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Onesimus Online: So In-Your-Face Wrong - Christianity Gone Real Bad
I attended the main service at the Neno Evangelism Centre with two friends. Once again, I was glad to have a Kenyan friend with me, as almost everything was in Swahili. We arrived at the centre as we thought the service should be beginning, but were told that the service would not start until an hour later. In this time, we were able to speak to the assistant pastor about his understanding of church. It was interesting to see that when we asked to speak to someone, the ushers were very suspicious and concerned that we might be from the press. Despite this, we were eventually taken to the pastor’s office.
Much of what he said seemed very typical of any church with a low ecclesiology. I have highlighted the more interesting aspects. The pastor did not seem to consider church to be an important concept, except as a gathering place for believers. He stated that it was just the name Jesus gave for his followers. He was more concerned about leadership. Twice he took us through the idea of an apostle being someone who was sent by Jesus himself with authority to found a new ministry. He used the stories of Elijah and Moses to illustrate this, explaining that they passed on their visions to Elisha and Joshua, who did not have the same authority, but simply followed in their footsteps. This same illustration was later used by the apostle about himself and his followers when he spoke in the service.
First person account of a large church in Kenya. I've said it before and I'll keep saying it: Africa needs discipleship. The same sort of description is not uncommon for what goes on in churches where we are as well. Go and read the whole post, if you have the time...
The WORD Became Flesh...
The WORD became flesh and moved into {our} neighborhood. That’s an exciting thought to consider, isn’t it? To think that God willfully stepped out of His kingdom and came to earth is an amazing thing. He came from a place of perfection that we can only imagine and entered into all of the goriness of life on earth. And in such an odd way. You would think that if God was going to visit earth and experience life as a human He start at a place of honor, born into royalty or wealth or something like that. But no — He forsook all of that, choosing the poverty of a voiceless Jewish family in the midst of imperial occupation. He chose to not even be born in a legitimate setting. Who of us in their right mind would say, “Yes! I want to be born next to donkeys and cows and sheep! Lay me in their feeding trough to rest!” What a choice this was.
This makes the words of Paul in Philippians striking:
Jesus existed in the form of God but emptied Himself of this. He took on the form of a slave. He looked just like you and me. He shared in our nature.
This WORD becoming flesh, this God becoming man, this incarnation — it’s not about who He was but about who He was becoming.
Jesus was God throughout His time on earth; if this wasn’t so, we wouldn’t have the cross and complete liberation from the works of evil in the world. What mattered though wasn’t that He was still God but that He became man. This identification is an incredible thing. It’s something I don’t currently fully understand and don’t think I (or anybody for that matter) ever will, fully. We like big words like incarnation and kenosis and theosis and the like to refer to doctrines that attempt to describe at least some of what is going on but I’m pretty sure there will always be something of a mystery surrounding it all.
And it’s well and good to sit and wonder and awe at the mystery of it all; that’s something I readily admit to doing. Recently though an element of sober reality has found itself intermixed in my wonders and awes. The WORD becoming flesh — the WORD emptying Himself of Himself and taking on the form of me, well as I said it’s incredible. It gets sobering now though: This WORD made flesh in inviting me to live as He made me to, has invited me to enter this incarnational kenosis as well: To empty myself of myself and what He has made me, and take on the form of the other.
What does that mean? Forsaking Jesus? No. Jesus emptying Himself of God didn’t mean He was any less God. God didn’t forsake God, so to speak. It does mean stepping outside the bounds of life He’s ushered me into. Jesus chose to leave heaven and enter our muck and mire — theologically speaking: kenosis. Taking up Jesus, we enter into heaven (at least metaphorically speaking; I suppose we could have theological discussion about the technicalities of this) which I find to be a form of Theosis — the filling of ourselves with what Jesus chose to leave. We are called to emulate Jesus though so kenosis must follow. Jesus set that aside, came as a man, called people into what He was (giving glimpses of it all along the way) and loved so much that He chose to die so that we might live.
That kenosis hits home to me now in ways it never did before. Life was comparatively easy back in Oklahoma. It didn’t take much effort to empty myself and become something other because the reality was that the other was more like me than I might care to admit. Now though — it’s something different. Not to long ago I found myself sitting on a wooden bench in a filthy concrete room full of junk that the attached Shebeen (illegitimate bar) didn’t have use for with my wife, teammate and the drunk homeless guy who slept there. He proceeded to spill His guts about all of life, culminating in his desire and plan to hang himself. He drank day in and day out to forget this pain he carried with him everywhere but it was getting to the point where the bottle could no longer numb him to it. Sitting there that day I experience incarnation as I’d never experienced it before. It was in love-driven desire to be somewhere I knew I didn’t belong. There it was, reaching out to someone who had drunk too many 40s to count. It was the willingness to enter his world and feel and understand and see as he did.
In an academic sense, I knew that coming here and living incarnationally would involve wading into deep and dark problems in the lives of people — issues and feelings and thoughts I’d probably never known existed before — but it wasn’t anything more than that academic sense.
And, I wouldn’t have it any other way. You see the incarnation produces something incredible. For where kenosis happens theosis is soon to follow. Jesus came as man and presented something more (His kingdom), and many back then, and you and me now, entered and where filled with something more. So to for people like this drunk homeless man who wanted to give up on life in the worst possible way. That day about a month ago was incredibly sober. Today though His story is something different. He’d never had someone tell him that they loved him. And for it to be a white guy from America — that blew his mind. It made him stop and think. And when he found out why (Jesus in me, my wife and teammate) it made him reach out for something more. We did a lot of sharing and a lot of praying with him that afternoon and God filled his heart with a joy and with a peace he had never known before. We came back the next week to find him sober and smiling. The next week he was outside playing soccer with kids. Two weeks ago he excitedly shared of his new job — something he hasn’t had in quite some time. Last week he brought us a friend who had seen his transformation and wanted it in his own life.
This has been long and rambling and probably won’t make much sense to anyone but me; I just needed to get the words down and the thoughts out, to be mulled over and considered further.
CPx: Discovery Bible Study pt iv
There are a couple of things worth discussing at this juncture. The first is that it works. Our tendency in western cultures is to want to teach (or perhaps worse: preach at) people when in reality God wants to work in their hearts in a way that is free of our own junk. Allowing people to discover the Word of God on their own opens them to God in ways I honestly haven’t seen before. That doesn’t mean there is no need for evangelism — more often than not Bible studies start up from a good old fashioned telling of the Gospel (we like to fashion it as “God’s Story”) — but it’s never the endpoint of discipleship. It also doesn’t mean there isn’t room for some good old fashioned preachin’ and teachin’ — we’ve had to do some of that too — but generally that’s something left for those that already believe. What it does mean is trusting in the Holy Spirit to lead and guide and to from this exercise restraint in our natural tendencies. A woman we met with just today told us how much she appreciated being able to discover God’s Word — how life-giving that was to her. She described it as this well of God’s love that bubbles up within her, and how, because of this well, when she comes to passages that talk about not stealing and not prostituting, it’s not something hard to comply with because the Holy Spirit is already working within her. And that’s what we are praying for all of the people. And that is what we are beginning to see, particularly with those truly hungry to know Christ.
The second thing I thought worth highlighting is that sometimes are tendency is to over-spiritualize things. This is often decidedly not helpful. The last DBS post I did was about prayer time and I think our tendency to over-spiritualize really comes out in it. As I (hopefully) mentioned, it’s designed to be a low impact prayer time that gets even those people not yet comfortable with the idea of talking with God involved. They don’t even have to pray — it starts simply with talking about what we are thankful for and talking about the needs in our life. The actual act of praying can come later, as people are drawn closer to God through the studying His Word. And for those that have little to know exposure to “church” and the like, this is what happens. There are many people though that are or have been involved in heavily religious cultures and they know Christianese as well as most Americans. And you ask what they are thankful for and its a wordy, religious-y response that doesn’t mean a whole lot. And you ask about their greatest need and it’s similar — wordy, religious-y and devoid of much meaning. And what’s worse, because we are doing Bible studies so often we facilitators and evangelists find ourselves doing the same thing. Unfortunately it does little to build community — we can’t be the answer to anyone’s prayer if the prayer is somewhat impossible to understand in the first place. It also can be discouraging for times of praise — how do you praise that which you can only barely abstractly describe with words that, when it comes down to it, tend to be rather vacuous?
Thinking on that convicted me of my own “taking the easy way out”. I started thinking of this particularly issue about a month ago and because of it, have been trying to tangibly express my thanksgiving to God — be it for the weather, something specific He has done in my life or the lives of those I know, or some particular trait of His that is especially moving on a given day. And for the needs I have, I’ve been trying to take serious stock at where my heart is at any given time and being honest for those needs. And I can’t say specifically how it’s impacted any of the Bible studies but honestly I believe a realness, and honesty, draws people closer together. Being honest narrows the distance between us and them (if we are real with them, they become us, after all). It’s something I want the friends we are making to be able to do in their communities and something I’d recommend for everyone doing this and similar forms of outreach.
A Story of Hope?
Despite living across the world in South Africa now, I’ve tried to stay current on what’s going in on the states. I find it healthy to have at least a rudimentary understanding of the different hot button issues since it’s still where my citizenship is (even if my residence isn’t). I’ve found it particularly interesting of late that immigration is the current “hot topic”. I keep seeing news about ridiculous laws in Arizona (and the subsequent profiling that has occurred) as well as the story about the student in Georgia who was illegally brought here at age 11 and is now dealing with the consequences. And according to CNN yesterday, “immigration” was their number one trending topic.
It’s interesting now considering this topic while living as a foreign national abroad. It’s made even more interesting, nuanced and complicated by working in a place that is a melting pot of nations and with its people, many of whom are likely undocumented. Take the story of Hope for instance:
Hope is from a nation north of the one I live in. She’s married, about my wife’s age (25ish) and has an 18 month old daughter. 8 months ago she lived in this northern country and her husband lived here in South Africa. As she prayed and fasted about this, God told her: “Go to your husband. I will protect along the way. I need you there though.” This took her aback: Hope had no passport or papers or anything like that and the political situation in her current country meant that she wasn’t likely to get them. Also money (something she really didn’t have) was an issue. She prayed and fasted more because, while she wanted to do it, this didn’t seem like a realistic possibility. God told her the same thing again, emphasizing that He would protect her and He added, “Don’t try to hide or sneak or creep: just go.” Miraculously the money came for the trip. The pieces seemed to be falling into place. So she went to the bus, without papers or anything like that, and headed to her husband. There were 3 big checkpoints that were a concern though: the border and then two additional, random ones that she didn’t know about. At each of these checkpoints everyone on the bus was asked to get off, line up and get out there papers. She prayed at stop one and God responded, “Don’t hide, I’ll protect.” So she got off, lined up but had no papers to pull out. And at each stop the armed officials looked at her, told her to have a nice day, and moved to the next person, oblivious to the fact that she had no papers — something they checked with every other person. She finally ends up in the township her husband lives in and finds him, having entered completely undocumented.
To me, this story honestly trivializes much of the debate occurring in the states. Here we have a woman told by God to cross borders without papers and He miraculously makes the way for that to happen. Obviously God wanted her here and obviously that was more important than particular notions legal immigration. In the states though this possibility doesn’t really even enter our minds, and unfortunately the debate itself is ultra polarized at the moment: there seems to be one side that seems so bent on protecting their “stuff” (property, rights, opportunities, whatever) that there is no room for civil discussion about immigration and what to do with current undocumented peoples. The other side seems bent on calling all those not in favor of completely open borders Nazis. And lots of typed yelling and name calling and goofiness ensues. People like Hope get caught up in the middle of this debate and are often dehumanized and/or forgotten. We forget in all of our name calling and land grabbing that real people with real stories and real circumstances are deeply affected. And that is really quite tragic.
This has got me thinking about the Bible though and what it says. Surprisingly enough it has quite a lot to say. Let’s start with Exodus 22:21:
You must not wrong a foreigner nor oppress him, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.
This particular translation is from the NET Bible and includes a translation note specifically referring to the Hebrew word for “foreigner.” In the context of this verse (and further verses referring to “foreigners”), the foreigner is a resident of the nation. He is living in the land but makes note that he is not necessarily a legal residence. Regardless though, God exhorts His people to not wrong or oppress him, recalling Israel’s own time as resident foreigners in another land.
The OT is rife with similar passages:
When a foreigner resides with you in your land, you must not oppress him. The foreigner who resides with you must be to you like a native citizen among you; so you must love him as yourself, because you were foreigners in the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God. Leviticus 19:33-34
Leviticus 19:10, Exodus 23:9, and Deuteronomy 10:17-19, 27:19 are all similar, even going so far as putting care for the foreigner on the same level as care for the widow and orphan.
1 Kings 8:41-43 talks of foreigners too. It says,
“Foreigners, who do not belong to your people Israel, will come from a distant land because of your reputation. When they hear about your great reputation and your ability to accomplish mighty deeds, they will come and direct their prayers toward this temple. Then listen from your heavenly dwelling place and answer all the prayers of the foreigners. Then all the nations of the earth will acknowledge your reputation, obey you like your people Israel do, and recognize that this temple I built belongs to you.
I read that and think of how people I know stylize the land I come from: our reputation precedes us in the things that can be done (the American Dream?) and they direct their prayers toward its temple (Wall Street?). We don’t seem to be listening though. It’s just as well though as our reputation and the things that can be done in our nation are so often hollow and compare nothing to that of the Kingdom of God. I do, however, have to think — what if we did pay legitimate and honest attention to the foreigner amongst us? What if we did seek honestly to answer their prayers, not in the name of America (or any other nation) but in the name of Jesus and the kingdom of heaven? I honestly don’t understand how people following Jesus can respond so callously towards the foreigner and alien. And I haven’t actually gotten to the words of Jesus in the New Testament.
Matthew 7:12 tells us, “In everything, treat others as you would want them to treat you, for this fulfills the law and the prophets.” Others includes the alien (as it obviously did in the law and prophets, where foreigners figured prominently, as we saw, with widows and orphans in many passages). Then there is this same idea labeled as the second greatest commandment: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Then there is talk of Jesus returning and people being separated into “sheep and goats”. The goats He sternly tells to “Depart!” Why? “I was a stranger and you did not receive me as a guest, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.” Pretty strong words — words we would do well to keep in mind.
So where does the leave me? For one thing, it leaves me with an earnest desire to love the alien, regardless of their “legal” status. Frankly, as the testimony of Hope and others like her speak to, I’m not so convinced that God is much concerned with man-made boundaries and borders. He will take people where He will for reasons perhaps entirely His own. Often these are unknown to us and I’m perfectly comfortable in this. My task is to worry less about that and more about love and how I am treating them. And I’m more and more convinced that that treatment in the Bible is more than just words: it’s an active welcoming them in, and a seeking of their wellbeing alongside my own. It’s something we walk alongside people in now and will continue to do.
For another thing, it leaves me a bit less concerned about sides in an illegal immigration debate. Frankly regardless of the word “illegal” in the trending topic my call to love — to welcome — to walk alongside — doesn’t change. It doesn’t change with Hope nor would it change with any of the “least of these” back in the states. If the government wants to make such a designation and do something about it — that power is theirs. I likely wouldn’t protest unless it was in some way unjust (as the Arizona laws are — racial profiling, whether strictly codified or the natural product of what is codified should never be acceptable). Honestly if I’m asked of my opinion, it will be in favor of “the least of these” but it’s merely my opinion, formed by what God is doing in my heart. It’s not necessarily what everyone would agree with.
And I guess that leads me to reiterate again, never forget that there are real people at the heart of every number and stat. That’s not ever going to change. You might not agree with my take on the aliens amongst us but don’t forget, none the less, that they are people too — people loved dearly by God.
A Letter to Africa About Africa: Reviewed
I’ve been able to read more lately, which is quite nice. It seems that my old job tended to wear me out mentally and when I would get home, didn’t have the energy to do much requiring invested thought. I still read, mind you, just not as much as I am now.
The last book I read is entitled A Letter to Africa About Africa by Kasongo Munza. Munza was an ordained UMC pastor from the Congo and was director of a training center in Zambia when he passed away in 2005.
His book looks in depth at the prevailing African worldview, particularly that of subsaharan Africa, and analyzes how it (a) has led to the vast problems facing Africa and (b) how it matches up against Jesus’ view of the kingdom of God.
I didn’t quite know what to expect upon picking it up. Part of me worried that this was going to be another book focused on replacing the African worldview with an American Evangelical one. I’ll readily recognize that there is much in the African worldview that needs a critical eye, but a replacement of one broken worldview with another broken one isn’t an answer I wanted to read about (I’ve already seen enough proposals like this).
Thankfully this book was not that and because of this I found it quite helpful. It was a detailed analysis of the African worldview — something necessary to understand if you are going to even begin to attempt spiritual and community development type work. It also provided a framework for building a new worldview steeped in God’s kingdom — not based in throwing everything African out and not importing everything western in.
I think it worth writing in some detail about the African worldview so that people have an understanding of the good and the bad inherent in it. And that task I’m going to save for another day. But for now, if you would like to read a fascinating and small book on why Africa is the way it is, pick up A Letter to Africa About Africa. And if you ever plan on doing ministry here, make that a priority.
CPx: Discovery Bible Study pt iii
We always start Discovery Bible Studies with prayer time (or at least a time designated for prayer-like activities). For one thing, it helps focus peoples attentions around Jesus (if they are praying) and opens their hearts to the community (if they are just speaking thanksgivings and needs). Also, a big part of what a Discover Bible Study is designed to do is seamlessly transform from a simple study to a simple church as people find themselves following Jesus, and if you want the DNA of prayer built into the church community, it’s necessary to start with it from the very beginning (even if very little “prayer” is happening).
The obvious question is how do you build this DNA into the community from day 1, especially if you are dealing with a group of people that have no concept of Jesus and prayer and talking to God? Forcing prayer is one option. It’s an option I’ve tried in fact but it doesn’t really produce fruit that is lasting — people are shy and nervous and unsure about talking to someone or something that they don’t even know.
So what’s a good way to do this? Just as in studying the Bible it’s best to have simple steps so that it is easily reproduced. There are three that we do to create an atmosphere of prayer within the DBS.
Share what you are thankful for. We start by getting everyone into an attitude of thanksgiving. Even if life is as hard as it could possibly be, everyone generally has something that they can give thanks for — be it friends and family, the beautiful, life or some unexpected blessing. By sharing these we actively engage in putting our hearts in a mode of giving thanks and, when the group is praying, we have a pool of items to praise God for.
Share what your greatest need is. Whereas thanksgiving is probably the best place to start, intercession is also a needed component of prayer. Building in a reliance on God and recognition that He is the source of all that we are early on sets a very good precedent. It also gives God an opportunity to radically show up and show Himself as real (in line with 1 Corinthians 2:4) through answered prayer. For example, I had the honor of baptizing a husband and wife on Easter that we have been doing a DBS with for about 2 months. On our first meeting, the wife had us pray during this time for her baby who was covered some scaly skin disease that did not look pleasant at all; God showed up and instantly started healing the child (by the next day the scaly skin was normal again). And that opened them up to a more in depth conversation about Jesus that led to them making the decisions that they have made.
Ask if anyone present can meet any of the needs expressed. God often moves miraculously; often too He uses us to be the answer to other peoples prayers. And if community is a value, we should be actively seeking to meet those needs expressed. As an example, someone we met in a DBS expressed the need of not knowing how to manage money. Because of that, we volunteered to spend some extended time with him sharing tip and tricks to manage your money (basically a modified envelope method) which he found really empowering and helpful.
Even if everyone isn’t praying on the first DBS, you as participant or facilitator can. If no one can meet the needs expressed, you can offer to lift those people up. After the fact you can meet with people to pray for them. As people grow closer to God and want to pray you are there to teach them and help see them grow in this (as well as Bible study).
Hopefully this gives a quick rundown on prayer and how it is incorporated into DBSs.
...Holy Saturday
“…it is precisely in the midst of a Holy Saturday experience that the decision to follow Christ becomes truly authentic. A faith that can only exist in the light of victory and certainty is one which really affirms the self while pretending to affirm Christ, for it only follows Jesus in the belief that Jesus has conquered death. Yet a faith that can look at the horror of the cross and still say ‘yes’ is one that says ‘no’ to the self in saying ‘yes’ to Christ. If one loses one’s life only because one believes that this is the way to find it, then one gives up nothing; to truly lose one’s life, one must lay down that life without regard to whether or not one finds it. Only a genuine faith can embrace doubt, for such a faith does not act because of a self interested reason (such as fear of hell or desire for heaven) but acts simply because it must. A real follower of Jesus would commit to Him before the crucifixion, between the crucifixion and the resurrection, and after the resurrection.”
Peter Rollins, How (Not) To Speak of God
CPx: Discovery Bible Study pt ii
In my last Discovery Bible Study (DBS) post I talked about the role of the facilitating and how they lead not in the traditional sense but in inspiring and encouraging everyone to participate. In this post I want to begin to get into the meat of the DBS program.
We’ll do this by looking at the steps for Bible study first. There are other elements to the meeting besides just Bible study but this is what I’m going to focus on this post. The DBS is designed to be a very simple (and therefore reproducible) method that anyone can follow regardless of schooling and background. It’s designed in such a way that you don’t actually need a physical Bible. It would work just as well with an audio copy. It’s also not dependent on a trained scholar of some type. A group could be made up wholly of pre-Christians and still get very deep into the WORD of God. And this is what I personally like so much about it — it takes people quite deep into the Bible. A superficial overview this most certainly isn’t. Substance isn’t at any level sacrificed for simplicity (and I think the substance in these studies is often much more challenging than the substance I’ve experienced in churches in the states). There are 5 simple steps that we follow when we do this with people in the townships:
1. Reading the WORD.
The very first thing we do is read the Bible out loud. Often we read it more than once so that it everyone clearly hears. Sometimes we have everyone read it out loud. Reading out loud helps the words to sink into the reader and repetition makes it easier to remember for the hearers as well. And, when you take the other 4 steps into account, people often have read or heard the passage out loud 6 or 7 times. This makes it much more likely to produce lasting memory.
2. Everyone retells the passage in their own words.
The first step gets people to digest the WORD of God and this step insures comprehension. If someone can retell the passage clearly in their own words, you can bet they have at least a basic understanding of it. This is something to have everyone in the group do — it’s another opportunity to rehear the word and meaning is fleshed out as everyone verbalizes it in their own words (although a retelling and not a meaning is what we are go for here — meaning will be discussed as a group in a later step). If you are able to put it into your own words you are also more likely to remember it and, for accountability purposes when you ask people to tell someone about the passage, they can do it anywhere they are at regardless of if they have a Bible on hand. In “closed” situations where Bibles are scarce this is also very important for people as it helps equip them to be able to recreate the Bible on their own.
3. As the passage is being retold, asks the group if people are missing anything.
This step is done hand in hand with #2 as people retell. Putting the retellings to the test of the group insures accuracy and that people are drawing a right understanding. It also gives another opportunity for the WORD to be heard as people go back to the text to explain what others might be missing.
4. Break the passage into chunks and look at the specific meaning.
This is the step that dives us into the meaning. The facilitator breaks whatever passage is read into small chunks and the group discusses the meaning of each. The chunk could be a verse, a phrase, a sentence or a paragraph — essentially anything that’s smaller than the passage itself and gives you ample room to talk about all the different meanings within the text. Generally a phrase or a sentence works best but you might have to do more than that depending on time. For a group getting started, they might not know where to begin with discussing meaning so a few questions that I have found helpful are:
- What does this phrase tell us about God?
- What does this phrase tell us about man?
- What is God asking us to do or obey in this phrase?
There could be many other leading questions as well that gets the group to dive in and discuss.
Here it is very important for the facilitator to keep people on task. It is in this step of the process that you want to make sure that not one person is dominating the discussion or completely checking out of it. Also it is very, very important to keep people in the passage at hand, allowing no outside wandering. For non-Christians cross referencing and other such things aren’t something they know about so this generally isn’t an issue but when you deal with people that have some exposure to Christian culture they might try to wander all over the place introducing all sorts of confusion. It’s important to let the text at hand speak for itself. If anyone at anytime tries to say something thats not in the passage read, ask them where in the passage it is and if they can’t show you remind everyone that the focus is just the passage read. As Bible studies become churches, they can begin to compare and do broader comparative studies as they become equipped to deal with such things.
5. The obedience step.
Step 5 is really important. It’s in this step that we let the WORD of God sink from our heads into our hearts. When we don’t just hear it but actively choose to obey it — that’s when it changes us. And so, we ask everyone to be silent and think of all that we talked about throughout the DBS. We ask them to think specifically about one thing that God is highlighting to them that they can be faithful in obeying. We generally give them a minute or two to think about this and then everyone shares that one thing with everyone else. If everyone shares, there is accountability — they can check up on you throughout the next week or at the next meeting. Responses can be varied and that’s ok. What is important is that people are hearing from God through the Word and putting it into practice in their lives. One of our teachers told us of a Bible study he was in where the passage was Genesis 1. One guy mentioned how convicted he was that his horses where God creation and that he was exercising poor stewardship by beating them while other people could mention completely different things.
Choosing Passages
It may not be apparent from these steps but this is a long process. A selection of 10 verses could easily take you an hour or more to get through. As such, it’s generally best to select passages that are 10 verses or less. They should contextually go together (ie, you shouldn’t rip verses out of their context). If you need to go through a longer passage, it can span a week or more and that’s ok.
For groups of non-Christians (or people whose spiritual state we are unsure of) we tend to sequentially go through what we like to call God’s story: Creation, Rebellion, Sacrifice, Return, Commission. We also have a longer list of passages that takes them through the Old and New Testament that culminates in presenting a decision to chase after Jesus (it takes 20ish weeks to get through though — something that’s beyond our scope currently). As groups are baptized and become churches there can be a little more freedom in choosing passages and letting them discover church life and the Christian life as the dive in but we have lists that will take them through this as well.
One of the nice things about this process is that people can do it on their own. It’s actually a quite challenging Bible study tool and one that’d I recommend everyone give a try sometime. Obviously there will be differences if you are doing it by yourself (writing a retelling instead of verbalizing it for example) but its worth it.
I’ll have more on DBS’s soon.
Masi on Palm Sunday
mostly of people we are doing Discovery Bible Studies with, and some
to show the area we are working in. Let me know if you have any
questions about any of them!
