Study Guides by
Mark Batterson
4 discussion guides available
Play the Man
Somewhere along the way, the definition of manhood got lost — and Mark Batterson wants to help men find it again. In Play the Man, Batterson anchors his vision of authentic masculinity in the true story of Polycarp, the second-century bishop who, standing before his executioners, heard a voice from heaven declare, "Play the man." From that dramatic moment, Batterson unfolds seven virtues of manhood — courage, humility, love, respect, passion, discipleship, and prayer — and argues that the crisis facing men today is ultimately a spiritual one. The book is at once a history lesson, a fathering manual, and a call to something greater than the cultural scripts that have left generations of men confused about who they are and why God made them men.
View Discussion GuideDraw the Circle
Draw the Circle: A 40-Day Prayer Challenge by Mark Batterson is a devotional companion to his bestselling book The Circle Maker, built around a simple but radical conviction: that God honors bold, persistent, faith-filled prayer. Batterson draws on the ancient legend of Honi the Circle Maker — a first-century sage who drew a circle in the sand, stood inside it, and refused to leave until God sent rain — to invite readers into a new posture of prayer. The book combines true stories of answered prayer submitted by readers of The Circle Maker, brief daily devotionals, key scriptures, and prayer prompts across forty days, organized around the idea that the size of your prayer circle reveals the size of your God. Its thesis is straightforward and challenging: most of us pray too small, too safe, and too seldom — and God is calling us to something bolder.
View Discussion GuideChase the Lion
In Chase the Lion, Mark Batterson takes one of the Bible's most obscure verses — the account of Benaiah, one of David's mighty men, who "chased a lion into a pit on a snowy day and killed it" (2 Samuel 23:20) — and builds an entire theology of God-sized risk around it. Batterson's central thesis is that the lions in your life — those terrifying, overwhelming, seemingly impossible challenges — are not obstacles to God's calling; they are the calling. Running toward the lion, not away from it, is what separates people of ordinary faith from people who change their world. Through a blend of Scripture, history, and contemporary storytelling, Batterson invites readers to stop playing it safe and start dreaming the kinds of dreams that are only possible if God shows up.
View Discussion GuideThe Circle Maker
The Circle Maker by Mark Batterson is built around a simple but audacious premise: most of us pray too small. Drawing on the ancient legend of Honi the circle maker — a first-century Jewish sage who, during a catastrophic drought, drew a circle in the dirt, stood inside it, and refused to move until God sent rain — Batterson argues that God honors bold, persistent, specific prayer. The book's central thesis is that "God is not honored by timid prayers." Instead, Batterson calls readers to draw "prayer circles" around their biggest dreams, their deepest needs, and their God-given impossibilities, trusting that the God who answered Honi's prayer is the same God who hears ours today.
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