Between A Rock And A Grace Place Participants Guide Carol Kent

Getting Through the Between A Rock And A Grace Place Participants Guide Carol Kent

I ran a small group through Carol Kent's Between a Rock and a Grace Place curriculum three times before I stopped making the same mistakes. The guide itself is straightforward enough, but the way people actually use it in a group setting is where things go sideways pretty quickly. I'm going to walk through what the materials do, how to run them without it becoming a two-hour snooze fest, and the one area where the guide genuinely falls short. The participant's guide is a workbook-style companion to Carol Kent's teaching. Each session contains a lesson segment, reflection questions, and space for notes. It's designed for individual use between meetings and group discussion during the actual gatherings. The structure follows a biblical worldview approach to working through hardship, which is where the "rock" metaphor comes from. Grace, in Kent's framing, is the counterweight you find when you're caught between difficult circumstances and your desire for a reasonable explanation. The guide includes eight to ten sessions depending on which edition you're working with. Each session has a key scripture, a teaching outline, discussion questions at the bottom, and a personal application exercise. Nothing fancy. It's meant to be printed or bought as a spiral-bound copy from her website or through Zondervan's distribution.

Here's what I found after actually facilitating it: the discussion questions are fine for people who already show up ready to engage, but they're almost useless for folks who treat group time like a silent reading period with social obligations. You need to add your own conversation prompts. I started writing a follow-up question on the whiteboard after each discussion prompt, something that forced people to pick a side rather than give the safe answer. It changed the entire dynamic of the room within the first session. The reflection sections ask people to journal privately. Some groups skip this entirely, which defeats half the purpose of the curriculum. I made journaling mandatory by building in a ten-minute quiet period after each teaching segment. People complained at first, then admitted afterward that they actually appreciated having that pressure removed from the discussion. It gave quieter participants something concrete to say when they finally spoke up. One specific problem I ran into involved the application exercises. They assume a level of self-awareness that most people don't have going in. In my second run, three people in a group of six got stuck on the assignment where you identify what the "rock" situation actually is in your life right now. They couldn't narrow it down. The exercise collapsed into vague complaints about life being hard. I solved it by rewriting the prompt to ask them to describe a single recent moment instead of their entire life situation. One concrete moment. That's it. Suddenly everyone had something to work with. I've used that workaround ever since and recommend it as a permanent fix.

Download options exist through CarolKent.com where you can purchase the full participant guide digitally or order physical copies. Some churches and ministries also distribute them through wholesale channels. There isn't a free PDF floating around that's legitimate, so be careful with anything claiming to offer the complete guide for free. Those are usually outdated editions or incomplete scans that leave out the newer session updates Kent added in revised editions. The teaching CDs or MP3 downloads that accompany the guide are worth getting if your group struggles with staying on track. Hearing Kent deliver the material first gives people a shared reference point before you crack open the discussion questions. It reduces the amount of time you spend just explaining what the session is about and lets you move straight into application. A couple of things the guide doesn't handle well. The first is that it assumes most participants are dealing with identifiable crises. People going through slow-burn, long-term difficulties like chronic illness or prolonged grief sometimes find the framework too focused on acute turning points. The curriculum works best for events you can point to and name. It's less helpful for the kind of suffering that just accumulates over years without a clear beginning or end. If your group skews toward that kind of pain, you'll need to supplement with additional resources or adapt the questions significantly.

The second gap is cultural. The examples Kent uses lean heavily toward a particular demographic of American Christian women. That doesn't mean the theology doesn't translate, but younger participants or those from different cultural backgrounds sometimes need extra help connecting the illustrations to their actual lives. I've had success pairing the guide with shorter, more diverse devotional readings that mirror the same theological themes. It takes extra prep but keeps people engaged rather than checking out mentally when the examples feel foreign. Pricing for the participant guide runs anywhere from twenty to thirty-five dollars depending on whether you order individually or in bulk for a church group. The teacher's guide, if you're running this through a congregation rather than a casual gathering, adds another fifteen to twenty dollars and includes facilitator notes and extra discussion aids. It's optional but worth it if you're leading this more than once. If you're deciding whether to use this or something else, the main alternative people consider is Tough Times, Good God by Matt Redman and Tim Chase. That one takes a more explicitly musical and contemplative approach. It's lighter on the workbook format and heavier on meditation and Scripture immersion. Neither is objectively better. The Carol Kent guide is more structured and easier to facilitate on short notice. The Redman/Chase material requires more personal familiarity with the songs and themes to run effectively.

My recommendation based on running this multiple times: use the Kent guide, but don't let it run you. Add your own adapted questions, build in quiet reflection time, and be prepared to modify the application exercises for people who aren't responding to the original prompts. The framework is solid. It's the delivery that makes or breaks it.