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Doing an Online Bible Study Offline

I am the pastor of a Baptist church, and this is about one of the ways we have expanded our Bible Study offerings. In our church we have a number of Bible Studies that meet in people's homes each week, but there are those who cannot participate in them because of work schedules, distance, or other reasons. To help meet their needs we started an online Bible Study using a group mail-list. Any posting by a member of the group would go out to every other member. This allows the interchange of a group study, while giving each person the time to do some of their own Bible Study on the passage or topic before adding their comments.

Since I had been planning to do a personal Bible Study on the book of Hebrews, we decided to get the group started by my sharing the thoughts and questions I had from my own study with the group. Each week we would look at a passage from Hebrews. I spent one week doing my Bible Study on that passage and then on the following Monday I would post my notes, along with some questions to stimulate thought or raise issues from the text. During the week the other members of the group could respond to my comments, add their own thoughts, ask questions, and respond to one another's posts. In the meantime, I'd be studying the next passage for the following week.

Some weeks there was quite a bit of discussion and other weeks very little, but the feedback I heard was that people enjoyed reading whatever was posted, even if they didn't add anything themselves. After we finished Hebrews we did a Bible Study on Romans. Now we are looking each week at different topics such as the Creation, the Fall, Redemption, etc.

This type of Bible study may not work for some, but we found that it allowed shut-ins, those away at college, and people who couldn't come out at night to take part. Instead of just one hour per week, the discussion could continue throughout the week making for a more in-depth Bible Study.

Submitted by Leigh Johnson