We all have big questions.
They’re like puzzle pieces: we’re searching to find out how they fit together and what that means for our lives and our world. Often we don’t want to share our thoughts or questions about the Bible, God, prayer, etc in a church service, surrounded by everyone, but we do want a space to dig deeper into the Bible, pray, share our thoughts, be open to listening to others, challenging ourselves a little and to put what we preach into practice.
A Bible Study Group is the perfect place for all of this and more.
There will be two groups: one during the day and one in the evening. Days, times and venues tbc.
Each group will be in someone’s home (not necessarily the same person all the time) and has a leader or two, who might not be the host. Each week, the group gathers, shares how the week went, prays for one another, then reads a passage from the Bible, re-tells the story, and then answers a few questions about the passage. For instance: “What does this story tell us about God, Jesus or his plan – for you, for the church, the village, the world?” At the end of the discussion, you each choose one thing this passage challenges you with and promise to take it away and try to work on it. The next week, you share how your week went and so on… Once every 6 weeks the group has a social without a bible study. As a group, you decide what that should look like, whether to invite others etc.
Overall, there is an expectation that membership of each group will ebb and flow, that new members are always welcome and that levels of commitment will vary from person to person, season to season. Group members commit to keeping things shared within the sessions to themselves, apart from the leader(s) feeding back directly to Revd Natasha, especially any safeguarding concerns. As an open group, where you may not know each other well, it is up to you how deeply you share as you explore the Bible readings and the leader will encourage everyone to contribute as they are comfortable.
Leaders will take the week’s Bible passage and questions from the Discovery Bible Study (dbsguide.org), a simple tool used around the world in diverse cultures to help people find the Bible’s answers to their deep questions. By limiting the discussion to ideas found only in the text, we allow the Bible to speak for itself. This is the essence of the Discovery Bible Study.
If you are interested in participating in a group, please speak to Revd Natasha or Sydney, leave a message in the church mailbox or phone and leave a message on 01753 642331.
We need a host for each group, one during daytime and one in the evening, initially for 6 weeks, whilst we try out the format and welcome the first people. You will need space to seat 6-8 people around a table or in a sitting room. There is no expectation for the host to provide more than a hot drink and we hope other people in the group will share the hosting later on if they have space at home.
For people considering being a leader or co-leader, there will be a workshop on Thursday 10th October 7-9pm at St Andrew's to explain the expectations of the groups and your roles as leader/co-leader.
Please let us know if you could host, lead or co-lead.
Updated 1/10/24