Fall 2026 planning guide
Fall is when most groups settle on what they will read together. The titles below have study guides with 5–8-session schedules — the practical range for a fall Bible study or book study, short enough to finish before the holidays and long enough to go somewhere. Compare the session and question counts, then read Week 1 free.
10 studies below. Catalog facts last updated .
We picked these titles by hand as a good fall slate and then checked each one against its current reading plan, keeping only guides that still run 5–8 sessions. Other guides in the library fall in that range, and many good ones run longer; this is a starting point, not the whole shelf.
This is editorial judgment plus catalog facts — nothing here is ordered by sales, downloads, or ratings, and no title is claimed to be better than another or right for every group. Read Week 1 of any guide free and decide for your own.
by Timothy Keller
Why it works for fall: Five sessions on Paul’s odd little argument in 1 Corinthians 3–4 about an ego that has stopped watching itself. A short, gentle re-entry for a group that has not met since spring.
by Henri Nouwen
Why it works for fall: Six sessions built around Rembrandt’s painting: the younger son, the elder son, then the father. Three vantage points give a new group three different ways into the same conversation.
by C.S. Lewis
Why it works for fall: Six sessions through the notebooks C. S. Lewis kept in the months after his wife died, closing with a week that looks back over the whole journey. Short, and honest enough for a group coming off a hard year.
by Rick Warren
Why it works for fall: Warren’s forty daily readings are grouped here into five purposes across seven meetings, so a group can take the whole book without stretching into Advent.
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Why it works for fall: Seven sessions from Bonhoeffer’s underground seminary on what shared life actually asks of people — the day with others, the day alone, ministry, confession. A fitting first study for a group that is still forming.
by Dallas Willard
Why it works for fall: Seven sessions on Willard’s case that the gospel is an invitation to apprentice yourself to Jesus now, not only a plan for later. Dense reading, but the schedule keeps it to one move of the argument per meeting.
by Brother Lawrence
Why it works for fall: Seven sessions with a seventeenth-century monk who learned to pray in a monastery kitchen. The conversations and letters are brief, so a week’s reading fits in one sitting during a busy September.
by Timothy Keller
Why it works for fall: Eight sessions on Luke 15 that give the elder brother as much attention as the younger. A short study with an unusually direct payoff for a church group.
by Angie Smith
Why it works for fall: Eight sessions that walk the whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation as a single story. Useful in the fall, when a group has new members who are not sure how the parts fit together.
by C.S. Lewis
Why it works for fall: Eight sessions on affection, friendship, eros, and charity — one kind of love per meeting, which makes it easy for a member to miss a week and rejoin without being lost.