A Creative Observation activity asks your group to put themselves into the passage and make observations from “inside” the story. This will engage their imagination and add energy and depth to your study. Give one of these prompts a try, or invent your own!
- Imagine you were someone in this story. What would you share on social media about what you just witnessed? (helps us feel what others have felt and then identify with those feelings or experiences)
- If you were a movie director, how would you film this scene? Who would you cast? What is the soundtrack like? (helps us notice details, pick up on emotions, and feel the mood)
- This scene or parable is set in the ancient world. If you were to retell it in our own time and culture, how would you do it? (moves us beyond the familiarity of the story and key in on central dynamics)
- Write a clickbait headline for something that one of the characters wants people to know or believe. (helps to think about what is being offered or taught or experienced)
- If you were making this into a comic strip or graphic novel, how would you fill in a thought bubble above this character? (helps to read between the lines of the actions and words of the scene and see the people as real)
- Assign characters and do a theatrical reading. (helps to work through the dialogue and imagine the characters)
- Envision the scene as a spectator sport. What would we hear if we listened in on the dramatic play-by-play commentary of the announcer? (brings dramatic action to life and highlights key turning points)
- Write the social media posts of a few ignorant, opinionated people, each biased toward one of the main characters. (helps to understand the emotion of the characters involved and helps to experience the drama, heartache, suspense, etc. involved)
- Make a Top 10 list. (helps to notice the details of an argument or list)
- If someone dies in the story, write an obituary, mentioning family members, circumstances of the death, etc. (helps experience the layers of tragedy)
- Imagine your mom, dad, or someone who cares about you is reading this passage with you. What questions, objections, and affirmations do they express as you read this? (makes us think in real life terms about what Jesus said to his followers)
- Write a haiku (a three line poem with 5 syllables in the first line, then 7, and then 5) of the story from the perspective of one of characters (identifying with one of the characters)
