The Holy Pasty?

Last night for the first time in ages I attempted to do a Bible Study with the older young people (ranging in age from 19 – 60ish!) that normally meets for a social time or film at my house on a Wednesday night. This was a surprise to most of the people turning up, but they didn’t mind. It’s part of my new pledge to myself to try and help people get into the Bible more, like the new ‘bible comment’ section of the blog, as well as try to think more on Spiritual Things. 

I was thinking given the range of understanding that it would be a good idea to start with the book of Luke, simply because it’s a simply ordered account of the gospel. For those well versed in the Bible it always does us good to look at a gospel, and new things are brought to life, for those not so familiar it is a chance to get to grips with some fundamentals of the Christian faith.

There was no real plan to the actual study as such, this has become my preferred way of leading a discussional study, we simply started by reading a few verses and then looking into them, did anyone have questions, thoughts, comments etc? As we worked through the first 26 verses there were some definite issues that came up, some basic understandings and personal revelations about things. I had intended it to last only around 30 minutes - 45 minutes, we spent a little under two hours with Biblical teaching not only from Luke, but other areas of the Bible, and even some of the statements of worth from The Freedom In Christ books.

After that we turned out the lights and simply had a prayer time which got very passionate about some subjects and issues. It was absolutely fabulous with a real feeling that God was inhabiting the discussion and prayer time. After that we just HAD to worship God in song. So if my neighbours heards a noise akin to cats wailing through the wall then we are sorry to disturb them, but not sorry we chose to sing praises to God.

Although I have led various Bible studies and even preached a couple of times in the last year I had lost a lot of confidence in my ability to contribute meaningfully as a small group leader, however last night during the prayer time I sat in tears both at what was being prayed about and at the feeling that this was a right thing for me to be doing. Jon and I have run small group Bible Studies together for many years and after a couple of years not doing that we might have grown rusty or out of touch with the needs of a group like this, however we still worked together complementing each other’s views and wisdom. This is a much needed group for some people, please pray that we can keep the enthusiasm and momentum going over the next few weeks and through the year. That God will build us as a group and bind us together as friends before Him!