Teaching Round Table

Recently, I created a Teaching Round Table as part of my teaching responsibilities at church. It is a handpicked group of people who have their fingers of influence in parts of The Next Level Church I may not. They are a cross section of the TNL community who are capable of speaking for their representative groups. These people are single, married, divorced, young, old(er), new and old in the faith. Some have kids and some don’t. Some are career professionals, some are not, some have a formal education and some don’t.

I invited 6-8 people to be a part of this weekly discussion, knowing at any one time there may only be 3-4 people who can actually make the meeting any particular week. This group help me by:

• giving insight into future TNL teaching series.
• being a sounding board for my talk (sermon) ideas (examples, polls, big ideas, etc)?
• giving constructive feedback on talks from the previous week.

I first came across an idea similar while researching my dissertation a few years ago. I found the idea in a book called “The Round Table Pulpit” by John S. McClure. Also, in an article called “Sermons Most Likely to Succeed,” Lori Carrell points out that "successful" sermons integrate listener's perspectives. She says these perspectives:

• generate fresh talk ideas.
• increase teaching relevancy.
• increase specificity and depth of informal feedback .

In the few short weeks this discussing group has been meeting I have found it to be helpful in expanding my perspective revealing points of view I don’t naturally recognize and it has improved my application of Scriptural texts.