Galatians: A Summer Series

This summer, June – August 2012, my congregation is studying Galatians in the adult Bible classes, the college class, and in the high school class. It’s part of the multi-generational strategy we adopted last year.

We’re going to mix up the teaching method a bit for the adults and college students, adopting the pattern used by Community Bible Study, a non-denominational Bible study popular in many areas, including Tuscaloosa.

Here’s the idea:

* The first week is an introduction and overview of the book. This will be especially helpful for Galatians, which is a tough text to read cold.

* Thereafter, the study of Galatians will be a daily rather than weekly event.

* Students will be expected to do homework — nothing terribly hard. For the five days preceding class — Tuesday through Saturday — they’ll be expected to read a passage and answer a few short-answer questions. The passages will be posted with the questions each week (and available as hard-copy handouts at the building).

* On Sunday, the questions will be quickly reviewed. Where the facilities permit, the class will break into table top groups to discuss answers. The class will end with a discussion class led by the teacher.

* On Monday, the students will read a commentary (posted that morning) that summarizes the week’s study.

The high school classes will have their own materials, written in parallel. These materials will include thought questions for parents to discuss with their children. We want to encourage parents and teens to study together.

This is, of course, a very different approach from traditional church Bible classes. Particularly unusual is giving the lengthy reading after the class as review material, rather than at the beginning as material to be mastered before the lesson. The idea is that the students should begin by reading and reflecting on the Bible itself. The commentary comes at the end.

This means I get to use a WordPress feature I’ve never used before: passwords. I’ll post the material as quickly as I can write it, but the posts will only open for the teachers — being those with the password.

Each week, the password protection will come off a post, and everyone else will have access post by post. (I will make the password available for readers who want to teach in their congregations along with us. You’ll have to tell me which class you’re teaching and where. I’m a curious guy. Email me at jfguin(at)comcast(dot)net.)

I have created a WordPress page, posted at the top under the banner, with all the Galatians lessons listed, with the dates for study, to make it easy for teachers and students to download materials.

(A longer version of this post for teachers is available via password.)