Several years ago I ran across a set of discussion notes for The Man in the Mirror on a ministry website for university professors. The notes had been developed by Professor Rae Mellichamp for a men’s Bible study he was leading which he subsequently posted on the Internet.

Last year I met Rae met for the first time through Rae’s son who was attending our Friday morning study in Orlando. What an awesome man! I asked Rae if we could transform his notes into a Discussion and Application Guide for the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary edition of the book, to which he thankfully said and enthusiastic, “Yes.”

So now it’s out, and if you’re interested, you can learn more at amazon. 

Rae and I hope this Discussion and Application Guide will make it simple for men and small groups who want to take a deeper dive into the 24 problems of men covered in The Man in the Mirror. The booklet includes….

• Outlines to guide your discussions
• Minimal preparation
• Questions that engage

There are a couple of tough challenges in leading a book study for a small group, whatever the book. First, what are the main points? You need to make sure the main points in the book are emphasized and discussed in the group. In order to accomplish this, you must sort through the text and identify the main points of the material and then organize these and present them so they can be easily and thoughtfully discussed.

Second and perhaps most important, you need to be able to frame the key principles of the book in a way that would cause the members of the small group to be motivated to apply them! As Stephen Covey noted in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, “To learn and not to do is really not to learn. To know and not to do is really not to know.” 

So Rae has done us all a favor! He’s met both of these challenges for us ahead of time. He’s already done all the work!

So if you’re looking for small group material, check out Rae’s work here.

Until every church disciples every man…

Pat