Teaching Notes for Lessons One and Two
The document called “The Path to God” provides an overview of how to become a Christian, which is critically important to study before analyzing the individual parts of the Christian faith (lessons three through eight). It would be a tragedy to miss the overarching message of the faith: people can know God through Jesus Christ!
The Path to God is structured differently and is a little longer than the other lessons in the series. Here, therefore, we suggest how to study it with others:
Devote your first meeting to studying pages 1 to 4 of the document—first reviewing and discussing the diagnostic questions on page 1, and then reviewing and discussing the information on pages 2 to 4. For pages 2 to 4, read the Scripture passages out loud and briefly pause for questions and comments as you go, but do your best to get through those first four pages during your first meeting.
At the end of that first meeting, ask the group members to read the document thoroughly on their own and to come to the next meeting prepared to discuss the information on pages 5 to 8 (including any of the preceding pages you did not cover in the first meeting).
During that second meeting, read those pages out loud, and pause frequently for questions and comments. If it takes your group three meetings total (instead of two) to get through the document, it will be time well spent.
The rest of the lessons in the series can be studied together in 40 to 60 minutes, depending on how much time you spend discussing the Scripture passages.