The Prodigal God: Discussion Guide

We used this book in our Bible Study group along with the actual book "Prodigal God". I think you need both to do the topic justice. I enjoyed how the book and discussion guide really get one thinking about how we live in this world and how we treat each other in our church communities. It causes one to do some heavy duty self examination - which is never a bad thing at all!

This was used as the basis for a study group discussion series, and I found both the book and the discussion guide to be too narrow in the views presented. Author only covered two alternatives, yet claimed "everone" had one of these motives. I found other motives closer to my style of action, and the possibility of such alternatives was totally ignored. Even the questions in the guide were too narrowly focussed for me. Bible study in particular must open the mind to other interpretations.

Review of the Study: I just cam back from the last session of the six week study. This was the first small group study that I led and I loved my experience! I feel like I learned just as much if not more than anyone who attended the study. The Prodigal God book was amazing and really changed my view of the gospel. I recommend the book to anyone. I recommend the small group discussion guide and dvd to any small group. It was very eye-opening and challenging. The gospel is the most fundamental truth of Christianity, yet we should never stop appreciating or reminding ourselves of it. If we do not continually have a fresh understanding of the gospel, we will fall into either dead religion or immorality. This book and study really gives Christ followers a fresh understanding of the gospel and God's love for us. The only agenda in this book is to point us to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I love it. I would consider Prodigal God one of my favorite books. Review of the DVD: If you're looking for 20 minute dvd sessions every week, this does not give you that. It is one 40 minute movie for the first session with 2 minute recap clips for the following sessions. At first i was a little nervous thinking that we will not fill up the hour and a half that we have with discussion...but we did! We could have almost done without the dvd clips we had so much discussion. Sometimes we went to 2 hours! It's more of a book based study than a dvd study. I would encourage everyone in the group to get the Prodigal God book. I think only the leader needs the discussion booklet to pose questions to the group. i also used an easel for some charts that were in the discussion booklet. It all worked out really well.

Our house group had some really good discussions facilitated by the plans and questions in this book and the accompanying book and DVD. We could of probably talked all night if we had the time. It's really thought provoking and offers a good number of questions so you can choose or use them all.

As a group leader this was a really good guide through a great sermon on this topic. Gave room for thought and room to write thoughts down which I will keep and review.