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Okay, we’re having a conversation about the EGRs in your group and that stands for extra grace required people. And Those are just simply people that may take a little bit more of your patience, a little bit more of your time than everybody else in the group. Also refer to these as the four D’s and the first week we talked about the dominator. That’s somebody who just dominates the conversation during the group time. Then you’ve got the dodger, which is the opposite of the dominator, and they’re somebody who doesn’t enter into the conversation. Then you have the debater and the drainer. And today for just a minute, I just want to talk about what do you do if you have a debater or debaters in your group time. So these are people who want to debate the study. They want to debate the conversation. Now, some debate is, okay, and if you’re studying the whole Bible, you’re going to have some controversial topics that are going to require some discussion, but at the end of the night, we want the truth of God’s word to the land. So what do you if you have somebody who always wants to debate it, there are four things that you can do that I think will help as you lead your discussion.
The first thing is to prepare. Be prepared before the group time. Read through the discussion guide, make sure you know where the finish line of the discussion needs to go, so when you have that debate, you can kind of move them towards God’s word.
Second thing that you want to do is study. So make sure that you study the whole passage, the whole scripture that it’s not just one or two verses, so as you studied together with the group, refer to other passages that kind of bring more light to the topic than just one or two verses refer.
Refer to a study Bible like the CSB Study Bible that will help shed a little bit more light on the topic that you’re studying.
And then finally, don’t be afraid to ask for help. If there’s a debate in the discussion and you don’t know the answer or you don’t know where to take it, be okay with saying, you know what? We’re going to stop it right here for tonight. I’m going to ask a pastor this week and then we’ll refer back to it in our group meeting next week, and that’s okay to do so. Make sure that you prepare you study, you refer, and then be okay to ask for help.
Chris Surratt is a ministry consultant and coach with more than twenty years of experience serving the local church. Chris served on the Executive Teams at Cross Point Church in Nashville, TN., and Seacoast Church in Charleston, S.C., prior to becoming the Discipleship and Small Groups Specialist for Lifeway Christian Resources. He is the author of Small Groups for the Rest of Us: How to Design Your Small Groups System to Reach the Fringes. You can follow his blog at www.chrissurratt.com.
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