How to Lead an Outreach Bible Study

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Joanna Kimbrel
Hello, everyone. Welcome. It is so good to see you all here today for this session on leading an outreach Bible study. My name is Joanna Kimbrell, and I’m the coordinator of women’s initiatives for the Gospel Coalition. I’m here with a couple of my friends. Why don’t you introduce yourselves?

Amy Gannett
Hi, I’m Amy Gamit, and I am the founder of Tiny Theologians and the Bible Study School House, and my husband and I are church planters in Greenville, North Carolina.

Felicity Carswell
Hi everyone, I’m Felicity Carswell. I have the British accent, but I actually live near Chicago, and I love to teach the Bible, and I also co-host a podcast called Two Sisters and a Cup of Tea, where we chat through the Bible over a very English cup of tea.

Joanna Kimbrel
I love it. That’s so great. Okay, well, we believe that Bible study is an incredible way, not only for us to grow as believers, but also to share the gospel with other people, to evangelize to others. And so, in light of that, we wanted to start this session out by hearing a couple of stories from each of you about how you have seen people come to Christ through Bible study.

Amy Gannett
I remember not long ago we had a woman come to our church, and I remember greeting her. I’m a pastor’s wife, we’re in a small church, so I’m on the greeting team, kids ministry team, you know, you name it. But I opened the door that day, and said, “Welcome, is your first time here? And she kind of looked at me and said, “Yes. I was like, “Oh, how did you hear about Trinity? That’s the name of our church. And she was like, “No, I mean, it’s my first time in church. She had never walked through the door of a church before, and so she had her around, and she came back the next week, and I asked her if she would want to get lunch, and we had a phone call, and I checked in with her, and we got lunch, and she had just started exploring things of faith, and in her words, you know, exploring spirituality – what would it look like to be a spiritual person? And she had started reading the Gospels, and was very confused. There’s a lot of confusing stuff in there. If you’re seeking out spirituality and not looking for Jesus, the Gospels can be a very confusing place. So, as she was reading through the Gospels, we talked through questions, we talked through difficult passages. And a couple weeks later, as we were, you know, kind of doing a check-in lunch, like, kind of, we weren’t studying scripture every week or following a reading plan, just reading scripture and then getting together, and then reading more scripture, and then getting together and kind of texting in between and chatting in between. We got lunch one time, and she, we had been talking about the gospel, and talking about, you know, at a certain point all of us have to decide what we’re going to do with this information. You know, we can learn more about Jesus, because she had encountered him as we were reading through the book of Mark. You know, we can learn a lot of information about him, but all of us have a moment of allegiance where we say, you know, Lord, I believe, and I want to follow you, and she got this sort of like mysterious sparkle in her eye, and she said, I’ve done that just this week, and so she, through reading the book of Mark, gave her life to the Lord, as we just worked our way through scripture, the Lord changed her and saved her. Want to give that at that

Felicity Carswell
love that I also am having the privilege, actually, over the last, I would say, probably a year, in a more of a group setting. So I run the women’s ministry at our church, and we have a Bible study that meets on a weekday morning, and one of the, one of the ladies who comes to the Bible study, she’d been connecting with her neighbor, and they’d ended up walking together a bit, and this neighbor had been asking, well, where was Kylie going on a Tuesday morning? Well, actually, I’m gonna, when I go to Bible study, do you want to come? So this girl, she comes along with Kylie, and it becomes very quickly apparent that she has never been in this kind of setting before. She doesn’t own a Bible. She is fascinated by her new friend and what it is that is different about her. And as and Kylie had warned me that she was coming, and so we were kind of explicitly welcoming, and kind of we have all sorts of people here and trying to be as helpful as possible in terms of getting your bearings in that setting, and I fully expected that we might see her a couple of times, and then, and then that would be it, but she has kept on coming, and this last year in Bible study we have walked through the whole of Romans, and over the course of that time, I mean, it’s not your first choice of book, is it? You’re like, oh yeah, come and check out Romans nine with me, that’s where we want to go, and she has.. there’s been various levels of processing, she’s been processing with with Kylie, but also with myself and a couple of others, and there have been times when she’s been like, I don’t know what is going on, but there have been other times where she is just absolutely compelled, and I think she has not said explicitly, I trust Jesus, but everything about the way she’s responding in Bible study, she’s her husband that she started coming to church, her husband now comes to church with her, and they are talking about themselves as believers, and they’re kind of in the body, we’re doing a summer Bible study. Be over this coming summer, just kind of low key kind of thing. She has invited her mother-in-law, who is now coming as well. So, the fruit of how she is.. we’re all like, okay, I think this is through the power of the word. It’s just been a joy.

Joanna Kimbrel
I love those stories so much. And you know, I think a lot of times when we think about evangelism, about people coming to faith. We don’t think about Bible study, right? That’s not our first thought. Maybe we think about going out, and whether it’s door to door or it’s, you know, whatever it may be. But why open the Bible with unbelievers? Let’s ask you that first.

Felicity Carswell
Why open the Bible with unbelievers? Why open the Bible with anyone is actually the question. Because believers and unbelievers, we are all people, and God works through His word by His Spirit. I love there’s a verse in John 663 and Jesus is chatting to His disciples as He does. You know, when they’re asking questions, they’re like, I don’t, I don’t get it, I don’t get it. And He’s, He’s just been talking, and he says, in the midst of his conversation, he says it is the spirit who gives life, the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. The words that Jesus speaks are spirit and life, which means that God himself is at work as we open up the Bible, and this means that as we get the Bible open with an unbeliever, it is not in any way dependent upon us and our words. Sometimes it can feel like that, can’t like, oh, someone’s asked me. I’ve been longing for this person to ask me why I believe what I believe, and then I think, what words am I going to use? How am I going to explain it? God has given us His word, and it’s just the best to have the objective word of God open in front of you with an unbeliever, because we’re now together asking questions of this word. I’m not just having to conjure up the words that are somehow going to persuade this person that Jesus is the best. Jesus’s words are life and spirit, and I found that to be hugely burden relieving. It’s a freeing thing to get the Bible open with an unbeliever for that reason.

Amy Gannett
Yeah, and I would add that as we disciple others, especially those that have very little exposure to the church. One of the guard rails to make sure that we’re not discipling them into our own image or into our own particular tradition or discipling them into our denomination to make sure that we’re discipling them in the gospel is to read God’s word together, let God tell them about Himself, let Him introduce Himself in His own words, because He longs to do that with people, and so as we open scripture together, we get the chance to let God speak, and a little more freedom, like you mentioned, to some insurance that we’re not just hoping that they adopt our spiritual practices, but that they actually seek to know Jesus more, because He wants to speak to them.

Joanna Kimbrel
Yeah, I love how you’re saying that’s so freeing, both of you. You know that God can introduce Himself in His own words, and I think that is really freeing for us. It takes some pressure off too, so that it’s not – it’s not up to us, right. God’s word is powerful. Now, I will say, Who can be brave in here and raise your hand and admit that the idea, though, of asking an unbeliever to read the Bible with you is a little bit terrifying. Anybody, I’m so glad I’m not the only one raising my hand right now, because that would have been really awkward. Okay, so the question is then, How do we do that? How do we make that ask when it can feel really scary?

Felicity Carswell
I agree, and that can feel like it’s the biggest deal, isn’t it? Because in our heads and in our prayers, we’re praying that this person might want to get the Bible open with us, because we would love them to follow Jesus, come to church, all the things, but when we’re asking someone, we’re not actually asking them, “Do you want to become a Christian? Do you trust everything Jesus says about sexuality, about everything? Do you want to do this life and change everything? We’re just saying, “Have you ever read the Bible? Would you like to? And you see, that’s just a really low key. I found that to be a way of, it’s just more low key, and it’s just a bit more, well, it’s just less threatening to them as well. Like, do you want to become a Christian? But actually, have you ever read the Bible? And would you like to? And would you give me 20 minutes of your time? How about we just sit down? I’ll buy the coffee or the cup of tea, in my point of view, and would you be up for just getting this book open with me? I found that to be a good way.

Amy Gannett
Yeah, and I would just add on a practical level to not be overly covert about it. I think a lot of times as Christians we’re sort of like, I’m going to buddy up to this person and I’m going to try to sneak in some scripture and we’re. Going to try to covertly make it a Bible study. I think people are honored and respected, especially if it’s a group Bible study that you’re inviting somebody to. Don’t invite them to a cool book club hang if it’s a Bible study. Tell them, tell them, invite them to study scripture with you. Tell them intentionally what this is, and I think it is low key, but I also think so many people are curious about scripture, and very few people have access to it if they aren’t in, if they aren’t friends with Christians. So, if we don’t invite them often, they don’t have a chance to actually unpack some of the stories that they know from literature, like Jonah, and they likely know the story of Noah’s Ark or Daniel, they’ve heard these, they know the main Jesus, especially if they live in the Western world, they’ve heard a lot of these stories embedded into literature or written into films or in shows, and so by inviting them explicitly, would you like to read the Bible with me, actually gives them an opportunity, and so the more you see it as an opportunity for them, a low-key opportunity, but a positive opportunity. The more you will, the more the nerves will leave, because you see it as such a thing. I actually remember I worked in office once, and one of my coworkers was Mormon, and she just very casually one day we were talking about something of faith, because we related on that. We both talked about things of faith often, and I just graduated from seminary, and so she knew that about me. And so we were chatting about things of faith, and she said, “Have you ever read the Book of Mormon? And she said, “Would you ever want to read it with me? And I was like, “I actually have read the Book of Mormon. I was like, “But what we have in common is scripture, and you know, we both say we believe the Bible, so maybe we could read that together, and she was like, “Oh, what a great idea, you know. And so here, here I had made this ask of this woman in a very casual way, but do you know what I almost missed? Is she the same thing to me, and guess what? It didn’t feel like it didn’t feel like she was asking me to go to temple, it didn’t feel like she was asking me to become Mormon. It felt very casual, and in the context of our friendship, and that’s why I think I was able to casually be like, maybe we could read the Bible together. And so the more we adopt that posture, and the more we draw on maybe instances where somebody’s invited you to do something, even like somebody might say, do you want to come play pickleball with me, and you’re like, I’ve never played pickleball before, you know, but maybe I’d want to try it. The more we have those experiences ourselves and reflect on them, the more it takes the pressure off, and we realize that it’s just an opportunity, and it can be casual.

Joanna Kimbrel
Yeah, that’s really good. We kind of make it weird, don’t we? Yeah, we make it weird. Okay. Well, we can see then we have this option of like one on one Bible study, group Bible study. Let’s talk about this idea of group Bible study for a minute. What would you say to the woman who maybe is saying, “Hey, my Bible study is the place where I can go. It’s my safe space. I can speak freely. I don’t love the idea of inviting an unbeliever, because then I’m going to worry about what they’re going to think or what they’re going to say. How would you respond to that?

Amy Gannett
Well, I’m.. I would first say, I’m so glad that you have a space like that. A lot of Christian women long for a space like that, and so, what a gift having a place where you feel full yourself. What a gift that is. And it’s worth reflecting on what a gift that is also to give. Gifts are just not meant to be hoarded, they are meant to be given away. And so, as we invite others into that space, one, I think we do well to remind ourselves that the Bible study dynamic doesn’t all of a sudden become about recruiting this one new person, it’s still about God’s word, which offers us a little bit of a corrective, as somebody who’s been a part of many Bible studies, led many Bible studies. It’s easy for some women’s Bible studies dynamics to be all about, well, I can share my burdens here, what a great thing that is. But at some point we might find ourselves making the Bible study a little bit less about the Bible, and it becomes about the just the fellowship there, the fellowship is wonderful. We don’t want to get rid of that at all, but we do want to center our lives on God’s word, because fruitfulness will happen as we study God’s word, as we let Him speak. And so there’s value in saying, okay, well, do I feel this way because we’ve actually kind of relinquished this being a Bible study, and do we need to recenter God’s word? Because with an unbeliever there, actually the topic doesn’t really change. You might have different questions depending on the personality or temperament of the unbeliever that is there with you, but most likely you can invite somebody in just as you currently are, study God’s word, and what a gift it will be for them to hear you share about your struggles as you study God’s word. For somebody else to say, I feel so myself here. I think actually that bears witness to the transformative and unifying. Power of the spirit, because a lot of unbelievers look at the church and say, I may not know the Lord, but I know that is a miracle. Community, true, genuine community is a miracle, and people, Jesus himself told us they will know you by your love for one another, and so invite somebody into that. That, in and of itself is evangelism, and it’s something we really are called to.

Felicity Carswell
That is so right. The witness of community, we take it for granted. I think what we have, even just being here, you know, we’re chatting to each other so easily, and we’re just loving one another, but in a church family, even more so. And how distinctive and striking that is to the unbeliever. So, let’s be generous with it, for sure.

Joanna Kimbrel
Yeah, that’s great. Well, when we think about this kind of Bible study, where we’re inviting others in, what should be our expectations or our goals for this kind of study?

Amy Gannett
Well, we want the word to be central, and we want to give freedom for somebody to ask questions. Now, just.. and so that in and of itself is a unique structure. A lot of times we think that Bible study should be me standing up at a whiteboard and just teaching the whole time, so that is one way Bible study can look. But in a setting like this, I really love the idea of everybody with Bibles open, and we’re going to read it together, and we’re going to just talk about what we notice, because in doing so, you’re exemplifying what it means to read scripture and how to study it, and how to apply it to your everyday life, so that rhythm, that model of small group study, is just so phenomenal for that. And then we want to leave room for questions. I actually think that a lot of us, in imagining an unbeliever coming into whatever current Bible study we have, we actually imagine a lot of voiced questions, but actually, in my experience, that’s not the case. Those questions have to be drawn out over time, and over the time trust is developed. People need to feel safe in order to voice the questions or the doubts that they have, especially in a room where they feel like a lot of people already know scripture. So, giving time and attention to studying scripture altogether, talking about it, showing how you might bring your questions to the text, and how that might apply to your life, but then giving time and space for people to ask questions, especially as they’re seeking, what would you add? I think

Felicity Carswell
that’s so right, and I think the nature of the questions that we’re asking in Bible study, that we would be asking open questions, that it’s a culture in that group, in that setting, for everyone to be, you know, not having all the right answers. Actually, Bible study discussion is not about landing on the right answer. We want to, we want to understand to the best we can what the word is saying, but, but the reality of why it’s there and what is the implication for our life. Well, we’re all coming away with questions. It’s a wrestle, isn’t it, to be in the word and under the word, and we’re helping one another to walk on in this journey, and so I think that culture of open questions, you know, the how does this really shape the way I’m going to do Monday morning, rather than what does verse nine tell me about those kind of questions. I think that’s a helpful thing.

Joanna Kimbrel
I noticed that when we talked about goals and expectations, neither of you said the goal of the outreach Bible study is conversion. So, my question would be, let’s say that the unbeliever comes in and at the end of the study they reject the gospel, is that a failure?

Felicity Carswell
Isn’t that such a good question, because I don’t know about you, that can be really tempting to feel like, well, that’s it, it’s all over, because I’ve prayed and I’ve asked and they’ve come and now they’re saying no, and in my experience this has happened frequently, thankfully, and praise God, there have been times when people have accepted Jesus, but there have been many times when that’s not been the case, and I love that. As you watch Jesus in his ministry, you see people hearing him and walking away. And what we know to be true, Isaiah tells us that the word of God never returns empty. The word of God, that life and spirit word, is still life and spirit that is not dependent upon whether a saying yes Jesus or no Jesus, God is at work in that, and actually we don’t know what’s what kind of moment we are on their journey with Jesus, so in that moment that they’ve walked away, there’s actually a clarity there that maybe they didn’t have before. That’s what I found. I was reading the Bible with an old school friend of mine many years ago, and she – we read through Mark’s Gospels really quickly, and she, at the end of it, was like, ‘This is great for you, Flickr. I’m not loving it. It’s not.. I get it, obviously. She didn’t get it, because she walked away, but that, like, she. what she did get was that this changes everything. Jesus is going to change everything, and she’s not ready for that, but who knows? Who knows further down, like 10 years, 20 years, however long? Who knows? At least now she has encountered Jesus. She knows who Jesus is, and I think that’s what we need to come. With is God is at work, whether we see that in acceptance or not.

Joanna Kimbrel
Yeah, that is so encouraging. And again, just remembering that this is not up to us, right? This is God’s work that He does through His word, and so success and failure does not ride on us, and he works in his way in his time through his word, that’s so encouraging. Okay, I think that there might be some women in the room who maybe feel hesitant about inviting in unbelievers intentionally because there’s this extra pressure to have all the right answers to the really hard questions, or just to make sure that nobody’s offended, everybody’s happy, and everything’s fine. So, how can we navigate that?

Amy Gannett
I don’t know about you, but I always want to have all the answers, even for my kids, you know, or for friends that are going through hard times. We always have this propensity to say, I wish I knew it all, but God, in His sovereignty, has withheld the all-knowing nature from us. We are not expected by God or by others to know the answer to every question, and so I actually think that part of our discipleship is to tell somebody when we don’t know the answer, but that we’ll continue to wrestle with it and get back to them. I think that means a lot to people. When you say I’m not sure, let me look into that this week, and then the next week you say, I’ve been thinking more about your question, because guess what, they probably have been too. And so, by following up with them, you can really bless them by saying, you know, I looked into scripture, I talked to somebody I trusted. I also think there’s a real temptation when we want to know all the answers, to pretend that we have all the answers, so maybe we shoot from the hip, and we very quickly give an answer, but we say it with a faux confidence that isn’t really backed by the word of God, or we really have, we really aren’t sure of the answer, and we just didn’t want to admit it. Part of what we’re inadvertently doing in that moment is discipling people into once they’re a Christian, they have to have all the answers, questions have to stop, you cross that conversion threshold, and that’s it, you gotta know everything, no more question asking, and of course that’s not true, and so I think by being a seasoned believer, or a woman leading in ministry, leading the Bible study, or just a seasoned woman sitting in the Bible study circle, and saying, you know, I’m not totally sure. One of the best things you can say is, I don’t know, what do you all think, and letting people wrestle with it themselves. I think that that’s a really powerful aspect of our discipleship and evangelism. I

Felicity Carswell
think that’s right, that as we are, there’s no, there’s no kind of discrepancy. We’re all students of Jesus, we’re all students of His word, and I think that’s exactly right. We’re discipling into actually the way of Jesus, the way of continually being a student of Christ, and but also people of the book as well. So, where do we go in order to find the answers? Not Googling, I might Google it to find the Bible verse, or whatever, but actually the primary modeling means is actually I’m going to the Bible to find this out. I’m wrestling with scripture. This is what we do as Christians. We don’t know the answers, we’ve got questions, we’re going to the Word. This is the ongoing Christian life.

Joanna Kimbrel
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that we have to wrestle a little bit with our own hearts in this too, like, where is that fear stemming from? Is it stemming from loving people well, or is it stemming from our own fear of man, right? Like, are we worried about what they’re going to think of us? Are we worried that our pride is going to be injured? You know, because the reality is that we are all on this earth in order to participate in God’s mission of making disciples, and so it’s great to have, you know, these places where we can be other believers, and we want to be constantly inviting people into that, and so I think that there is this continual seeking the Lord that has to happen, and saying, “Search my heart, God, what is it that I need to lay down in order to take the risk and be vulnerable and be okay? Saying, “I really don’t know, and that can be really hard, but I think that’s such an important part of what we do here. Okay, this is kind of a really specific practical question in light of the same idea of I don’t know how this is going to go. This really applies not only to unbelievers, it applies to anybody. What do you do when somebody says something unbiblical?

Felicity Carswell
Yeah, that is, we’ve all thought that I think it’s really on this same line of thought. So, the first thing I would do in that setting, just, and is in a gentle, loving, compassionate manner, because, as we’ve just been talking about, we’re all questioners, we’re all students, we’re none of us have arrived. So, but in that, just asking the person, like, where are you seeing that in the Bible? Like, where is it? And so we’re directing our conversation to the word, and we’re showing them that actually our authority is through the word. It’s not that I’m going to correct you and tell you what’s right and what’s wrong. Actually, what I’m seeing here through this passage in Mark’s Gospel, whatever, is that Jesus is this, not that, and so your first port of call is actually it’s not that you’ve got magic knowledge together. Let’s have a look at the Bible and see, see what’s going on there. What is actually being said, and if you’re in a group setting, I think it’s a great thing to invite the group into that, and hopefully you have a culture in your Bible study group where you’re kind of, you know, it’s more like volleyball than ping pong, you know, it’s not just the leader going question answer, but actually everyone in the group is, is, I don’t know whether you’re getting the sports analogies here, but you know, you know what I mean, and you’re everyone’s involved in that, so after saying, “Okay, where do you see that? Well, has anyone else got any thoughts on this? Is anyone able to help us here as to what’s going on there, but then at that point maybe there is a kind of, there’s a place to explain it, to say, “Do you know what? In my understanding, if you’re the leader in this, in this context, in my understanding, and from what I’ve seen, as I’ve been following Jesus, this is what I’ve come to understand. But with the intention, let’s pick that up afterwards. In a group context, it’s really hard to have the pastoral kind of level of conversation needed, so I would be seeking out that person afterwards, thanking them so much for speaking up. Can we grab a coffee? Like, would you like to talk about that more? Or how about, you know, we get together next weekend, so you kind of gently, without bashing them.

Joanna Kimbrel
Yeah, you know, I’m struck by the fact that these Bible studies often involve a lot of people, right? And so you, as the leader, are wanting to navigate that well, but then there’s also the fact that there are other women who are participating too. How do you disciple the women in your church towards creating this kind of environment where we can have these discussions where we’re like, oh, well, what do you think, because that’s not something I think that would come naturally for everybody.

Amy Gannett
I think there are just by setting the example of inviting somebody in, and how you dialog with them is going to go so much further than any, like we’re going to have a women’s training on how to, you know, welcome an unbeliever into our Bible study, just the way in which you are show genuine interest in the person who is visiting, and if they ask questions, showing genuine interest in their questions, answering them with compassion, even by developing the skill set, which I’m sure many of you have, but all of us, as Bible study leaders, can grow in our skills of leading a group Bible study by saying that’s a really great question, or a really interesting statement. How, what does everybody think? What does anybody think about that? Does anybody else have thoughts on this, and giving the spirit being patient in the group setting, such that the Lord might direct the group to answer. I think that’s actually super formative for the group, as you exemplify it. Now, I can imagine there being a scenario where one woman might come to you as the leader, and you might have this spirit of a welcoming posture towards this unbeliever. Maybe they find their woman might find their incorrect answers really grating, or their presence, you know, kind of stifling of the way they want to share their life in this particular group, and that’s a real opportunity for discipleship, because that woman has at this point failed to experience the joy of evangelism, and to know that she can be herself and share with this group, and that’s a real opportunity to invest in that woman and ask the Lord to give you a glimpse into what is going on underneath the surface, that you might help her grow more in joining in the mission of God. That’s one way. There’s so many, but that’s one way we disciple the whole group in these kinds of settings.

Felicity Carswell
I mean, I think primarily that is exactly what we’re saying, but working hard to create this culture through modeling it and through being vulnerable ourselves, whoever we are, whether we’re leading or we’re participants in our own vulnerability, and being able to say, I just don’t know, I’m really struggling, or just the honesty of that, but it’s not that an unbeliever turns up and you suddenly have to shift into that gear, that is who we are. We’re a group of authentic people who are seeking to follow Jesus. Come and look in on this, be part of this.

Joanna Kimbrel
That’s great. Thank you. Okay, I want to get into some really practicals of the actual study itself. So, are there any specific books of the Bible that lend themselves. Well, to an outreach Bible study where you’re inviting unbelievers in.

Amy Gannett
I think I do think Felicity’s idea of studying Romans is really great. We all laughed about it earlier, but I’m like, you guys, Romans has this great path of discipleship, what it’s a treat seeds on the gospel, like it’s such a wonderful theological explanation on the gospel. So I really think that you should invite unbelievers into whatever you are currently studying, that is my conviction. So wherever you are, God has seen fit to bring this unbeliever into the doors of your church, or into your life, or into your neighborhood, he knew right when they would enter your story, and so invite them in just right where you are. But if you’re choosing strategically a book of the Bible to study, spend time in the life of Jesus, spend time reading the Gospels, because Jesus is the crux of all of scripture, so before you read Genesis, well, Genesis is pointing to Jesus. Before you get to the apostolic letters of the New Testament, well, they are looking back and applying the truth of Jesus. So spend time reading about the life of Jesus, because one, it’s going to give you so much to talk about. Jesus is constantly teaching about the way of the kingdom versus the way of the world, the way of salvation. And then we read the story of His death and resurrection, and right there, embedded in the Gospels, is this reality that every person has to grapple with. What do I personally do with the person of Jesus?

Felicity Carswell
Yeah, so true. And on that, Mark’s gospel is actually the shortest gospel. I found that to be a really good place to start. I don’t know whether, as you’re hearing this, you’re thinking, “Okay, that’s all very well, but how do I actually do that if I’m not an expert in these gospels? I found Mark’s gospel to be a really simple kind of, you can see through there, who is Jesus and why did he come, and those are the two big questions. But also, there are some great resources out there as well. So, John’s Gospel – there’s a resource called the Word One to One, especially if you’re not in a group setting, but on a one to one basis. I’ve used this a number of times. It literally walks you through the passages, and they’re together with you, reading it and getting the information, then you’re talking about it. There’s another one called You, Me and the Bible, which I haven’t personally used, but I’ve got a friend who’s been using it in their church, and they’re seeing just great on-ramping for unbelievers to come and join Bible study afterwards. And so I think there’s lots of ways in which we can scaffold getting into the Bible with unbelievers.

Joanna Kimbrel
Yeah, that’s great. Gospels are such a great place, and to Amy’s point, don’t let the fact that, oh, our church is doing something else discourage you from inviting unbelievers. I mean, a very dear friend of mine came to faith in Christ through coming to our church’s Bible study on Exodus, so God works through His word and can and can work through through anything. Okay, as we’re considering inviting people in, we know we feel intimidated, maybe, but they probably feel intimidated too. So, what are some things that we can do to make people feel safe and welcomed?

Felicity Carswell
So, I think there is the explicit and the implicit here. So, explicitly the person who’s leading that morning, that evening, just making it really clear that there are all sorts of people here at all different stages on their walk with Jesus. You haven’t just walked into a room where everyone is on like the seminary track, and you’re going to be feeling awkward in that, but we have people, and it’s okay to say that out loud, because I think lots of people think as they walk into a church everyone here is like sorted Christians, and that’s not true. We know that to be not to be true. So, the explicit welcome in that sense, and there’s also just the implicit welcome of that same culture that we’re talking about as women in our church family. Are we expectant that we would have unbelievers in our midst, and so then we’re actually taking that into account as we’re engaging with the people who are in our group, who are in our discussions, and that can be in the way that we engage in the discussion, and not that we are kind of holding things back or anything, but just in the way that we are kind of open and welcoming, and and part of this will come through modeling, part of it will just come through intentionality, so just thinking, what does it look like to really love this person, and actually, for that to be not just something that happens at Bible study, like Amy was saying, you know, the person walks into a church, do you want to, do you want to grab lunch, that may seem a bit weird to first, but let’s text, let’s have a phone call, I’d love to get to know you outside of Bible study, it’s extending the hospitality, the welcome of the word beyond the Bible study, which will then help to make people feel safe as they turn up on a Tuesday morning, or whenever it is.

Amy Gannett
I think the general practice of hospitality is a huge part of how we learn the rhythms of making someone feel really welcome. So even things like introducing the newcomer to everybody in the group, making sure everybody knows each other’s names, just even some of those simple hospitable things that we can do to make somebody feel comfortable. It’s often for it’s easy to take for granted in the church that we might have Bible studies in one another’s homes, but for a lot of people who aren’t a part of communities of faith, and they don’t have deep connected friendships, walking into somebody’s home might feel like walking into a very private space to someone else, even that, and culturally in different contexts that can feel very intimidating to different people, depending on how much hospitality they’ve experienced, so just having enough hospitality moments of hospitality throughout the study, where you’re introducing people, welcoming them, saying, you know, we sit in the living room, is you know, you can sit anywhere you like. I’m going to sit here, would you like to sit by me? If they don’t have a Bible and everybody’s reading out of one, go just pull one out and put it in their lap and turn to the pages, and make sure that just keep an eye on them, and say, How could I make them just feel comfortable in this space? That’s just going to go a long way.

Joanna Kimbrel
Yeah, that’s great. And I also would add, I think a lot of times we grow up with so much Christian lingo that we don’t even notice as Christian lingo, and that’s one thing, whether this is an intentional outreach Bible study, or not, to be really careful about the language that you use, and don’t just throw out words like sanctification without explaining what you mean, right, but actually think, okay, if someone was new coming in, would they understand what in the world I’m talking about, and in that, in that vein, I would also say, even if you’re not leading a Bible study where you’re specifically inviting unbelievers, always act as if there are unbelievers in the room, because there probably are in your church. There are probably unbelievers in the room,

Amy Gannett
or there are believers who have heard the word sanctification so many times they got nervous to ask the first time what it meant the first time they heard it, and now it’s been five years, and they are too embarrassed to ask what it means, and so just having the cognizant awareness that there’s somebody who’s new to faith in the room is actually going to bless so many of the women who are already there and maybe just weren’t trained in some of those ways.

Joanna Kimbrel
Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Really quickly, what could our structure for a Bible study like this look like?

Amy Gannett
Well, I think it’s really important to sort of lay the framework when you get together. I think it’s really important to give women just a time to connect. So, Lord actually works in that. A lot of times in women’s ministry circles, it’s easy to, like, joke – women just want to talk, they don’t, you know, we never get to the Bible study, or we spend all our time doing prayer requests, and what we kind of mean to, we kind of mean to be dismissive in our joking about it, but I actually think the Lord really works through female friendships. So, as we give 10 minutes at the beginning for people to chat and stuff, and not, you know, worry so much about the clock, the Lord’s actually going to use those friendships, because what they’re doing, it’s exchanging numbers and saying, I’d love to get to know you outside of Bible study. So that’s really important. I think the lingering at the beginning is important, and I think the lingering at the end is important. So, if you’re hosting the Bible study, or somebody approaches you to host a Bible study, one of the things to consider as you count the cost of what it would take for you to host this study is not it ends at eight, but allow for the lingering, because the Lord just really loves to work in the nooks and crannies of after the study, when women are sharing their lives together. So, but in the first study to lay the groundwork and say, “Hey, we’re here to study the book of Mark, and this is how we’re going to study it. This is what a typical week is going to look like, and at least this is what we think it’s going to look like, and we’ll see as we go. So today I’m going to open this in prayer and ask the Lord to meet us as we open His word. And then we’re today we’re going to read this chapter. Today we’re going to read these verses, and then I’d love to walk us through a couple of questions, if that’s okay. The first week is always going to feel a bit more wooden. It’s going to take some time for those relationships to develop, for mutual trust to develop among the women, for people to feel comfortable bringing forward their questions and their suggestions, for them to see how you respond to somebody’s incorrect answer, for them to see what you’re expecting of them, all of those things, but to lay that groundwork and say this is where we’re going to start, so, and I like to say, actually, does that sound good to everybody? Is that are we all on the same page about what this looks like? I actually think setting that framework just is a real blessing to everybody, so everybody knows what it’s going to look like. And then do it, read God’s word together, and prepare in advance, unless you’re using a Bible study that you’re following. If you’re just studying scripture together, prepare in advance a couple thoughtful questions that would draw out how somebody might be understanding what the heart of what Jesus is getting at.

Joanna Kimbrel
Yeah, that’s great. Thank you, Amy. Okay, so let’s say that they come to your Bible study. What’s next? How do we move forward from that point,

Felicity Carswell
and this is key. Either you’re meeting on an individual basis or in a group setting, you don’t want the Bible study, whatever that looks like, to be sort of siloed off, to be this separate thing, because really we’re wanting to integrate people into a wider church family that they would, as they come to know Jesus, would actually see the massive privilege and value of being part of a church family, so lots of us will be meeting in homes, but if you are able to meet in a church building, particularly for unbelievers, actually, if they were then to come to church, it’s not such a big jump, you know, if you’re going in someone’s home, and then, but actually, this is where we come and do Bible study anyway, why don’t you come on a Sunday as well, and come to church with us. That’s a kind of just quite a practical kind of integration into church, making it just not such a big barrier to come. The other thing is just being really intentional about that integration in terms of introducing them to other people in the church family. So, you know, as women, we love to get together, don’t we? But actually, let’s make that a deliberate thing of I’m deliberately going to invite this girl who’s been coming to Bible study, she has yet to meet this crowd over here, I’m going to get a coffee date together or whatever, and we’re going to, or a play date, whatever it may be, and just gradually incrementally sweeping people in, and so as they then, if they were able to come to church on a Sunday, it’s not that you’re the one person or these five people are, if they’re not there, it’s all over, but there are just a whole wider range of people involved, and what’s happening in that is an integration, but also you’re not the guru as well, that you’re providing them with other people who are sitting at the feet of Jesus, who can then just provide different ways of expressing what they’re believing of their understanding, and just that kind of just naturally talking about that as a natural thing, then that this would just what we do, come with us, and

Joanna Kimbrel
yeah, yeah, that’s great. Well, Amy, Felicity, all this has been so helpful. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and experience. Thank you all for coming in here today, and I’ve asked Felicity to just close us out with a word of encouragement from God’s Word.

Felicity Carswell
I love the book of Ephesians, to be honest. If you asked me what book of the Bible I was in at this moment, I would be loving that book of the Bible, but Ephesians chapter one. We all know that the mega blessings that are apparent at the very, very first chapter of Ephesians. It’s huge, isn’t it? And as I read it, sometimes I think, well, that’s that’s amazing. And Paul then says, he says, yeah, and this is what I’ve got, this is what I’ve got. And I sometimes think, yeah, I get it that you’ve got that, Paul, but what about me? What about an ordinary person who’s not a super apostle like that, and I love chapter one, verse 13 of Ephesians, because he says this, so he says in verse 11, in him we have attained in the inheritance, you’re like Paul and his crew, but then in verse 13 he says, in him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of yourself, salvation, and believed in Him were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. Isn’t that great? When you heard and you believed the gospel, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit. So when we open this book, that God, by His Spirit, is working through this word, and people hear it, and they believe they receive the blessings of Ephesians one, and that is massively assuring to us, but isn’t that just the most incredible thing to pray for our unbelieving friends and family and neighbors and whoever that they would be those who hear and believe and the beauty of it is that it’s God’s work and as we get this word open whether it’s on an individual basis in a coffee shop in a church in a Bible study in our home wherever it may be we can be praying and trusting that as the word is heard, and people believe that they are sealed with the Holy Spirit, and have these comprehensive blessings that are described in that opening of Ephesians, and I love that.

Joanna Kimbrel
Wow, what a gift that is. Well, thank you all both so much, and thank all of you. I hope that you enjoy the rest of your conference.