Bible study for non-Christians
May 12, 2008 9:37 am Church Stuff, Horizon, ThoughtsLast night we had our first pre-launch community group for Horizon and it was awesome. Just to finally have most of our group together in one place for a couple hours was very encouraging. As most church groups do we had food to eat and a time to just hung out before we jumped into some study. We are starting to study the book of John, and last night we spent close to an hour studying and discussing the first chapter.
Things went well, and I thought that our group really got into some great study and discussion, but on the way home my wife and I both felt the same way about the study time. We both felt like it was a time that would have been really hard for a non-Christian to jump into. We couldn’t pin point a specific problem, but it just felt like a very typical situation to the both of us. We really didn’t use an abundance of confusing “church” words or anything like that, but it still felt very “churchey” and neither one of us could really figure out how to make it true Bible study and yet still appealing to non-believers.
As a church, we want to do everything that we can to reach out to the lost and broken of the community; so here’s the question I am posing. What kind of elements would a Bible study that targeted non-Christians have? To me, making simple Bible study appealing and relevant to non-Christians is probably one of the true keys to reaching a community and growing a church. Thoughts?
May 12th, 2008 at 10:01 am
Joel,
Great question. IMO, it comes down to practical application.
Using what I have heard referred to as the so what/now what principal.
So what does what we just read mean to you? Now what are you going to do about it?
Made a blog post of my own about it…
http://www.ckurl.com/lifeblog/post/2007/11/26/So-What—-Now-What.aspx
May 12th, 2008 at 10:15 am
Yeah, it is definitely possible to have a Bible study that is appealing to people outside of Christ. The movement to really “dumb down” the gospel is dead and gone (thankfully). People are hungry for the unvarnished, real truth of the gospel.
Having said that, you do have to be very careful about using church vernacular. And (this is the big one) you have to be very cognizant of who is in the study and how the non-Christian will perceive them. They’ll learn as much, or more, from observing Christians than they will from the Scripture. If they feel judged or demeaned in any way, you’re done.
May 12th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
Ditto what Mike says as well.
I know during my conversion from a non-Christian to a Christian, the biggest impact on me was one particular man.
Was a very devout Christian, but always seemed like he was having fun at the same time.
Accepted my wife and I for who we were (um… very unChristian), had fun, and still called us to repent.
Its the old saying that is generally applied for parenting. “Your life is the first gospel your children will see.”
Which I guess also leads to the other old saying, “People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.”
May 17th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
I think the most appealing thing for non-Christians would be a simple friendship. People want community. Too often as a church we try to force the Bible to people almost immediately, but in some cases that can do more harm than good. It is totally possibly to have a “church” gathering without studying Scripture, we do it at Crossroads all the time. In the end, people get an authentic relationship and are encouraged in their faith.