Tips for Teaching This Week’s Session of The Gospel Project for Adults

Every week for Volume 4: From Captivity to the Wilderness, Ken Braddy, Lifeway’s director of Sunday School, will offer guidance to help leaders prepare to lead and teach each session of The Gospel Project for Adults.

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This week’s training notes:

This week your group will be studying Unit 3, Session 6, The God of Providence. This session is the final one for this volume and focuses on the essential doctrine called God’s Providence. That takes us right into this week’s three things to know, read, and do as you prepare for this week’s session:

Something to know

It’s also a little different in that it’s a bit more topical so we’re bouncing around between a few different passages, with a different book being focused on in each point. That’s intentional as we’re taking a slightly more systematic approach to unpacking this doctrine. That could create a bit of friction in your group, with lots of moving around. So here’s what I would do: I would encourage you to plan for that in advance. It’s okay to point out the potential friction, but also address the value in it—as a group, you’re trying to get a more comprehensive understanding of God’s providence than might be possible through one specific passage. Choose specific people to read the focal passages in advance as well, so they’re prepared ahead of time with it marked in their Bibles.

Something to read

Even though there’s a bit of jumping around, this is actually a pretty straightforward session, so there’s not a lot of extra reading I would encourage outside of the primary biblical commentary. However, you will find a great deal of value in the additional commentary included in the Extra section of this session on page 161. And if you’re not already doing so, I would definitely encourage you to carefully read the paragraphs that make up the “My Response” component of this session, especially the “hands” aspect on page 160, which deals with the relationship between God’s providential rule and care for the world and our desire for control over everything. In the end, it is a powerful reminder of the goodness and trustworthiness of God. We can truly trust Him in every area of our lives, and we can count on Him to work through us for His glory and our joy.

Something to do

One of the elements we include in the Leader Pack for every unit is a hymn that groups have the option of singing together. This week is a great one to use that, as the hymn we’ve included is called God Moves in a Mysterious Way, which is a hymn intended to help believers worship God for His providence and grace, particularly in sending the Son and Spirit to secure our salvation and seal us for all eternity. So I would encourage you, take the opportunity to focus on the heart this week by ending your time together in this volume with worship. God is so good to us. He is providentially at work in every moment. So let’s rejoice in that together.

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