Saturday, October 18, 2008

Council Estate Christians part 3: Bible Studies

There is a myth that people on Council Estates do not like Bible studies. In our church however, Bible studies have been the main means of evangelism and discipleship.

Before we started as a church, we had 3 Bible studies a week. Some of the youth who came to these meetings, were not doing well at school (or not even going), yet they would come to bible studies, and engage in the text.

When we ran Gospel Nite (seen in the video below), there came a time when the youth were more interested in the Bible study than in the music, so we locked off the music, and just ran the Bible study. There also came a time, when we just did straight expository teaching for the youth.

During the last 4 years, we've consistently had an emphasis on bible study, yet seen people come and go. At times, God has brought large numbers of people to us, who get well into Bible study, at other times hardly anyone comes along. The reason for numbers decreasing has not been bible study itself, rather it appears to be people's hearts. In our experience, people from council estates are well capable of studying the bible, however as human beings - we often don't like what is in the bible. The biggest problem then with gospel ministry on a council estate then is not supposed difficulty with bible studies, but rather with hearts (as in any other place in the world). I'm not coming up with anything new here, this is all in the bible, check out the parable of the sower in Matthew 13.

Here's a video of Gospel Nite 3 years ago: