I love teaching the people in my Bible study group. Because we have an early start time on Sunday mornings, people often come in later than I’d like. The early arrivers and I can always engage in small talk until more people arrive, but surely there’s something even better I can do with those precious minutes before I begin teaching. And that’s where a Learning Readiness Activity comes into play.

The LRA is designed to focus people’s attention on the Bible study they will soon experience. It introduces a topic that is tied to the Bible study somehow. For instance, this past weekend I created a matching exercise on a sheet of paper and placed one on each person’s chair before they arrived. On this sheet of paper were six quotes of the last lines of famous books (1984, Alice in Wonderland, The Great Gatsby, and more). I created a matching exercise that challenged group members to match the last lines of famous books with their authors. This gave early arrivers something to work on, and it helped “tee up the ball” for my opening to the Bible study. In the PSG (personal study guide) we use, the author had mentioned that he often reads the last paragraph of a book to see the outcome; it’s a habit he’s had most of his life. I used the LRA that caused my group members to think about last lines from famous works, and how that would give them a glimpse at the ending to a book. We then quickly transitioned into the Bible study (on Revelation chapter 1) which gives believers a look at the “end of the book” – Jesus wins, He is victorious! There are 8 descriptions of the risen Savior in chapter 1, and we quickly can see that believers win – they are victorious because Christ is victorious. We know the ending of the story.

The next time you teach a Bible study, have an opening activity that will serve as a learning readiness activity. You’ll prime the pump for learning, create interest in the lesson, and fill that dead time before your Bible study starts. LRAs are “win-wins” for everyone!