Bible History & Geography class

(posted by Paul Zilmer)

Last evening we launched a new class, Introduction to the History & Geography of the Bible. Many people are quite unfamiliar with the geography of the Middle East, especially in ancient times. And even many who are pretty familiar with the Bible have trouble placing Abraham, David, Moses, Job, and Daniel in the flow of history and Bible events. We've scheduled this class twice before, but events have prevented us from actually delivering it, until now.

We had 15 in attendance, which included several members of the ecclesia. A home Bible class suspended their regular study and seven of the regulars are attending this class — five members and two students who are studying with them. All told, we had nine members and six students. Everyone seemed to get a lot out of the class. Some photos follow.

Long overdue catch-up

(posted by Paul Zilmer)

We are way behind in our posts! The summer concluded with 2 standalone classes: "Faith, Hope & Love" and "Prayer".

The Fall Term got underway the first week of September, with two 6-week classes. Wednesdays I presented "How to Study the Bible" again — the 4th time we've offered this course. On Thursdays Norm Fadelle presented "Basic Discipleship", I think for the third time. HTSTB had modest attendance, but 4 students completed. Two of these had taken the course before and were re-taking it for a refresher. The Discipleship class had good attendance and several completed, although there were a few who had to do some make-up classes to finish it out.

Last week, a new class started on Thursday nights. Steve Davis from Boston is presenting "Gleanings from the Book of Ruth" for 5 weeks. He joins us via Skype and we project him on the wall. Skype permits the class to be interactive, and Steve can see us and hear questions.

Tonight we will start "Introduction to the History and Geography of the Bible", a 4-week class. We'll try to be a little more timely in posting something about it!

We continue to have several students who are having individualized instruction. In two cases we are working through a self-study course with them, and in other cases the instruction is customized. Three of our students are attending every, or almost every, class we offer. Two of these also attend regularly on Sunday mornings.

The current classes will run until the week before the US Thanksgiving holiday in late November. As we've done in prior years, during December and early January we will offer a set of standalone classes. Planning has just gotten started for what those classes will be.