The trick for any good relay team is the hand off. Your lead runner can get a half lap ahead or more on the opponent. Your anchor guy may be able to shatter world records without breaking a sweat. However, if you can’t pass the baton from lead man to anchor successfully, it doesn’t mean much. Getting large groups and small groups working together to synthesize, analyze and internalize truth is similar.
In a relay, everyone is a runner; but each person has a specific focus and drive for his or her leg of the race. The same is true when it comes to teaching students. Large and small group leaders all teach and need to synthesize, analyze and internalize information. However, each has a specific focus for each of these functions.
Synthesize: Setting the Pace
A large groups’ purpose is to disseminate information. We need some context in which Scripture, theology and religious practice all make sense. The Bible was written in a culture, language and time vastly different from ours. Part of the reason students struggle to read Scripture regularly is because they struggle to understand what it means. This is what synthesizing is all about. We take the time to explain the verbiage, provide background from the culture, point out the emotion and struggle that is not always visible on the surface, and help the story come to life. This is a great place for humor, stories, jokes and analogies. It is all about making sense of the passage.
This works great in large groups for several reasons. Again, in a relay everyone runs; but certain legs call for certain subtle gifts that are a better fit for certain runners. In student ministry, every leader is teaching truth to students; but not every leader needs to be a theologian. Making sense of Scripture can be tough. There are confusing, odd and boring parts. Using a large group format for synthesizing means one person can work through the commentaries, studies and notes and present it to everyone, rather than every small group leader spending hours studying independently. This is not to say some people should not study the Bible; we all need to study and wrestle with the Word. We are talking here strictly in terms of preparing to teach others. This is all about letting people serve in areas where they are most gifted.
Another benefit to synthesizing in large groups is that it provides a unified voice for your ministry. At some level, everyone is hearing the same truth. This brings some sense of unity and community to the whole group. It also takes the pressure off small group leaders and the individual who is responsible for running the ministry. Whoever is in charge doesn’t have to worry about what is being taught in small groups, and small group leaders don’t have to worry if what their teaching matches up with the larger organization.
There is a vast array of ways to do this large group synthesizing. You can offer teaching specific to your students, let your senior leader do the synthesizing for you or invest in some great video-based teaching series.
This is not the end of synthesizing. Small groups should take the time to review what the passage says, as well. This fills in the gaps where students may have tuned out because the speaker mentioned football and they started daydreaming about the big game this weekend.
Analyze: Starting to Pass the Baton
Once we know what the passage is all about, we need to ask ourselves what it means. What does God want us to learn from this? Usually the answer is a lot of things. The Word of God is living and active. That is why we read the same passage repeatedly and still learn new things from it. The job for the large group leader is to bring focus. What is the big idea we want students to walk away with? For example, if we talked about the Lord’s Prayer and have given it context and background and explained what hallowed and kingdom mean — or at least the parts that are relevant to our discussion (synthesis) — what do we want students to learn about how to pray? That prayer is worship? That we confess our dependence? Or just be simple in our prayers? All are valid. Analysis brings a focus to the background. This is where stories and illustrations drive home their points. Now everyone should understand the one big idea on which the group is focusing.
However, not everyone will understand. It is easy to get caught up in a good story or analogy — so much so that we miss the point it makes. We are trained for it. How often do we watch a great movie and never think about what, if anything, it is trying to tell us? Analysis has an equal role in small groups. Analyzing in small groups is a great chance for students to think about the point behind those stories. Also, because the Spirit speaks through the Word, God may be saying something different to a particular student than what the large group focus might be. Here, small groups pick up and help students analyze what they are processing and learning; because they had a good synthesis of the material, they know they are still grounded within the context of the passage. They are not reading their own meaning into it, though their focus may be different than the large group.
Internalizing: Finishing Well
If analyzing is where the baton is passed, internalizing falls almost wholly in the world of small groups. Once synthesis and analysis are done, the large group may offer a few generic applications from the focus for the week, but most of this will happen in small groups. This has several benefits, as well.
First, internalizing is an active practice. For many people it means not just listening but dialoguing about ideas. Small groups allow for this. Also, we sometimes require help to see where we need to grow. In a large group, it is easy to think about others who need to hear truth. Small groups know us and show us when we need to hear truth but don’t realize it. Another benefit is that small groups are customizable. When analysis takes on a different focus than the one in large group, the application also will be different. By internalizing in small groups, this can happen. Finally, small groups offer accountability. Jesus calls us to some challenging things. For most students, following them will happen in baby steps. Large group teaching will move on to another passage, but small groups offer a place to continue to follow up on the truths that have been taught and where we are struggling to apply them. It allows for internalizing to go beyond just talking about how something applies to life and actually helps students apply it.
The baton pass goes like this: Large groups are heavy on synthesis, focus during analysis and offer a starting point for internalizing. Small groups start with a review of the material (synthesis), focus on the analysis and are heavy on internalizing. Together they work to offer the most effective medium for communicating truth. Without each other, the greatest speaker in the world will be little more than a standup comic with a small long-term impact, and the best small groups quickly can become nothing more than gossip circles or wrestling arenas as they share life together with no challenging content to discuss.
When they work together, it is like a well-practiced relay team as a relay team needs to know its purpose and understand exactly how the handoff is going to work. While this will look different in individual settings, we need to be intentional about structuring space for all three of these aspects in our teaching and clearly communicate to the whole team how that process will work and carry over into small group settings.
