kids today surround themselves with?
2. When they surround themselves with this ... do they realize it is garbage?
3. Why would we do this? Why would be let "pleasure win over truth" or "the temporary thrill win over what we know is best for us in the long run?"
4. What is some of the garbage you sometimes allow to creep into your life?
5. Are you satisfied the next day? The next week? The next year?

Read the following passage:
    Col. 3:2-5,17: Let heaven fill your thoughts. Do not think only about things down here on earth. [5] So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual sin, impurity, lust, and shameful desires. Don't be greedy for the good things of this life, for that is idolatry. [17] And whatever you do or say, let it be as a representative of the Lord Jesus, all the while giving thanks through him to God the Father.
6. What does the verse say we should fill our thoughts with?
7. How can we fill our thoughts with "things above?"
8. The verse also says "have nothing to do with" certain "garbage" that's out there in this world. What does "have nothing to do with" mean?
9. What actions could you take this week to not only avoid, but "have nothing to do with" some of the garbage that you've allowed to creep into your life?
10. Who is someone that you can talk to tonight who can keep you accountable to doing this.

OPTIONAL QUESTIONS:
(Is thinking about garbage having "nothing to do with" it?)
(How does our thought life affect our choices.)

WRAP UP: Tonight we took a peek at how sometimes we give garbage a chance to creep into our life even though we know better. We also learned what the Bible has to say about that. We should have nothing to do with this stuff. And many of us now have a game plan of how to get rid of this garbage, and who can help us.
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