If you cannot make it to any of our studies in person, we invite you to follow along online. The small group time of our study is very important. If you are able to be a part of, or host, a small group and go through the study together, we encourage you to do that! If you feel led to host a small group, here are some guidelines we’ve put together to help you.

Helpful guidelines to help you moderate your small group:

  • Choose a time and place to meet, and keep it consistent.
  • Our videos follow about a week behind the actual study. It would be a good idea to time your study more than a week behind, to make sure that the videos will be posted when you meet with your group.
  • Videos will not be available every week. We take breaks for Koinonias (see below) and holidays, so please check the calendar if you are following with us closely.

Preparation tips for the moderator:

  • Pray for yourself and your leadership.
  • Pray for each lady, including yourself, that you would receive all that the Lord has for you from your time in His Word.
  • Have your lesson completed and highlight questions or portions of questions so all the text does not have to be read out loud to your group.
  • Be familiar with the theme and content of the chapter you are studying.
  • Be attentive and take notes during the video presentation of the teaching. This not only helps reinforce important facts to you, but serves as an example as one coming to study with the approach that God is going to share something “note-worthy” with her!
  • Again, remember to PRAY for yourself and your ladies!

Tips for moderating your group time:

  • Open your discussion time with prayer asking the Lord to bless your time together in His Word.
  • Read your highlighted questions (You may want to ask some of the ladies to read the question along with their answer if they feel comfortable in doing this as the year progresses.)
  • Respond to each answer with acknowledgement (this can be encouraging and motivating for the women to participate). If an incomplete or wrong answer is given, you may respond with: “Can anyone add to that thought?” or “Does someone else want to share their answer?” Remember to be tactful and encouraging with all the responses given. You may want to share your answer to the question. NOTE: Remember you are called to moderate not dominate the group as its facilitator!
  • Don’t allow discussion to get sidetracked. Bring the group back to the focus of the lesson in a considerate and tactful way.
  • If you know ahead of time that your group does not have the time to discuss the whole lesson, you, as the leader, pick out strategic questions throughout the whole lesson, so women will still do all of the lesson and not just the first couple of pages. Allow the ladies to have the freedom to ask if they have a specific question or comment that especially ministered to them that they want to share on. Promote open interaction with the lesson!
  • Always bring your discussion time to a close, in keeping with your prearranged timeline for the Bible study discussion time. Remember to close in prayer asking the Lord to seal the truth of His Word in your heart and for His empowering in applying the truth you learned.
  • If your group decided to close in group prayer, ask one of the ladies to open the prayer time and for them to lift up their own prayer requests. You close the time of prayer lifting up any urgent prayer request from an absent member or one who needs prayer support.
  • You may encourage the ladies to write down prayer requests or have a woman volunteer to write out requests and email them to the group, if you want to pray for one another throughout the week.

If you have a large enough group, consider using the gifts and abilities of the other women in your group to:

  • Lead worship, or choose a few songs each week for you all to sing along to
  • Oversee a prayer journal or chain
  • Send out weekly encouraging reminders
  • Oversee a Koinonia (see below)
  • Oversee refreshments

Periodically through the year the Virtue Bible Study takes a break from regular study for a time of fellowship (Koinonia). This will mean that a video will not be available that week. Please see the calendar for our schedule. If your group would like to have a Kononia, here are some ideas:

  • The moderator, or someone else in the group can share a 7–10 minute devotion. It could be expanding on a topic we’ve studied in recent weeks, or other biblical topic that would be encouraging.
  • It could be a time of each woman sharing her personal testimony (maybe 5 minutes each).
  • Follow up with a sharing question. Something that springboards from the devotion or time of sharing. This gives all the women a chance to participate.
  • If your group wants to, have a meal together. Do whatever suits your group (full meal or just dessert, potluck, etc.).

If you need further guidance or help, please leave a comment here. If you do not want your comment to be posted publicly here, please say so. We’d love to hear what the Lord is doing in your home groups, please feel free to share that here as well!