Confessions of a First Time Bible Study Leader

Have you ever received a recommendation for a Bible study that sounds so good you immediately go on Amazon, use your college kid's Prime account and have it delivered the next day? When it arrives, you read the author's intro, flip through the study checking out the sidebar comments (who doesn't love "fun facts"?), and complete the first day of the study right then and there. For the next week or so, you sit down every day at your "quiet place" with your Bible, pretty gel pens, and washi tape and work through the daily lessons.

Then life happens.

Epic fail on my part with this study ... I had high hopes ...

That's a post earlier this week by one of the women who joined my Facebook group with the intention of working through Angie Smith's Seamless Bible study. All our good intentions fell away in the face of life's events. That member voiced what I knew was my truth, but I'd been too afraid to face it.

Life crashed in to my well laid plans.

Over the past few weeks, my Bible study workbook moved from one side of my desk to the other, but I never opened it. I felt I'd let down the women who joined that group by not setting an example of a woman who sticks to a plan and encourages others to work along with her. My first outing as an online Bible leader, and I'd failed miserably.

I finally got up my courage and responded:

We could all just decide to start again and take as long as we want.

No stress, no blame, right? Then a group member said,

That might be a nice spring thing to do!

Putting aside the fact that it was a cold rainy day more like March than May when I read that, I knew she was on to something! Just because I failed to carry out my plan didn't mean I had to abandon the plan, and more important, I wasn't the only one struggling. Encouragement should come from all group members for any group to thrive not just the leader, and this one simple sentence set me back on the path.

Sometimes we just need forgiveness from others, ourselves, and even God, and we need to adapt to changing situations, much like the people in the Old Testament. Abraham, Moses and David come to mind, but that's because I'm only up to week 4 in this study.  Could be a lot more people receive forgiveness and adapt by the time I get to the Book of Revelation!

So I'm going to begin again much like springtime, and forgive myself for something very minor and remember that God forgives actions both small and big. If you'd like to join me and the encouraging women of the Knit Read Pray Bible study group, come visit us!  No stress, just lots of encouragement!