The first study

They said yes. Now what? The good news is you do not need a curriculum, a lesson plan, or years of Bible knowledge. You need one passage, four questions, and a willingness to stay quiet longer than feels natural.

Always the same passage

Every first study, with anyone, starts in the same place: Luke 15:11–24, the story of the father who welcomes his lost son home. It works with almost anyone, anywhere, because it asks nothing of the listener beforehand — no church background, no biblical literacy, just the willingness to hear a story and talk about it. And the group discovers what it teaches about God’s heart on their own, before anyone has said a churchy word out loud.

Say the promise before you open the book

Before you read anything, say this out loud, in your own words, but keep the substance:

“This is not a class. This is not a church. It’s a conversation around the Bible.”

Then keep that promise for the whole conversation. No preaching, no explaining, no correcting. You are not the teacher — the Bible and the Spirit are. Your hardest job is to bite your tongue, and when a silence comes, hold it. Count to ten before you fill it.

Read it twice, then let them retell it

Read Luke 15:11–24 out loud, all the way through — twice. Reading it twice is not filler. It lets everyone hold the whole story in their head before anyone is asked to say anything about it.

Then ask the group to retell the story back, in their own words, helping each other along. This retelling is the gate — do not move to the questions until the group can actually carry the story themselves. If the retelling stalls or misses the shape of it, that is not a problem to fix by explaining. Just read it again, cheerfully, with no shame attached, and retell it once more.

Four questions, in this order

Once the story is theirs, ask these four questions, in this order, every time:

What did you like, or not understand? What does this story teach us about God? What can we do differently because of what we read? Who can we share this with?

Let everyone answer. Say less than you think you should. If someone brings in an idea that is not actually in the story, the whole group gets to ask the same gentle question: “Where do you see that in this passage?” Curiosity, never correction.

Close simply, and leave the door open

End with a short prayer, or just a quiet moment if prayer would feel foreign to the group. Then ask one question and stop: “Did you enjoy this? Would you like to read another story next week?” That is the whole ask. A yes moves you to the next passage. A no still leaves you with a good conversation and a friendship that stands.

Recite this

This is not a class. This is not a church. It’s a conversation around the Bible.

Try it this week

Read Luke 15:11–24 out loud to yourself twice, so the flow is familiar before you ever sit across from someone with it.

I will read Luke 15 with ________________, on ________________.