Jumping in Again...and a Give Away...

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

I've mentioned before that I was in Bible Study Fellowship for seven years.  It was an amazing journey, and I really, really encourage anyone who has the opportunity to do a BSF study to take advantage of it.

One of the neatest aspects of BSF is the weekly group discussion.  15 (ladies, in my case, as this was a women's only group) discussed in depth questions pertaining to the scripture portion for the week.  We were not allowed to bring in outside sources...quotes from books or commentaries...but were totally to get into the Scripture and discover things for ourselves first; then, after the discussion, we could check other sources.

What awesome discussions we had.

I miss that.  I mean, I really, really miss that.

Part of the reason I started Beer Lahai Roi was to hopefully have some similar discussions but, well, turns out the Internet may not be such a great place to do that, as it's so public.

But a couple of women whom I greatly admire both started online studies within the last couple of weeks.  You've already seen my responses to Suzanne's study of Hebrews; let me introduce you to the second study that I've jumped on board with....

Rita Springer has been a friend of our church for, well, ever since the beginning, I think.  We had not been attending the church very long when Rita and two other ladies, Dawn Sweigart and Terri Gladstone (now Terri Furr), led the women's conference that year, which totally wrecked me and left me with great affection for all three of those ladies.

That team has ended up doing a total of, I think 4 of our women's conferences, and Rita has been a guest for other events as well...sometimes she's just been there on a Sunday to be a guest worship leader (in fact, she will be leading worship at our Madison, AL Campus this coming Sunday).

Well, Rita has written a book, Finding Eve, and  I snagged a copy from the church bookstore not long after it was released.  Took it home, put it on the bookshelf and, so consumed I have been by the data base migration, promptly forgot all about it.

Then, at this year's women's conference, Pastor Leisa said that she would be doing a read-along and challenged the ladies to pick up a 3-book bundle and read along with her this year.

One of the books in the bundle was Finding Eve.  Suddenly I remembered...didn't I buy that book?? What happened to it??

Well, I got the bundle, figuring I could do something with the extra copy should I find that I had, indeed, bought it and managed to find it. 


I was dumbfounded to find that it was sitting on the bookshelf, exactly where it should be. I shook my head at my absentminded self and put the second book on the shelf next to the first one.

Last week, Rita announced on Facebook that she was going to do an on-line,  approximately 12 week, devotional study of the book and invited anyone who was interested to read and follow along.

I really thought it would be a study the likes of which I've been doing here...a blog post with some thoughts and a couple open-ended, thought provoking questions.  So I read the first chapter of the book in anticipation.

Then, yesterday, she posted the link to the first part of the study.  This ain't no little blog post to think about.   This is a serious study guide, and the questions in the introduction (I haven't even gotten to the discussion of the first chapter yet!) have really hit home.  This is meant to be worked through in a week, not quick answered in a day.

Way more than I expected....

Anyway,  as you have no doubt realized, since I have a second copy of the book I decided give it away to one of you lovely folks who are reading my blog.   If  you would like to be entered in a drawing to win my extra copy, just leave a comment on today's post.  I'll be drawing Sunday evening after my Girls Ministry class to see who will receive the book.  I'll mail it free to anyone in the US; I'm afraid international shipping wouldn't get the book out of the country in a timely fashion, so my apologies to anyone from out of the States who happens by here. 

I want to do it fairly quickly, so whoever gets it has time to catch up, because the catch is that if you  win, you need to participate in Rita's study along with me.

The link is up on the Finding Eve Facebook page, but if you are not on Facebook and you want to participate you can send your email address to  Findingeves at gmail dotcom and Rita  will email the link to you each week.

Between Eve and Hebrews,  I should be challenged...this will be good. 

Who wants to come along?