Reflection on being a Bible Study Facilitator

It caught me by surprise when the precept 40 minutes Bible Studies ended last Tuesday, 30 May 2017. The class participants gave me a Thank You card and a gift box. There were many words of encouragement and appreciation for the six weeks spent with them. The skill that I imparted on how to study Bible Epistles paid off, I hope. The material: “How Do You Walk The Walk You Talk?” is based on the Epistle of Ephesians. I thank the LORD that He answered my prayer; as I prayed for the attendees daily that they may grow to know the Word of God and increase in knowledge, hunger spiritually and put into practice what they learn from the class lessons and discussions.

This is my first class as facilitator for a Bible Study group in River Life Church, so there is no knowledge of whether I am doing the right thing. There was no proper training for leading a Bible Study discussion. I signed up for the Bible Study leading course from Singapore Precept Ministry but they have not enough students to conduct a class. Before I became a facilitator for this class, I was attached to a mentor for the previous class in February-March. But I felt that the way he conducted the class was to show how much knowledge and experience he had, rather than helping the students to grow in the knowledge of the Word of God. I wouldn’t want to follow his style in leading a Bible Study group. Also, the way he mentored me seemed a bit domineering, acting as if he is an “expert”. It is good to teach me humility and submissive to his style and ways during that period. I can imagine how much the class “benefited” from him. And so, I was contemplating to lead the class differently.

Then, a week before the class started, I happened to stumble into the mentor in the church. He remarked that the Studies on “How Do You Walk The Walk You Talk?” as very “straight forward”.  He implied that the Bible Study is simple and has no in-depth material. After that, I was more determined to do some teaching on his Bible Study, giving the class some added knowledge on how to study the Epistle, rather than just do some marking and discussions.

During my first week, I taught them how to read the epistle just like the original readers of the letter, detecting the tone, feelings of the writer; looking for contrast and similarities; identifying key words and key verses; using questions by making use of the 5W and 1H. And the end of the observations, students should be able to write of lists of observations in tabulated forms. I spent the first 3 lessons teaching and demonstrating how this was done. I even gave them my work done, teaching by examples and step by step demonstration. During the course, I received some feedback that they like the method. I was definitely new to most of them. During the second class, my ministry leader came to sit in my class and observe how I led the class. I was as bit nervous to be under scrutinised. At the end of the class, she remarked that I should not teach but facilitate. So, I knew that I may have done something wrong. Should I carry on with my method or just obey and follow what others facilitators are doing? In the end, I decided to follow her instruction and do discussion during the class with some teaching through email to the class for the fourth and fifth lessons. In the final lesson, I did a mixture of both teaching and discussion, helping them to make a clear and simple listing from the Bible passage. I ended the class with a Summary Chart to capture the 6 lessons. Again, the ministry leader came to my class. I was wondering why she did not even attend the other class facilitated by another new leader, just like me. Very likely, she is checking on me. Why just me? And not both of us? She may have her reason that is not for me to questions. At the end of the class, the Thank You card is the best reward that shows that I am doing the right thing.

Thank you, Lord!

Getting Back to the WORD Ministry!

The Bible study guide book

It has been a gruesome 6 weeks of involving in facilitating the studies of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is my first term and I am sort off understudying a trainer to be a facilitator. I was given 2 sessions to facilitate and it has been good to learn new things and new approaches to study the Bible.

It all started about 3 years back when I was praying about God’s calling and how I can be more effective in God’s Kingdom. Sometime in 2016, I shared this to my cell group about this and was thinking about going to a Christian welfare organization to serve as a volunteer. Then a few months later, during the LIVING THE GOSPEL seminar, where we were told to learn to hear GOD and speak out what GOD had said to us about some members in the group; the overseer of my cell who was in my group at that seminar “prophesied”, telling me to go and serve in the ministry that I have intended. At that time, I thought it was GOD’s confirmation and as I was making up my mind to visit the Christian welfare organization, I felt a strong rebuke from the Holy Spirit to not to be allay by “seemingly prophecy”. It was then that I recalled that the overseer was present in the cell meeting when I talked about my intention to be a volunteer. “Be Patience!” I felt God’s prompting and assurance that He will show me the direction.

Also, in the beginning of 2016, Riverlife Church began to see the importance of teaching the church to grow in the WORD of GOD. I thought this is very important as previously, their emphases are on Mission/ Evangelism and Spiritual Gifts. And so, I was regular in their Bible Study for the whole year and at the end of December 2016, my leader sent me an email asking me to be a facilitator for the year 2017. As I read his email, I immediately wanted to turn him down as I felt that I was not ready to get involved. Then the Holy Spirit’s prompting was so strong and revealing that the WORD ministry is the area that I should get back into. After all, I have always love to read and study the WORD of GOD, and I could do it daily and spent a lot of time, yet still feel the joy of it.

We have finally completed the 6 weeks class last Tuesday. 

Receiving the certificate of facilitating 

And so I am back to reading and studying the Bible daily! For the past 3 days, I was studying on the Epistle of Ephesians. If only we Christians understand the rich blessings from God in the heavenly place when we are IN CHRIST (Chapter 1), then we need no longer crave for the worldly pleasures and sins that the world offer and tempt us!! Like Paul’s prayer for the saint of Ephesus, we need to know God, know HIS Calling, His riches and His power.

I am beginning to love this Epistle … let’s discover more spiritual from the WORD of GOD!

Eph 1:3 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ”

Agape

You "heard" it right!!

What an assurance that I felt last Friday night (25 July)!!  Or was it mere coincidence if you believe in that? The theme for my Bible study a week earlier was the same as the invited preacher’s first session.

A Friday earlier, I was leading a Bible character study. It’s kind of hard to decide what to prepare. Will I get a favourable respond from the cell members? After considering a few Bible characters, I think it’s best to pray for guidance. Then the impression I got was “Live by faith, not by sight” (2Cor 5:7).

One person that I know that probably fulfil this is – Abram, contrast that with Lot in Genesis Chapter 13. And so this is what I have prepared, with my title is: Our decisions affect our destiny:

After the Bible study, I think the members did not seem to show any interest. Some were wondering why I chose such a topic. Maybe it is God’s way of telling me not to do it again. I don’t have a gift of teaching. I can’t even hear God clearly. This is probably the last time for me to do some Bible teaching and even learning how to hear from God.

On 25^th July, Friday, night, as I listened to Pastor Benny Ho teaching on the Book of Ruth, I felt so comforted that it’s as if God was telling me that I heard Him rightly. Yes, “Decision determines Destiny!” – as it’s the title of his first session. To confirm that, Pastor Benny Ho, also talked about Lot, making Moabic (freshly) decisions. We need to “walk by faith, not by sight”

“But, LORD, why did you show me this?” I quietly asked.

I looked around the worship hall, and most of my cell members were not present. Maybe God was using me to bring HIS message to them as they missed the opportunity to hear from such an inspiring expository preacher, Pastor Benny.

And so, “Yes, I may not be able to teach. But, thank you God, I heard your prompting, not my imagination. Amen!” J

Agape

Must Visit this site

My SBC lecturer, Rev Dr Rick Griffith has set a website.

http://web.me.com/singaporerick

Insides this website has all his lectures notes and powerpoints.

Lectures include Old Testament surveys, New Testament surveys, and many more.

The power points are very well done with alot of nice pictures that I copy from.

Do visit this site if you want to learn more about God's WORD.

Doing Good to others?

Ever since I came back from the Malaysia Trip, I have been working and studying on the Book of Titus. This is one book that is called Pastoral Epistle and since I am no a pastor, I must
say I didn't pay much attention to it..., until Pastor David call me to prepare Bible Study for
the youth.

Reading and meditating on this book has sort of help me alot to be more conscious of peole around me. The Apostle keep on mentioning about "doing good" as a Christian testimony. The question then is, "How often do we do good to someone?"

I have finally finished writing the Bible Study material for the youth. Phew!! This time round, I have included discussion, fun, looking at real life situations, and included some spiritual self evaluation for the youth to work on. This is goner to challenge them alot!! Hope they responsed positively and look at themselves squarely. I hope 2009 is going to wake them up spiritually.

As for me, time to move on to reading and doing others things before the year move on to more work!!

Struggling with Scriptures – The Sequel

Understanding Scripture is difficult. Applying Scripture is even more difficult. I am reading this book – Applying the Bible, by Jack Kuhatschek and have been pondering over how the Bible can be made more alive in my life. One chapter sends a chill down my spine:


During the late sixties and early seventies, I was a student at the University of Texas. It was an exciting time to be on campus. Vietnam War protestors held huge rallies and marches. Long haired hippies gathered for rock concerts and love-ins. With over forty thousand students on campus, something was always happening.
One day a group called the “Children of God” came to town. They pulled up in front of campus in a large bus covered with religious slogans, such as “Jesus Loves You” and “Drop Out for Jesus”. Immediately they began passing out tracts, preaching judgment and salvation, and talking with anyone who would listen.
Our InterVarsity chapter didn’t know quite what to make of them. Their zeal was contagious – and a bit frightening. They accused us of believing a watered-down version of Christianity. They claimed we were guilty of spiritual adultery, of embracing the harlot – Babylon the Great – because we had not dropped out of society.
To make matter worse, they supported their charges with Bible verses. They took us to passage after passage that seemed to support their position.
I remember one passage clearly – the story of the rich young man in Matthew 19. In that passage, a man came to Jesus and asked, “What good things must I do to get eternal life?”
“If you want to enter life,” Jesus answered, “obey the commandments.”
“All these I have kept,” the man replied, “What do I still lack?”
“If you want to be perfect,” Jesus answered, “go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
The Children of God had taken Jesus literally. They had sold or given away all that they had in order to follow Jesus. Why hadn’t we? They demanded. Were we unwilling to obey Jesus’ command?
For many of us, the whole encounter was very painful. Most of us were young Christians who tried to be sensitive to the Lord’s leading. Although we couldn’t refute their charges, we felt immediately that they were wrong. But our common sense couldn’t protect us completely from the fear that perhaps we were being disobedient to God.
In fact, a few days later we discovered that two very young Christians from InterVarsity chapter had decided to join the Children of God. Without a word to us, they drove off in the bus to the group’s commune in South Texas. We never heard from them again.
Biblical commands are sometimes difficult to apply. Some people may say, “God said it. I believe it. And that settles it!” But it isn’t always that simple.


I too had a similar experience and feeling during my early days of conversion. On most Sunday afternoon, I would follow my church on street evangelism. We moved around the HDB blocks knocking on doors, distributing tracts and engaging in spiritual conversation to whoever would want to listen. I remember this incident when I managed to get a listening ear. He was keenly learning from the Bible and had invited me back the following Sunday. On the following week there was an older lady with him. I soon found out that the lady was his teacher and she was a Jehovah Witness. Her knowledge on the Bible was undisputable. Every verse about Christ as the Son of God and salvation is by faith through grace alone that I brought out was calmly countered by her. I remember clearly one verse that she used to refute me about the second coming of Christ, when the earth will be destroyed and there will be a new heaven and new earth (Rev 21:1). She replied that the earth will always remain, quoting from Ecclesiastes 1:4 (NIV) “Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever.” Intuitively, I knew she was wrong, but being young in faith, I could not how to answer her and many of her claims.
After I left the discussion defeated, I vowed that I will forever learn and study the Bible. I am still working and struggling at it.

But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. (Psa 1:2)

Mark Lim

3 October

Struggling with Scriptures

In 1Samuel chapter 15, verses 2 & 3 we read about our Holy God who gave the command, “Thou shall not kill” telling Saul to kill women, children and infants!!

This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.' (NIV)

The preacher’s two explanations: (1) the focus of this passage is on obedience (verses 22, 23) and not killing of people, (2) God is sovereign and not to be questioned, is similar to our parent’s reason of “just obey my words, this is for your own good”. Like an inquisitive child, these answers alienate my understanding of a loving God further and contradict what I am told that Christianity is a reasonable faith - a faith in God that can be reasoned, not blind faith (i.e. just believe) like other religions. While I am convicted and encouraged of God’s sovereignty through the preacher’s testimony of how God performed a “miracle” to bring him back to Singapore for his church’s anniversary, yet the question remains unsolved – “why did God want to kill innocent infants?”

I once read a Buddhist critics, sent to me by sister Wei Lin, that Christianity is a cruel faith where you read of God being a warrior and killing innocent people in the Bible while Buddhism is truly benevolence with absolute no killing of all living things. 1Sam 15:2&3 would surely serve to justify his argument if we can’t find any explanation within our understanding of Christian theology, however good this passage is being preached.

Before you read further, which is only a handful of you, let me honestly say that I am not attacking the preacher or any church leaders with this blog. My writing is a reflection, journal and struggle of my walk and faith in God. IT IS MY PERSONAL ENCOUNTER WITH GOD. However, I think some of you may face the same struggle (or just curious) and so you choose to read what I write. Others will ignore this blog. Journaling helps me to be honest with God and transparent to people. I need not wear a “mask” to church. What you read is what I am thinking (but not all things. There are so many thoughts and I write down the strongest thought that convicts me.) Also, I am learning and do correct me if my thoughts are somewhat off skew, just like a concern sister-in-Christ who sometime ago sent me an email to caution me about my thoughts on pastor. Thank you.

My finite mind will always struggle with my infinite God and His Word


TO BE CONTINUED …. (will be back, after much thinking & struggling)