One of the small groups I lead is a 7th grade girls group. Wonderful group of girls…but we can’t even get an ice breaker done without subconversation and chatter happening every second.  There are a majority of girls that have something they want to add. There is a minority of girls that sit back and allow the many conversations to wash over them and they get left behind in the chat tide. And then I find myself frustrated that I’m constantly having to corral the conversation. So, last week…we began an excercise in taming our tongues.

Meet our tongue depressors.  This is how they work.

I introduced this as an ice breaker. The girls received a tongue depressor and a label. They could decorate their depressor anyway they wanted as long as they incorporated their real name in the design.  Then I discussed James 3 and how we need to tame our tongue.  I shared that with our group over the weeks, we had become undisciplined in the way we valued other’s words, God’s word, and even the own words that we choose to use.  Instead of considering what we should say, we all were just spouting out words over each other and not having any boundaries.  As a result, we are now going to undergo some tongue taming.  During the bible study time each student will have 5 clips that are given to them on their tongue depressor.  Each student can say whatever they want, but it will cost them a clip.  Now when they toss a clip in, they have the floor until I call on another student or another student tosses in a clip. Reading the scripture out loud when asked does not cost a clip. This was a helpful exercise in instilling boundaries. We were able to actually go deeper in conversation and the girls visibly would shake their heads when they would normally blurt out the first thing that popped in their mouth. You could tell they were beginning to value what was worth saying and what could wait.  Girls that had not talked before were able to enter into the conversation. As they begin to value their words, God’s words, and their own words better…they will get more freedom with our conversations.  This was a difficult thing to implement, but at the end—I got a bunch of the same statements from the girls mouths.  It was the words: Thank You!  What about you? How have you created conversation boundaries?