Spring Term midpoint reflections

(posted by Paul Zilmer)

Classes from the first half of our Spring term completed this week, with the conclusion of the "Living Out Your Faith" and "Life of Jesus" classes. The picture below shows some of the students completing their feedback forms. We rely heavily on the feedback we receive, as we plan future classes.

For the next 2 weeks, both of our primary instructors (Norm and Paul) will be out of town. We're calling it "Spring Break". Several of our students like to stay engaged, so as we did during the winter holidays, we have scheduled two stand-alone classes. Two instructors from Bloomington, our sister ecclesia down the road, will give these classes: Steve Johnson will present "Prophets of the Exile", and Anthony Green will present "True Christianity".

After the break, both Norm and I will have long-running classes that will run through June. Norm is doing our most advanced class yet, "Getting It Right With Jesus". I'll be presenting a series of short studies under the overall title "Introducing...", in which we'll introduce books of the Bible. The students will select which books we look at. So far, I've heard from a couple of students, who would like to learn about Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job. Looks like we're going to be spending some time with the poetic books!

One of the great things we continue to see is that most students stay after the classes for conversation (as seen in the picture above). They are building relationships with each other, as well as with us. The BEC classes have become a regular part of several students' lives. Since we opened the doors 8 months ago, we have had 68 students register for one or more courses. Of course a number of these never actually get started, and some others start but don't finish. We've had 24 students complete at least one course – and of these 14 have completed more than one. Six students have completed 6 or more courses. (This does not even count the visitors we have for our Tuesday night discussion Bible class, or our adult Sunday School study – both of which have faithful visitors that attend regularly.)

We feel we've made some real connections in our community, and are making a difference in the lives of the people we are serving. This is what we hoped for when we opened the Center, and we believe that God has blessed us very greatly.