This week I spoke to our minister about teaching Bible classes again. It’s been a while and it appears to be needed. Last time we came on too strong and burned out all our teachers. This go around, it will be different.

In any case, I have been talking to new members in my church and I asked them what they need. It seems that although theologically suspect, I received 8 weeks of post-baptism training that isn’t being done. One person I spoke to said that they were excited at first, but now feels like they are unable to fight certain things and don’t really understand how.

I volunteered to write a proposal for a new “Deep Convictions” class that I hoped would be more interactive and hopefully less theologically suspect. I’ll post more as it goes along, but the proposal thus far looks like this:

Each week, every member of the class listens to a recorded 15 – 20 minute lesson. Then they work through various written assignment during the week. These are all designed to be really small. A few minutes a day, not an hour or so. The actual class session will be sharing, directed discussion, and encouragement. The goal is self-discovery, so the exercises during the week will be about asking the simple questions as well as ‘practice’ for techniques mentioned in the recorded lesson.

Week One: Assurance – Am I Really Saved or Will God Change His Mind?
Week Two: Six Places to Focus as You Start
Week Three: Personal Worship – Singing and Praying
Week Four: Personal Worship – Reading Your Bible
Week Five: Family – Love One Another
Week Six: Maturity – Dealing with Personal Sin
Week Seven: What Are My Gifts?
Week Eight*: Caring for the Community
Week Nine: Sharing Jesus with the World

*Week Eight can be moved to coincide with our church’s week to work the Francis Siena House.

Anywho, feel free to offer lessons or help or share your thoughts. The more the merrier, right?