Why Write Your Own Small Group Curriculum?
With so much curriculum available from so many great authors, why would anyone undertake to write curriculum for their church. While you may not achieve the production levels of some professionally produced curriculum out there, unless the speaker or teacher is very well known, chances are you’ll have to introduce them to your people anyway. But, when you create curriculum with your pastor and your teaching team, your people will become very excited about getting more of what they already like – your pastors’ teaching!
I’ve written a lot of small group curriculum over the years. Just to show you that I know what I’m talking about, I’ve created curriculum for Chip Ingram, Doug Fields, John Ortberg, and even Rick Warren. (Now, all of these guys might not have known that I was writing for them, but I did). Starting from our home-grown campaigns for our church in California to writing a weekly sermon discussion guide for our church in South Carolina to creating video-based studies for churches across the country, I’ve found that writing your own curriculum gives you some great advantages.
Write from Your Church’s Doctrine and Teaching.
While there’s a lot of great curriculum out there, some of it comes from a very different doctrinal perspective. While Calvinists and Arminians might agree on a few things, once they start debating doctrine, they just might end up losing their salvation! Pentecostals and Fundamentalists will struggle with each others’ teaching. While you can use curriculum based on a different doctrinal viewpoint, you’ll spend a lot of time explaining away things that don’t fully agree with your beliefs. Rather than working around doctrinal issues in curriculum, when you write your own curriculum, you create resources that teach what your church believes.
Reflect Your Church’s Vision and Values.
Every church is unique. You have a unique culture. So many factors come into play in the makeup of any church: region, ethnicity, age, history, personality, vision, values, passion, and so many other things. Your church is not like the church across the street let alone a church across the country.
Your curriculum can reflect your church’s uniqueness. You can write about what your church values in your curriculum. You can reinforce your vision statement in the curriculum. You can base the objectives and application of your lesson on where you want to lead your church. You shouldn’t follow someone else’s vision. Write about your own.
Save Money.
Curriculum is expensive. I remember at my church when a new Beth Moore series was released, I’d have five or six groups requesting a copy. At about $200 a pop, I wasn’t buying six copies. I think I settled on two copies. They either took turns or shared.
Even in a scenario where group members pay for their own books, there are still costs for streaming video or DVDs (although DVDs are slipping away…finally). And, even with books, the church ends up paying for the leaders’ books and for group members who can’t afford a book (as they should). And, there are always overages. As much as a small group pastor tries to look into the crystal ball and accurately predict the exact number of books to order, you always order too many. This also takes from your budget. Oh, and did I mention this was only for one alignment series or one semester. There’s at least 30 weeks total to cover!
By creating your own curriculum, you can save a great deal of money. The most affordable and easiest way to distribute curriculum is by digital download. You just create a pdf of your lesson, then either upload it to your church’s website or email it to your leaders. There are no physical materials to distribute. You can even create a teaching video and put the link at the top of your pdf.
If you’d prefer printed books, then print-on-demand is a simple and affordable solution. Services like Kindle Direct Publishing or Ingram Spark allow you to print your books for about $2.25 each (120 page study guide with a color cover and black and white pages). Whether you order one book or a thousand, the price is the same. You do need to plan in advance and allow about 2-4 weeks for shipping and delivery.
Writing your own curriculum will definitely save you money.
Publish It Anywhere You Want.
When you write your own curriculum, you can post your curriculum online. You can email it to your group leaders. You can sell your books on Amazon. You can print your books on-demand. Since the curriculum is yours, you can do whatever you want with it. If you do this with somebody else’s curriculum, you’re breaking the law.
Writing your own curriculum gives you flexibility. You can offer the study to your groups for free, and then sell it to other churches. You can make your studies available online and suddenly serve the global church. They no longer need to wait three months for study guides to arrive by boat.
Writing your own curriculum gives you flexibility in distribution, a possible revenue stream, and it keeps you out of jail! Whether groups are meeting in-person or online, this alleviates the difficulty of distribution.
Writing Your Own Curriculum is Not Difficult.
Like anything else curriculum writing seems difficult before you’ve done it. Personally, I’m a self-taught curriculum writer (and I earn a living at it). Once you master the basics and put in the practice, you are well on your way to becoming a curriculum writer yourself. You can test your curriculum with focus groups in your church to get their feedback and improve your studies. You can find someone to edit and proofread your studies. You probably already know someone who can design your cover and layout you pages. (If you don’t, that’s not so hard either).
Are you ready to get started?
In fact, in my Writing Effective Curriculum Workshop, you will learn to write great questions, write sermon discussion guides, write complete study guides, and write to make disciples. Not only will I teach you how to write and organize your studies, I will give you assignments, then offer my feedback on your writing. This is not a course. This is a WORKshop. You have to work! If you’re ready to jump in, the Writing Effective Curriculum Workshop is enrolling now.
For more information on the Writing Effective Curriculum Workshop, Click Here.
