Over the years, we have come back repeatedly to two or three different patterns of bible study. The method is not the vital issue, but what is important is that the method leads to participatory discussion.

The pattern that we use to teach most often is based on three symbols: a question mark, a lightbulb and an arrow. We begin with a passage of Scripture, and one person in the group reads aloud a verse or a sentence. Occasionally (for example, with one of the parables or a gospel story), it may be appropriate to read the whole passage before going back to explore it verse by verse. The group then looks for things that correspond to the symbols. The question mark obviously signifies something we don’t understand. A person might say, “I have a question mark on this verse. What does it mean when it says…?”

The lightbulb is used to represent something that sheds light on that passage of Scripture or something going on in a person’s life. So one person in the group might say, “I have a lightbulb on this verse. This describes a situation that happened to me at work last week…”

The arrow represents God piercing a person’s heart – he or she has heard from God and needs to do something about it. A participant in the group might say, “God has been speaking to me about this for a while, but I’ve been ignoring it. I’m going to have to change….This is an arrow for me!” Or, “I’ve just realised from this verse that God wants me to…”

Once a verse or a thought has been covered, then we move on to the next one.
We have frequently used this method to start churches, especially when working with unbelievers. With our group of not-yet-Christian business people, we studied the book of Proverbs in this fashion, looking at principles relating to business and wealth. Although it began as a business-focused study, over time, every person in the group became a Christian! The seed of the Kingdom is the Word of God, which is living and active and life changing (Luke 8:11; Hebrews 4:12)

Another pattern we use in simple church is to read a verse and then ask everyone to comment on it, answering three questions: What does it say? What does it mean? What difference does it make in my life? We used this pattern with a group of new believers in a low-income housing project…..It is also important that people pass on what they are learning to others: “Who do you know who needs to hear what we have just discussed? Share with them about this over the next few days and let us know next week how it went.”

Continuing the Simple Church theme I came across this review of   The Rabbit and the Elephant that may also provide some encouragement for us as we press on Following God’s Call to Adventurous Living!

Identifying with Jesus

Transforming Secular Space

Living as Community

Welcoming the Stranger

Serving with Generosity

Participating as Producers

Creating as Created Beings

Leading as A Body

Merging Ancient and Contemporary Spiritualities

Also on the Mustard Seed associates site is this inspiring story of a micro business in Brazil From Grease to Gospel it’s well worth a watch.

I don’t know if you’ve had any discussions about the God Delusion or other recent humanist and atheist publications. At school at the moment we’ve got quite an interesting creation/evolution debate going on.

I recently came across some articles by Melanie Philips writing in the Spectator about Creation & Intelligent design here and here I’m not a regular reader of the Spectator and she obviously comes with her own political outlook however she raises some interesting arguments and she’s also written this article about Richard Dawkins The truth delusion of Richard Dawkins

If you’re interested in this subject you might want to read the book Atheist Delusions that Jason Clarke reviews

I’ve mentioned Floyd McClung before and enjoyed this article about leadership.

The Divine Commodity is a new book by Skye Jethani that’s creating a stir in the Christian blogosphere as its subtitle is “Discovering a faith beyond consumer Christianity”. I haven’t read it yet but as part of the publicity tour (oops isn’t that a bit consumption driven) he visited a number of blogs and interacted with various Christian leaders Alan Hirsch has a load of links to the tour here.  I enjoyed reading Neil Cole’s interaction to the tour here.

Todd Hunter has written a thought here about Christianity from the Margins,that’s quite encouraging when you look at what we’re doing with ENC.

Finally a couple of slightly more controversial posts about worship here and here. I think they ask some important questions and would particularly want the challenge of creativity in our worship to be something we take seriously.

Tom Sine is currently writing a regular article entitled  “Join the Conspiracy – Join the Conversation” he introduces it like this

Would you join me in a conversation about why the church is doing so little to respond to our neighbors who are being devastated by this global economic meltdown and share any examples of those churches who are creating ways to reach out???

If you would like to find out more the first article is here and some follow up comments are here.

Neil Cole is interviewed about his new book Organic Leadership on the Shapevine website and I always find his thoughts challenging and stimulating.

I recently revisited the Fresh Expressions website it’s quite interesting to see what other projects are around and the linked website Share asks some good questions and has some good resources.