A04 Three Essential Principles of Discovery
List of the Online Lessons: A B C D E F G H
A04 Three Essential Principles of Discovery
(Turn the English subtitles on in the video!)
1. I prepare with Jesus
The main preparation for Discovery lies in a dialogue with Jesus about the people I’ve invited or could invite. I pray that they would really come! And that He would prepare them internally, so that they would hear His voice through the Bible.
A part of the preparation with Jesus is also setting my heart! I go to every session with the expectation that Jesus will show me personally something through the story! That is an extremely important starting position. I’m not doing it “for the unbelievers”! But I benefit from it at the first place! I’m really interested in it. The living Jesus will be talking to me there! And of course to my friends as well…
An important note: The essence of my preparation to Discovery definitely is not many hours of study of the biblical passage!
If I’m a guide of the Discovery meeting, a part of the principle of preparing with Jesus is that I naturally address Jesus during our session. Shortly, simply, with my eyes open. I look up, surrounded by my friends, and say out loud a sentence: “Jesus, thanks for an amazing story. I’m excited for what you have for us in it…”
By the way, in a few weeks I usually happily watch how people, who don’t know Jesus personally yet, address Him out loud and easily based on my simple examples.
2. We discover the Bible together
I’m wondering, how to express this strongly enough: No one preaches at Discovery. No one gives a lecture! Sometimes I have to shortly replace some terms used in present translations of the Bible. If it’s only a bit possible, I try to just use a one word (or a sentence at most). But I’m anxiously avoiding long monologues!
Some participants may find my explanations really nice! But it would become an obstacle to their own discovering! They will more likely learn to rely on my explanations then look into the text themselves and finding their own discoveries.
I’m going to say this quite harshly: In many groups “preaching” and long explanations made impossible the reproduction to following generations! I’m not saying that in other opportunities nothing should be explained or taught. However the essence of Discovery is discovering together.
3. I remove the obstacles.
An example of one of huge obstacles to effective contacts with friends, who don’t know Jesus yet, is so-called Christian language. For example the words: amen, prayer, Christianity, salvation, sin, repentance, faith and many other terms that my friends either don’t know at all, or they understand it completely differently than the Bible uses them! Instead of explaining I simply stopped using these words. And the problem was over! I have only two words I really can’t get rid of: „Jesus“ and „Bible“. I’ll get back to you with other useful principles next time…
Lord Jesus, you know the best, how to build bridges to our friends’ hearts, who don’t know you yet. Show them to us, please…