Turn One Convention Talk Into a Week of Personal Study

By the time the convention is over, most of us have pages of notes.

Some are filled with scriptures we’d like to remember. Others have illustrations that made us smile or comments we wanted to think about again later. It’s encouraging to come home with a notebook full of spiritual treasures. The only challenge is deciding what to do next with all those beautiful notes.

Here’s an idea you might enjoy trying:

Instead of choosing a brand-new study topic the week after the convention, pick just one point from one talk and spend the week exploring it. Not the entire outline. Just one scripture, one Bible principle, or one piece of counsel that especially caught your attention.

I’ve found that a convention talk is often the beginning of a study, not the end of one.

Choose One Point

The hardest part is usually deciding which point to choose. You don’t have to pick the “best” point from the convention, and you certainly don’t have to choose the one with the most notes beside it. Simply flip through your notebook and stop when you come to something that makes you think, I’d like to understand that a little better.

Perhaps it was a scripture you had never noticed before. Maybe it was a familiar verse explained from a different perspective. Or perhaps there was a Bible principle that made you stop and think about your own life for a moment. That’s plenty. One point is all you need.

Start With the Scripture

Once you’ve chosen your point, go back to the scripture that was discussed.

This time, read more than the verse quoted during the talk. Read the surrounding account. Read the verses before it and the verses after it. Notice who is speaking, who is listening, and what prompted those words in the first place.

Convention speakers have a limited amount of time, so naturally they can’t explore every detail. Personal study gives you the opportunity to slow down and enjoy the parts that couldn’t fit into a talk. It’s surprising how often the context adds another layer to a scripture you thought you already understood.

See Where the Research Takes You

After you’ve spent some time in the Bible account itself, open the Online Library. Search for the scripture, or even a word or phrase from the verse. Read a Watchtower article that comes up in the results. Follow one of the cross-references. See where it leads.

There’s no need to read everything. This isn’t about finishing a subject in one sitting. It’s simply about following one trail at a time and enjoying what you find along the way.

You may discover another Bible account that illustrates the same principle. An article may answer a question you hadn’t thought to ask. A reference work may add historical background that helps a Bible account come alive. One convention point has a wonderful way of opening the door to many others.

Keep Adding to Your Notes

One thing I enjoy doing is adding my study notes to the same page I used during the convention. If there’s room, I’ll write beneath my original notes. If not, I’ll tape in another sheet or simply continue on the next page. Additional scriptures, thoughts from the Online Library, questions I’d like to research later, and personal observations all end up in the same place.

By the end of the week, that page looks very different than it did when I began. It’s no longer just a record of what I heard. It’s become a record of what I learned afterward.

Bring It Into Your Conversations

Perhaps someone asks what you enjoyed most about the convention. Maybe you’re chatting with friends after the meeting, or you’re out in the ministry and a scripture reminds you of the very point you’ve been studying. Rather than simply saying, “I liked that talk,” you have something a little more to share. You can mention the additional scripture you found, or a thought from your research that especially encouraged you.

Those conversations are often some of the most enjoyable part of the process. More than once, someone has shared another perspective that sent me right back to the Bible or Online Library to keep studying.

Look Back Before Moving On

Before choosing another study topic, take a few minutes to look back over everything you’ve gathered during the week. Read through the additional scriptures you’ve found. Look over the notes you’ve added. Think about the conversations you had and the moments when that Bible principle came to mind during the week. Then ask yourself one simple question:

What do I understand now that I didn’t understand a week ago?

Sometimes the answer is a deeper appreciation for a scripture. Sometimes it’s a clearer understanding of a Bible principle. Sometimes it’s simply the joy of seeing how beautifully connected Jehovah’s Word really is. Whatever the answer, you’ve done something worthwhile.

Of course, you don’t have to do this with every convention talk. If you tried, you’d probably still be studying this year’s convention when next year’s arrived. But choosing just one point is different. It gives you time to slow down, enjoy your research, and appreciate details that simply couldn’t be covered from the platform.

The next time you close your convention notebook, don’t think of it as finished. Open it again a day or two later, choose one point that catches your attention, and give it a week. You may discover that one of the richest personal studies you’ll have all year was already waiting for you in the notes you brought home from the convention!