I'm not surprised to see how excited I am about my church's upcoming Bible study. Based on my experience with Bible study before this spring, though, I am surprised to see how many people are attending! Maybe it's the format:
6:00 PM
Delicious home made dinner, served family style, in our cloisters / gathering space. (Including dessert! All for an insanely small suggested donation.)
6:30 PM
Clean off tables to nearby dish carts.
Drop off the kids in the nursery for play-time.
Move into chapel for a lecture/conversation style Bible study.
7:45 PM
Pick up kids.
Hope they fall asleep on the way home, but if they don't it's past their bed time, anyway, and the bed time routine starts up right away when we get home.
Our attendance has been between 50 and 80 people. I think the fellowship of dinner and the setting in our new chapel make for a surprisingly intimate conversation at a group of that size.
Are there other styles or augmentation of Bible study that seem to attract large groups of people?
It's hard to beat the supper and study format. "If you feed them they will come." Witness the success of this format with the popular Alpha courses.
ReplyDeleteThe next step, Paul, is setting up a program for the kids when they get older. Start thinking about it now...:)
ReplyDeleteWe have LOGOS on Wednesday nights for school-age kids (kindergarten through middle school) and that includes - among other things - Bible study, youth choir, and family-style dinner. It's been surprisingly popular.
ReplyDeleteOn Sunday mornings, kids who are too young to sit through the whole service but too old for the nursery have the option of going to "children's church" in the chapel.
But you're right that the kids will need something to do on Thursday nights while we're at Bible Study when they're too old for the nursery and too young for Bible Study. Hmmm.