Thursday, June 09, 2005

Time in the Bible

I don't know about you, but I can tend to read so many books about Biblical ideas or even do studies related to the Bible, but not get into (or lead others to get into) the Bible itself. Having read and studied the Bible for some time I neglect the fact that some others haven't had as much direct exposure to God's word. If we are studying in our LifeGroup a workbook about finding our spiritual gifts or plugging into serving or leadership or whatever, I tend to briefly go over the Biblical stuff and then get to the application for me and others in the group. I've been convicted lately that I need to lead my LifeGroup to better balance between application to life versus seeing the content in God's word for themselves. I'm not talking about doing half "Sunday School teacher" and half relational application time. I'm just talking about spending a good amount of time reading the Scripture mentioned in the book or study and digging into it in a relational, discussion kind of way. That way, people who have not spent much time in God's word will learn how to do so.

This is not revolutionary thinking and I hope most of us leading LifeGroups are doing well at this. It IS tempting though (at least for me) to spend LifeGroup time on relational stuff and application of God's principles without letting people in the group have a door into reading and growing in God's word themselves. Does that make sense? Can anyone relate?

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