The “Amazing Grace” lesson materials I’ve been posting for the last several months are no abstract whimsies. We’ve been actually teaching these to all the adult classes in my home congregation. I say “we” because we have a team of teachers who’ve been laboring mightily to turn my musings into actual lessons. And it’s been going pretty well.
We’re using the approach where I teach a class on Wednesday night consisting of all the teachers. We then divide into eight adult Bible classes on Sunday morning and teach the membership. We’ve now done this for about four quarters, and it seems to work pretty well. In fact, with material of this much depth, I can’t imagine how else we’d have done it.
More importantly, it seems to be taking. So far, no one has left the church or met with the elders to complain or thrown stones. We’ve had some passionate expressions of feelings in class — but that’s fine. That’s exactly where you want disagreement expressed, as that’s the place where the congregation, as a body, can discuss the scriptures and share insights together.
And as the members come to better understand their God and his heart, they’ve begun to beg for lessons on baptism, because they are beginning to view believers in other denominations through the eyes of God — through Spiritual eyes. It’s a wonderful thing to behold.
Next week I’ll be in DisneyWorld with my wife, four sons, and one daughter-in-law, and so I won’t be commenting much. I’ll have a laptop with me, but expect to have very little time to actually blog (probably none at all). However, I’ll be posting every day while I’m visiting Mickey. I’ve already written the material, and the computer takes care of the rest.
For the next several days, I’ll be continuing the Amazing Grace posts on baptism. It seems a good idea to get my teachers fully armed up before sending them in battle. This means all the other series will be suspended for about 8 days, after which they’ll pick back up.
PS — While I won’t be around to police ad hominem arguments, I expect good behavior while I’m gone! I can’t begin to express how severely I’ll punish violations!! I am a lawyer, you know. I may send the sheriff.