October 09, 2023

Although I do love deep Bible study, I also love the fact that we can share small stories and lessons and that we can depart little tidbits of truth with the women in our church groups.

My personal view is that we teach women to have those deep Bible studies on their own and to really search and pursue the Bible on their own because that's how our women will grow in the Word. It's how they will be able to interpret the Scripture and know how to do that rightly dividing that we all need to learn to do personally where the Bible is concerned. I think we fail our women when we don't teach them that they are the master of their own Bible studies. I think they need to be under good preaching of God's Word by their pastors, but our women need to have a passion and desire to dig deep in their Bibles on their own. It's how they will survive the hard things that life will throw at them.

I love reading through the lessons that Jesus taught. If a woman hasn't done much digging into the Word, encourage her to read through the Gospels first. Jesus taught with stories and parables. And some of those stories are not even very many verses, but how magnificent are the truths we can learn from them. Jesus was masterful at sharing a story.

People can relate to stories, fables, parables, testimonies, and any type of story telling really. Stories can have such a big impact on people.

I think about how busy our women are that come into our women's ministry events and activities. Sometimes those activities are just around an hour or so, and when we have a meal or an activity, and part of the time is wrapped up in prayer, part is used for conducting business, and other things, it really is impractical to have a long Bible lesson. So, sharing just one tidbit of truth from God's Word is just about all that we can fit in because having fellowship times are important too.

I'm a believer that if we do any deep Bible studies within women's ministry programs, that we do them on seperate occassions than we do activities such as meals, watching movies together, special fellowship nights, and those type of things in women's ministry programs, because frankly, Bible studies have a whole different emphasis and focus.

So, sometimes, our women's leaders need some small lessons when they want to weave it into an already planned activity, but I think our small lessons should always have an objective. I mean, if you have a little bit of time to talk, use it wisely. Make what you say count. Let those ladies go away with a truth to hold and think about when they leave.

Personally, I want all women's leaders to learn to make up their own lessons and things to share stories and Bible truths on their own, but I know it is a process for some leaders to get where they can do that and feel comfortable about it.

I will be sharing some Simple Lessons with Simple Objectives here in my Simplified Ministry section of the website over time. You will be able to download those and share them if you wish. I do hope that you will add your own illustrations and stories to them to make them a little bit more personal for your ladies.

I haven't decided yet how often I will share these, but for October 2023, I will be sharing four for the month. I'll leave the details of those below. Look for them on Mondays. I'm not sure about December because I have surgery coming up, but I'll be doing another topic for November. This month's topic is "Teach Me".

November 2023 - Teach Me

• Grateful Hearts Make Great Encouragers (Lesson 1 - October 09)
• Feasting your Thankful Eyes on Praise (Lesson 2 - November 13)
• Constructing Prayers of Thanksgiving (Lesson 3 - November 20)
• Thankful Hearts are Happy Hearts (Lesson 4 - November 27)

October 2023 - Teach Me

• An Apple for the Teacher (Lesson 1 - October 09)
• My Dog Ate my Homework, I Have Bought Five Oxen, and Other Excuses (Lesson 2 - October 16)
• Bad Apples in the Basket (Lesson 3 - October 23)
• It All Goes Back to the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (Lesson 4 - October 30)

Copyright ©2023 Julia Bettencourt

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