Table Talk

Table Talk 

A family/small group relational activity built upon conversation, discussion, imagination, and critical thinking.

Objective: to identify and establish life applications built upon God’s Word, the Bible.

Concept: Table Talk is based on a progression of thought.

1.      Behind every picture there is a story.

2.      Every story has a message.

3.      Every message as a life application.

4.      Every life application is embraced by scripture.

Facilitator:  The process of traveling from story to scripture is managed by a facilitator. The facilitator is key to the entire process. The facilitator is commonly a parent but may be a grandparent, guardian, or older sibling. If the activity is used in a small group, the facilitator will likely be the group leader.

How does Table Talk work?

     1.      To begin, the facilitator selects an illustration from the file. Each illustration has two parts:

           a picture

     2.      The facilitator reviews the commentary included with the illustration, but will not share the commentary with   the group.  The commentary may be used by the facilitator as an aid in advancing through the story to scripture process.

     3.      The facilitator then shows the illustration (the picture only) to the group around the table.

     4.      To get discussion going, the facilitator may ask questions to help them create a story or stories based on the characters, features and/or activity displayed in the illustration. This is where imagination and critical thinking begin. A story is limited only by the participant’s imagination. There is no predetermined focus of the story. In fact, the group may come up with multiple stories based on what they see in the illustration.

     5.      When a story is complete the next step is to establish a message or messages that one may gain from the story.

     6.      After a message is established the next step is to establish a real-life application.

     7.      Finally, from the real-life application the focus is to identify scripture verse or verses that embraces the application.

Table Talk from start to finish is built upon family/group relational conversation and discussion and may include a good measure of humor as appropriate. However, application and scripture should focus on reality and real life situations.