At  $5 Training in Chicago,  one of the participants responded to the question, “What are some common challenges to healthy small groups?”, by describing the problem of balancing personal stories with the content of the small group curriculum.  Chris Folmsbee responded with the suggestion, “Maybe we let conversation be the content.”  This statement was radical and even scary for some people to hear.

What does “let the conversation be the content” mean to you?

Listen to the Pragmatists

Matt Price wrote a paper for Didache: Faithful Teaching in 2003 titled, “Why Experience Matters: What Pragmatists Teach Wesleyans About Educational Experience.“  In the paper, Matt engages the works of William James and John Dewey on the topic of educational experience.  Matt describes Dewey’s analysis of experience as:

Dewey explains purposeful experience as a “trying [that] involves change, but change is meaningless transition unless it consciously connect[s] with the return wave of consequences which flow from it.”… “when the change made by action [or active trying] is reflected back into the change made in us [by passive undergoing], the mere flux is loaded with significance.” Outward activity always results in something new with each experience. It is in this experience of flux between trying and undergoing , says Dewey, that “we learn something.”

It is this purposeful experience that Chris was pointing to in his comment.  When a person in a small group connects with the content through a personal story then they engage the content through their imagination of reality.  An indication that the person is in the “flux between trying and undergoing.”  It is at this point that learning can take place.  This learning encounter (i.e. educational experience) expressed in the form of conversation should be encouraged by the small group facilitator.  In fact, letting the educational experience (read conversation) be the focus (read content) may not be a challenge as much as it is a possibility for shared learning or transformation.

Wondering is Good

The question remains, “How do youth workers practice letting the conversation be the content?”  The use of wondering or open ended questions in small group is a good practice.  Wondering questions open people and the group up to alternative ways of engaging the content.  A great resource to learn how to develop this practice is Jerome Berryman, “The Complete Guide to Godly Play, Volume One: How to Lead Godly Play Lessons” and Michael Novelli, “Shaped by the Story: Helping Students Encounter God in a New Way“