A New Year...

 Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

WHAT an original title for the post, lol.  I started writing, left, came back, looked at it and rolled my eyes.

Eh.  It works.

It's January, which means we have a crew of folks at church doing The Shred...which is not a diet-and-exercise routine, lol.  It's a plan to read the entire Bible in 30 days.  I did it two years ago, and debated doing it again, but decided I'd do another personal challenge instead.

It's still a repeat, but it's a test to see if I can do something I've been thinking about for a while.

One of the past challenges I've done is reading the Bible through in a year, following a simple formula of reading 3 chapters in the Old Testament and 1 chapter in the New Testament every day. If you stick to it faithfully, you'll actually finish before the year is over...sometime in October, I think.  But everyone misses a day here and there, so finishing in a year is a definite challenge...but one that's attainable.

But I added another layer on it.  One of the Bible study tools I teach is what I call the Bible Survey, that basically involves writing a sentence summary of each chapter as you read it.  We did that in four years when I was teaching the High School Girls class. 

I wondered if it would be too hard to add the Bible Survey on top of the 3 + 1 reading.

I grabbed a college-ruled, three subject spiral notebook at the grocery store last week and started on Sunday.  Two chapters in Genesis on page one, one chapter in Job on the first page of the second division, and one chapter in Matthew on the first page of the third division.

Today I'm on day 4 owing to a bit of a late start, but, like I said, there is a bit of wiggle room in the 3 + 1 plan.

I will still be doing the Heart/Hearts study on Fridays (or maybe Saturdays...lol).

I feel good about this.  If I am instructing folks to do this, I should be doing it myself, no?  

Here we go...

Putting the Heart Study on Hiatus...

 Posted by Lisa Laree to  Beer Lahai Roi

It's been a busy month....

Just returned from a trip to Florida; My Sweet Babboo was teaching three sessions in a class at the Florida Royal Ranger camp, which just happens to be about 15 minutes from The Flute Player and her hubby; we had time share points to burn before the end of June and The Actor's birthday was just before Mother's Day...so we headed south for a week.  The classes were great, we got to do a belated birthday celebration for the Actor and worship with friends who are pastors of the church at which the kids are on staff (Berkely Chapel) and then we spent three nights at the resort that's next door to Animal Kingdom and crammed in all four parks before we headed north again.  We are tired and footsore but we had fun.

And, I'm telling you, scheduling a return from vactation on the start of a holiday weekend is PURE GOLD.

So that's why I missed last week's post, lol.  And the week before...well, I've been  spending my writing time working on a thing and I finally got a first draft done.  I've written up the curriculum I've been using for about 7 years to teach a very basic 'How to study the Bible' class.  I've already referenced most of the key info in the blog in past posts, but I had to get it organized into something like a workbook.

I have no idea what, if anything, I will do with it.  I've sent the 1st draft to a number of folks at church for their recommendations...we are revamping our discipleship programs somewhat and I'm not sure that my class will fit the new model but at least I have something put together.  If you clicked through the link, you'll know this is very, very basic...just to help folks get over the intimidation factor of Bible study.  I might just post the whole thing here, in installments... It's not that long.

But, having more or less finished that...at least, until I get some feedback...I should be ready to dive back into my weekly study here.  Except...in two weeks, I'm getting a new hip and EVERYTHING is going on hiatus for a bit.  So I've decided to make life easy on myself and I will resume the study once I'm off of narcotic pain killers, lol.  I may drop in with a couple of 'Here's something I've been pondering' posts before the surgery, but I do have a LOT of things I want to get done 'before the surgery', so I'll just see how things go.

I've had a few people tell me that, after I've healed up, I'll ' wonder why you waited so long to do this', but this is literally the first time I've had a big enough gap in the calendar to schedule it since the dr told me I needed it.  Even then, it's a squeeze; we've a family vacation coming up in September and it's going to be close whether I'm back to at least where I am now at that point.  The surgery is amazing; it's an outpatient proceedure that takes 45 minutes.  I'm told it's much easier than knee surgery...and, as I'm likely going to have to have the knee replaced too...I am really hoping the folks who are telling me I'll be up and going in no time are right.

Once I'm off the pain meds (which I hope to be Really Soon...I hate that stuff) I should be able to get back onto a fairly regular posting schedule again.

Just in case you were wondering, lol. 

Finished.

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

I started the year with the intention to read through the entire Bible.  I've never done it entirely in one year before, and I thought it was high time I did it.

The reading plan I used was simply '3 + 1'...three chapters in the Old Testament and one in the New Testament every day.

I stayed fairly well on the plan;  I'd get a few days behind but then catch up again during a vacation or holiday when I had a bit of extra time.

I was on vacation in Gatlinburg at the end of October when I finished the book of Nehemiah in another catch up session.  I checked the list and I had only Zachariah and Malachi left.

Wait.  Only 18 chapters?  And I was behind?  I knew there was a little extra time but I'd never added it up.

I went back and looked at the numbers and realized that, reading three and one every day, you finish reading in mid October.   

There are 1,179 chapters in the Bible, dividing that by 4 is 295 days. Which leaves 70 extra days.  So if you stick to it...you'll finish in the late part of October.

Or, you can skip a day a week; 3 + 1 six days a week and you'll finish mid- December.

Or, you do what I did...realize you had two months to read fourteen chapters and spend some time doing other stuff, like writing a little study on a chapter in Exodus, so that you end up finishing with two days left.

I wouldn't recommend that approach; it was too easy to slack back.

Overall, though, I'd recommend this as a way to cover the Bible without getting too rigid about it.  There is a little slack time for vacations or extremely busy work seasons, or ...you know, life stuff that happens.  I did keep a journal, so I knew where I was in the reading and what I had to do when I got behind.  And I kinda sorta read through it in Chronological order, with a bit of exception (for instance, I started the New Testament with John, which was one of the last books written, because it began with ' In the beginning'...just like Genesis, then just read all of John's writings...1,2 3 John and Revelation before going back to Matthew).  I looked at what dates scholars believed the books were written and followed that, reading two from OT narrative, one from the wisdom books and one from the NT.  When I finished the Wisdom books I started reading three a day from the given book, going from 2 Chronicles to the prophetic books dealing with the last days of the kingdom and the exile before going back to Esther, Ezra and Nehemiah, finishing with the post-exilic prophets.

If I had been just a little more pro-active, I'd've finished Malachi during Advent, which would work very well with the season.

I read through my (relatively) new, unmarked NIV '84, marking as I went.  I'm actually thinking of starting again on Jan 2 with the ESV and going through again.

Wonder if I could just keep repeating the cycle with a different translation for the next few years...hmmm....

The 4 Year Bible Study

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi


 It's a challenge to the girls in the High School Girls' Ministry Club;  in order to get honors at graduation, they have to read the whole Bible during their four years in the club.

The challenge, should they choose to accept it, is to outline as they go.

Summarize each chapter

Roughly outline the book, based on the chapter summaries

Write the theme of the book on the first page

Go on to the next one.

Psalms and Proverbs are a little different; I just asked them to give each psalm a title, and then make a list of verses pertaining to various topics in Proverbs.

But if I'm asking the girls to do it, I should do it as well.

Finished Revelation yesterday...just a couple months shy of 4 years after I started.

Fascinating and enlightening way to study the Word.

We called it 'The Four Year Bible Survey', and any girl who completes the challenge will be given a warhorse study Bible.  We've had one finish so far; there may be another this year.

Now I need a new Bible Study plan...

Bible Survey, Anyone?

The program we use for our girls ministry is, by rights, an Assembly of God product. We're not an AG church, but we use the literature just the same.

Back in the day, it went through, oh, early high school. To earn the honors, the girls had to do a ton of memorization and read the entire Bible.

When they added the jr high/high school classes some time ago, they altered the program, putting what had been the top honor in the grade 3-5 club; changing up requirements a bit and only requiring the girls to read the New Testament. They added honor requirements for the older girls;  The Friends Club (jr high) then had to read the Bible through in their three years in order to earn their honors.

But, there's no 'step up' for the high school class. After reading the entire Bible in three years, the high school girls are then required to read it through in four years.

That just sounds kinda, well, lackluster to me.

So, since we're just starting the high school class this year, we decided to add a twist to the 'read the Bible through in 4 years' requirement.

As the girls read, they will be asked to write a one-sentence summary of each chapter. When finishing the book, then they use the page (or two!) of summaries to outline the book and write the theme statement.

There's no right or wrong answers...it's how each girl will decipher what she reads.

When she's done, she'll have a notebook of loose-leaf pages containing her own personal outline of the Bible.

Now *that's* a step up!

(I'm still 'reading the Bible through' with my Friends - the Junior High - class. When I finish, I'm going to start my own Bible Survey notebook. Just to keep up with the class....)

Outline It

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

(I looked around a bit for a way to upload my Study Guide as a PDF file; so far, everything I found indicated it needed to be loaded to a hosting site and then linked. I don't have time to do all that, so I'm afraid it's going to be imbedded. But it's not like it's a great work of personal intellectual property, so feel free to borrow and adapt the idea however it works for you...)

When I taught the youth Sunday School class back in the day, we used a denominationally-printed quarterly . A little. The curriculum we used was designed such that we covered the entire Bible in 6 years (that curriculum has since been discontinued). I thought that the concept was great; kids who grew up in church got a passing acquaintance with the entire Bible in the time it took them to go from 7th grade to High School graduate. Granted, some texts were covered very minimally (we did not, for instance, look at all 150 Psalms individually), but I loved that we really did get into every book.

However, the material was extremely weak. There was a 'background passage' that the student was minimally encouraged to read through the week, but the lesson was usually taken from a short excerpt (the 'focal passage') from the background passage. And it usually seemed rather contrived to make the lesson support one of a limited set of lesson objectives instead of really looking at what was going on in the text.

So I told the kids to read the background passage and use the following Study Guide as lesson preparation:

Lesson Date:_____________ Scripture Passage ___________________

Choose a memory verse for this week and write it here:


1.Roughly outline the passage. Divide the passage into sections that make sense to you. List the divisions, the verses included in each, and a short phrase to describe each division:



2. What title would you give the entire passage?


3. What do you think is the biggest (or most important) truth contained in this passage?


4.What changes, if any, do you need to make in your own life to apply the truths you have learned?


5. List any questions or comments that came to mind as you studied this scripture:

(This was spaced out to fill a single sheet of paper; I omitted the extra spaces, but you get the idea).

Did the kids do it? Well, if I had some sort of incentive for them...but I used it to prepare to teach the lesson. And found it extremely useful just for myself. Later on, when I was in Bible Study Fellowship, I discovered this was sort of a beginning level of homiletics. The homiletical method BSF teaches is very, very detailed and more directed than my little outline, but it's the same basic thought process. It really doesn't matter that the idea of homiletics is to prepare a teaching for others; it's still a good tool for personal study. After all, a personal Bible study is basically an exercise in teaching oneself anyway. ;)

Consume It

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

My Grandma H. was a cook. Seriously; she owned a restaurant for a while and then was a cook at the local hospital for years. She not only cooked marvelously, but she knew how to present the food. Even after she was widowed, she took time to make her food attractive at meal time.

You can imagine how wonderful it was to go to her house for Christmas or Thanksgiving dinner. I remember the table full of food...and it was beautiful.

Now, consider for a moment the work that she put into it to make it wonderful. Yet the highest honor we could give to her labor was not to sit and look at the beautiful table, admiring the feast and doing nothing to disturb the lovely presentation. No, the highest honor we could give her was to dig in, mess it up, and consume it. After the meal, the table no longer had the beautiful appeal...in fact, it could be downright disgusting, if there were poultry bones about. But the meal served its purpose, and we were sustained (ok, fattened).

That's kind of how I look at a Bible. In every class that I've taught young people my marking system, someone has expressed concern that they would be defacing the Word of God by marking in it. One young lady's mother even forbade her to mark in her Bible when I gave the class Bic pens and the assignment to mark Galatians. But, like Grandma's table, God's Word is not meant to be memorialized but consumed. The highest honor we can give the Word is not to put it on a shelf and hold it untouchably sacred; it is to dig into it, study it, and make it a part of our everyday living. Sure, it may not stay pretty and neat, but if we are to become Living Epistles, that Word must get into us and transform us. Whatever we need to do to the physical book to make that happen is ok; that's why God gave it to us.

But here's a practical idea: I've recommended to folks who really have a hang up about Bible marking to go at it in a low risk fashion. Purchase an inexpensive (even paperback) Bible to mark. See if it/how it works for you.

And dig in. ;)

Mark It Up

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

When I was in my pre- and early teens, I had a subscription to a magazine called Young Ambassador. I have no idea if it's still in print or not, or who published it. It was a magazine with Christian content aimed at adolescents. I don't know how long I got it, and I have no memory of any of the content except for one series that ran when I was probably in the 7th grade that was about a Bible marking system, color coding verses with colored pencils. I had a nice Cambridge (King James Version) Bible, but I'd been underlining verses with whatever writing instrument was in my hand, and I was beginning to see that that would be a mess. Whole passages marked in random colors meant that nothing in them was significant anymore; it all blended back together. So I bought a little paperback Gospel of John and marked it up according to the instructions in the magazine.

But there were problems with it. It was difficult to read through some of the darker colors like blue and purple, and I didn't like the idea of carrying around a box of colored pencils with me everywhere. But I began looking, in a very low-key way, for a way to systematically mark the Bible.

My freshman year of college, I tried highlighters of different colors; they were easier to read through but it was hard to find a variety of colors. Plus, they were bulky and hard to carry around.

A readily available, easy transportable idea didn't really hit me until after that first year of college. A Bic 4-color pen was the answer. I figured out a meaning for each of the four colors used as an underline, and came up with a number of marginal symbols to expand on it. I wrote it out on a 3x5 card and carried it in my Bible until I had it memorized.

I can honestly say that my Bible comprehension increased dramatically when I started using that system. It made me pay attention to what I was reading to decide if and how I should mark the verse. And it made verses easy to find when I later wanted to check a reference.


Here's a sample of the system: the underlining and a few of the marginal symbols (that 'C' for 'Commands' is blue, as is the triangle symbol and the general underline; it doesn't look blue on my monitor...). Feel free to use it, adapt it, add symbols, change symbols, whatever. It's a tool that can be customized however you like. That's just how I use it. The Bic pens seem to be the best of the three or four different brands of 4-color pens I've tried; they're about $2.

And you know, years later I discovered that this is sort of an entry-level induction method. Kay Arthur's Inductive Bible Study method involves detailed outlining and marking the Bible on a word-by-word level. If you're already used to marking a Bible systematically, it's not a big jump to the very detailed Inductive method.

But I'm curious...does anyone else use a system (it could be vastly different from this one) to mark their Bible?