Welcome, haverim leaders and members! If you’ve started a new group this year, we’re here to help.
BentonBlog has several resources to help you get started and to make your haverim excellent. Some suggested posts to read include:
- Read, Talk, Pray: 3 Things I Learned From A Men’s Morning Devotional Group – this post talks about how my group started and thoughts on how to make a half-hour discussion time run effectively.
- Six Steps to Starting Your Haverim Bible Study Group – this post provides some tips on getting a group started, including finding your “tribe” of haverim members, setting the time and topic, and other advice. Note that we are using the Hampton Roads Church Haverim Reading plan in 2022, and this plan provides a year’s worth of topics for a weekday haverim group. The Haverim resources page provides a few other topic ideas.
My haverim group is using the HRC 2022 Old Testament reading plan. Part of my preparation this year for the haverim sessons is to read ahead for the session and find three things about the chapter to prompt my comments and the discussion. These help after we Read the scripture to start up the Talk part of the session before the end when we Pray. My “three things” are posted and updated from time to time at Haverim Helps: Three Things For Each Days Reading.
A good agenda for a half-hour group discussion:
- Read: have one or more members of the group read through the chapter or a portion that you want to focus on (5 to 10 minutes)
- Talk: take time for an open discussion on the scripture. (10 to 15 minutes) Some prompts to help the discussion:
- What stood out for you? What words did you notice the most?
- How does this passage fit with what we read previously? What does it hint about what we’ll read in later sessions?
- End the Talk time asking what each person has as a “takeaway”.
- Pray: end with a time of prayer to thank God for His Word, for needs of the group, etc. (5 to 10 minutes)
Allow for some extra time for people to join, get caught up, etc., and for taking a few minutes extra when needed for discussion and prayer.
If you need more help, reach out and let me know – I’m happy to talk and help you with your haverim.