Mavis Moon

Hello! We may use some of these videos and I think it's a good idea to build a library. I wondered if there's any way you could include more information about each one to help as we try to find something pertinent. At the least, the title of the sermon in addition to the Scripture would be helpful. Even more helpful would be a brief description/summary of the content. Perhaps there could be topic tags. Besides helping people like me find something for use at my church, YouTube is huge and it might become useful to people and communities outside the CRC.

Hello! We may use some of these videos and I think it's a good idea to build a library. I wondered if there's any way you could include more information about each one to help as we try to find something pertinent. At the least, the title of the sermon in addition to the Scripture would be helpful. Even more helpful would be a brief description/summary of the content. Perhaps there could be topic tags. Besides helping people like me find something for use at my church, YouTube is huge and it might become useful to people and communities outside the CRC.

We are trying to do the same thing. We are in San Jose, CA. Did you have any luck? How did you end up disposing of your pews?

I heard Trevor Noah's interview on Fresh Air. It was good. I haven't read the book yet, but now I will. Your questions look great and I plan to return to discuss. Thanks!

I'm not sure I understand what this would look like. Can you give some examples of what you are talking about? Such as: "preach[ing] co-illumining Bible/creation-based sermons and catechiz[ing] whole lives based on the whole counsel of God? " Could you give a link to someone doing that? Or a transcript? And "tutor[ing] seminarians on God’s word in nursing, computer science and journalism and [teaching] them how to read those ‘creation texts’". I'd like to see it and understand it better.

This is, I think, a tough issue. I agree, and I think we all would agree, that we need more engagement with the Bible. I've been participating in small groups for many years, and I still find it difficult to stick to Bible study with a group (and without, but that's a different topic!). 

One common challenge I find over and over is your bullet point "Group members come prepared to participate." Even with the best of intentions, people just have a hard time doing the preparation needed - reading the material before the meeting, or filling in answers to questions, etc. It just doesn't happen! When I have seen at least some success with Bible study in a group, it's been with books or guides that can work with having people "read" the material at the meetings. Either the material is very brief and able to be read aloud together at each meeting, or the leader has prepared ahead by finding key passages for the group to read together, enough to facilitate discussion. Like it or not, that's been the reality over and over.

Today I read a quote from John Suk's Twitter feed where he said, "People look for community before they set off on a search for God." It made me think of a recent decision I had made regarding the small group I am leading. Right now I have a lot of other commitments at our church and Christian school. I found myself really dreading the preparation I'd have to do for leading our small group Bible study, so I changed the format to be only a social/community format. We meet for coffee and dessert and share and prayer. At a later point I'll probably go back to including Bible study, but for right now this gives us a community of supportive, caring fellow believers.

I would not call it pure Bible study, but I have seen some success in a kind of theological book club that I was a member of. All of us find theological books interesting, and we had a book club where we read only those. Now that worked all right. And it speaks to another of your bullet points, "Group members understand the purpose of the group is Bible discovery. Relationship building and support will take place but are not the primary purpose." We were there to discuss books we read; it was not a small group or community in the sense that we would often think of them.

These are some random thoughts of mine. I would be interested to hear what others have to say and have experienced, too.

Hi Marieke,

I used the regular (NOT the non-profit) package. I checked out the non-profit version but found it didn't work the way I wanted. If I remember right it kind of combined persons and households, and it seemed geared toward large non-profits who are tracking donations from companies and that kind of thing, rather than the way I am using it as an internal directory of our households and people and their offerings.

Mavis

I would agree with what Justin said. You do have to do some customization since it's not made specifically for churches. I cover what customization I did in my two articles.

We use Salesforce's mass mailing capabilities pretty frequently and it works well. We have all our members in there and can easily select who we went to send mail to. I created a simple template with our church logo and we use that to write messages.

As far as what it can't do, it's not a solution like ChurchSocial or others that are far more extensive in what they include, and specifically created for churches.

Hope that helps!