Bible Study.
Home Group.
Connect Group.
Small Group.
Pastoral Care Group.
Community Group.
Groupy Group Group Group.
Can we please stop stressing already, and just leave it as 'Bible Study'? Yes, I know it involves other aspects, not just studying the Bible, but come on, you're killing me. It's just a name.
Huldra Forsvant (Theodor Kittelsen)
Huldra Forsvant (Theodor Kittelsen)
16 comments:
yes please.
our church has just changed to 'growth groups' - i kinda like it...not sure if I'll ever naturally default to saying that tho!
Ours are called Growth Groups too (and always have been). But I can't get out of the old habit of calling it Bible Study. I agree we should just say it as it is.
A-ha, growth group! I knew I was forgetting one.
Our church has "life groups"
I don't know ANYONE who says "I've got life group tonight" though.
Keep that attitude up and you'll start calling the meeting of the whole church family for prayer, praise, word and sacrament on Sunday morning 'Worship.'
Like that'll ever catch on.
I think they can be different, Ben. I've run 'Bible studies' (in fact, I ran one tonight), but that's quite different from our gospel community (members of whom attended our Bible study).
Our Bible study is an event you can attend. You can 'go to' it.
But you can't 'go to' our gospel community. It's not an event to attend; it's a community to belong to.
In the same way, you can 'go to' Sunday lunch, but you can't 'go to' your family.
Having said that, if your group is basically an adult tutorial that happens once a week to read the Bible, then yes, call it a Bible study :)
I just keep calling it "bible study group".
I can't break the habit!
OH please yes! Could we just stop making up names and get on with things.
I'd reckon how you do what you do is more important than what you call it.
How you do it will end up informing what people invest in the name, right?
I just think that words mean something, so it's a good idea to use words to try to capture how you envisage the group.
If it's just a Bible study, don't try to gild it with a fancy name. But if it's something different, don't mislead people by calling it a Bible study.
My oppinion is that 'Bible Study' has never just been Bible study. It always involves other stuff. Friendship, growth, community, meals together etc etc. That's not a new thing, I'm sure groups have always included other aspects on top of meeting to read the Bible.
So why is it so vitally important to be so painfully literal about the name- oh no our group involves more than reading the Bible, therefore we must change the name. At least with 'Bible study' the Bible is first and foremost and everything else is on top of that.
It often feels like there's about 5 people in the congregation who think there ought to be some new fangled name, and the rest of the congregation who would be happy just to call Bible study, Bible study, get stuck with a name that they probably feel a bit embarressed using.
Sure, 'Bible study' can be seen as an event rather than a community. But why can't a 'Bible Study group' be a community? Is it that you need the word 'group' or 'community' in the title for it to notbe an event?
It all seems painfully unneccessary to me.
By the way, thanks everyone for your thoughts and comments!
Obviously depends on your past experience :) The Bible studies I've attended and led haven't really been very relational. But not everyone has my shortcomings!
I get what you mean, but I think you don't HAVE to limit Bible Study to just studying the Bible.
And if the relationship part of the group isn't clicking, surely changing the name won't do mauch to help that?
No, indeed. It's carts and horses, I think. Merely changing a name probably won't affect the reality of your group. But if you design a new reality, you might want to give it a new name.
So, for example, a gospel community is a radical departure from what is often conceived of as a Bible study. So it makes sense to call it something different.
Less radically, if a church has traditionally run 'Bible studies' of a certain kind, but is now seeking to achieve different aims with those groups, then it would make sense for them to give them a new name, to help mark the difference in people's minds. The name alone won't change the culture, but it's a piece of the transition.
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