Teaching Scripture

Do you own a Bible? Do you read it often? I'm blown away by the continued impact of this ancient text that is the best selling book in history. Below are two graphs from the Barna Group, a statistical research group. The first graph shows the percentage of people who own a Bible, those who say the Bible is sacred, and those who wish they read the Bible more. This graph may not surprise you, but it did me. I was blown away with the high percentage of people who own a Bible and wish they read it more often. Perhaps I was naive in believing that the numbers would have been much lower. But the truth remains...people desire to be more involved in the word of God but don't know how to engage it. This is where we as Christ followers step in. What an amazing opportunity to dive into the word of God with our neighbors, co-workers, friends and family.

At Ethos we believe that the word of God is powerful and will help people walk in a new, resurrected, relationship with Jesus. There are a number of avenues that we use to teach scripture, and both Laura and I are diving into these opportunities to teach God's word.

First, and probably the most prominent and powerful is through our Sunday preaching. This preaching is grounded in scripture and focused on helping people develop a love for the word of God. Dave Clayton, our preacher, has developed a way to train young preachers to proclaim the word of God in a powerful, relevant, transforming, and scripturally based way.

Starting tomorrow (Thursday, April 4), I will be joining this preaching group led by Dave. This group will help me hone the preaching skills that I desire to obtain in order plant a church. I have had some experience preaching and I believe that each time I improve in certain areas. However, this will help me grow my skills as an orator of God's word. Stay tuned for more on how this group is helping me grow as a preacher.

This next graph shows that the influence of the Bible is gradually losing ground in our country. While a lot of people have a Bible in their home, many do not believe that the Bible can speak directly into their lives. 61% of people wish they read the Bible more. These percentages have been declining over the last three years and will continue to decline if we as God's people do not step up and begin teaching the Bible.

I am excited to work with Ethos' many different avenues to teach scripture. While Sunday serves the purpose of teaching scripture to the whole church together, there is value in having smaller groups of people who are able to pour over scripture in community.

One of these smaller group settings we have used to teach scripture is House Churches. Every week groups meet around the city of Nashville in homes, coffee shops, and other locations to study the word of God. This format is designed to be more of a discussion than a formal time of teaching. We take the sermon from the Sunday before and we, together, dive into the content and pull out application for our lives. This is a powerful way for smaller groups of people to interact with God's word together. It also provides an avenue for leaders of House Churches to teach and develop spiritual leadership without theological training or being a "minister."

House Churches serve a great purpose in teaching scripture in a small group setting, and another avenue we use to teach at Ethos is called GROW Classes. These classes are meant to be more formal in style with a teacher bringing prepared lessons before a group. The things we teach are directly from scripture yet have a direct application into people's lives. This takes our people a level deeper in their study of scripture. These classes take place during the summer months (June-July) while our House Churches are on a break.

This summer both Laura and I will be teaching a GROW class. My class, entitled "Missional Evangelism and Discipleship" will focus on identifying the biblical model for evangeslism and discipleship. Laura will be taking a group of women through the Beth Moore study "Living Beyond Yourself: Exploring the Fruit of the Spirit." She is a gifted teacher and will bless the women at Ethos and in our community through this study.

These are just a few of the main avenues we use to teach scripture at Ethos. We see statistics, like those above, concerning the Bible and our hearts break. The Bible offers a wellspring of life and guidance that we cannot do without. Recently Dave Clayton posted on his Twitter account, "God's Word is like the ocean--deep, mysterious, overwhelming, full of beauty & adventure. I pray I never tire of playing in these waters." This is our hope for all people. That as we begin to help people see Jesus we point them to God's word which will help them see the very heart of God. We want people to experience the great adventure that is the Word of God.