First round of classes wrapping up

We've been blessed with fourteen students who have attended our first round of scheduled classes. Two of them have attended both classes. If all return for the final classes this week, we will have 9 completers, one of whom will get two certificates, for completing both classes. (The rest did not attend all classes, and also did not arrange for a make-up session.)

We are gearing up for our next round. We already have 7 signed up for "Acts of the Apostles" and 6 signed up for "Prophecy 101". Some of those who have been attending have indicated they plan to sign up for more. Ads will appear this week in both the community and the campus newspapers, so we hope that we'll get some additional registrations. Foot traffic into the shop is definitely down the past week or so. We hope that the upcoming advertisements will bring some more in — previous ads have definitely done so.

Meanwhile,our multi-lingual sign has generated some interest. Two of our Chinese contacts have (separately) informed us that the Chinese line is grammatically incorrect. Of course, all we had to go on was what was given by an online translation site. We'll get a corrected version printed. (Is anyone able to proof-read the Tagalog, Arabic, or Farsi for us?)  But the sign did accomplish its purpose in spite of the bad grammar. One of the contacts is having us research various Chinese versions of the Bible and intends to buy one.

Besides the scheduled classes Wednesdays & Thursdays, we've had 1 or 2 students at our drop-in Tuesday class as well. And we have one student who is regularly coming in for one-on-one classes, and another student who wants to start doing the same this coming week. We give thanks to God for all of these people. As we get to know them better, we are becoming attached to them, and we pray that the relationships will continue, and develop!

Second week of classes

We've now completed our second week of classes, and we're very encouraged by the results!

On Tuesday evening, Ray Pratt kicked off a discussion class on 1 Corinthians. This is a drop-in class, no registration required, and is intended to support our own members as much as anything else. We did have one student drop in, who seemed to enjoy the study, and at the very end we were joined by another.

On Wednesday evening, Paul Zilmer gave the second class in his "How to Study the Bible" series. It was again well attended, with eleven students. (Three from the first week didn't return, but two new students joined. Good news — two of the three who didn't return want to make up the material & want to finish out the class.)

Thursday evening, Norm Fadelle began his "God's Promises" class, which was canceled last week. We had two very interested students, and would have had a third but that one called to say she couldn't make it.

We also have our first student who is actively working on the God's Master Plan self-study course. Several others have registered, but only this one has so far returned the initial lessons.

We praise God for His work, and we pray that He will grant increase to our planting and watering in the community!

Other developments:

• We finally have gotten a company to do the digitizing of the BEC logo (after a couple of disappointments), and Susan Lange from Bloomington has now begun embroidering shirts for us. (Thank you Susie!)
• An advertising campaign for the rest of the year has been drafted and is under review by the ecclesia.
• At last, the outdoor sign promised by the management of Lincoln Square Mall is in place. Pictures below show the approach from the north. Placement of our sign (at the bottom) is actually excellent. The other side of the pylon is the same.

Volunteers & prayers welcome

It was delightful to have the Runge family visit our little Champaign ecclesia from Chicago this past weekend. Thanks to Bro Chuck for his word of exhortation on Sunday. Thanks to Christine and Chuck for helping to staff the BEC on Saturday. And big thanks to Ruth and Christine for helping out with clean-up and set-up of our main meeting room.

We welcome all who are interested to contact us about volunteer opportunties!  A day, a week, a month, or more — we want you!

And we would appreciate very much the prayers of brothers and sisters around the world. Bro Norm is re-launching his class on "God's Promises" this week, and we pray that there will be some response to our follow-up with the registered students. We also pray that those who attended the "How to Study the Bible" class will all return.

Paul Zilmer

Disappointment

Thursday night at the BEC was a disappointment. We had 7 signups — though we knew one had decided to move to the Acts Class instead. One other had phoned in saying this week would not work for her. A walkby – Aaron – came for a quick chat but he had never signed up to begin with. No one else showed. So zero attendees, in striking contrast to the 12 on Wednesday night. Hmm.

Lesson number one: disappointment is part of life. Lesson number two: abundance and famine are both in God's world. Lesson number three: if there are no shows next week, then perhaps a reasonable option is to cancel the remaining sessions.

Action plans: [1] send out reminders to those who have signed up, [2] do special promotion for that Class, [3] consolidate sessions #3 & 4 (Believers - Part 1 & 2), so that we can still start with #1 God's Promises to Abraham — clearly a key component of the Good News of the KIngdom of God.

Norman Fadelle

First classes

Tuesday, September 1, saw the first evening class at the new BEC. This is a drop-in, no registration class, run as most Christadelphian Bible classes are. The kick-off subject is 1 Corinthians, with Ray Pratt leading. There weren't any guests, not terrifically surprising since we have not yet marketed it very much. (But two people who were in the following day expressed interest, so we may start getting visitors.)

Wednesday, September 2, marked the first scheduled class. We've been focusing on the scheduled classes for our advertising the past 2+ weeks. The Wed class is "How to Study the Bible". (The instructor, Paul Zilmer, tips his hat to Bro David White, whose class of the same name in South Africa was the model for this one.) The Thu class, which begins tonight, will be "God's Promises", taught by Norman Fadelle.





The class seemed to be a great success! Of the 14 people who had registered, 10 attended, plus we had 2 who hadn't pre-registered, for a total of 12 students. The students were very engaged and readily participated. We pray that they will all be back next week!

Significantly, seven of the 12 students are African-American, and one is Asian. In the North American Christadelphian world it has proven very difficult to make connections in either of these communities (with a few notable exceptions). We pray that all such artificial barriers remain far away, as they clearly were last night.

Quad Day

Sunday the 23rd was Quad Day at the University of Illinois. (For those far away: the U of I is in Champaign-Urbana. The BEC is a mile from the campus. There are about 45,000 students, of which a very large number are from China, plus many other nations.) Quad Day is the day before classes begin, and every organization on campus (and some off-campus) has a booth. There are hundreds of booths, and thousands of people.

As we did last year, we had a booth. This year we don't have any U of I students, so we can't be a "registered student organization" and thus couldn't be right on the quad — instead we were on the street that runs on the west side. This location may have actually been better! The quad is a mob scene.


Sorry the picture isn't terrific — we all forgot our cameras, but fortunately Ray Pratt snapped this with his cell phone. We had just set up, and the crowds (and other booths) weren't there yet. At least you can see our brand new banner!

Three of us manned the booth, while the other three leafleted in neighborhoods. We handed out about 700 or 800 fliers at the booth, and the leafleters distributed over a thousand. We had also leafleted the previous day, and all told we handed out 2,400 fliers. The fliers were to promote our fall classes, which will start next week.

Many people simply took the flier (and the pencil, with our web address on it), but a number stopped to ask what we were about. One woman, who I think must be a Chinese grad student, signed up for one of the classes on the spot.

We now have 8 students signed up for How To Study the Bible, starting Sept 2, and 2 have signed up for God's Promises, starting Sept 3. We have 2 students signed up for the next courses, 1 each for Acts of the Apostles and Prophecy 101. In addition, 4 have signed up for the self-study God's Master Plan course. We hope that with last week's newspaper ads, and the fliers, we will see more people coming in and registering.

And of course, whether there are many or few, we pray that God will work through us for the good of all who come!

Real signs!

On Tuesday, real signs were installed, so we could take down the temporary paper banner, and look a little less transient.


Also this week, we shifted to later hours. We had noticed that most people came in toward the end of the hours we were open. So now we are open 12:00 to 4:30 on Tue, Wed, Thu and Sat.


Advertising started in earnest this week as well. The bus signs should all be up (although we don't have anyone who takes the bus, so we will have to find some way to verify). And a fairly good sized ad ran Tuesday in the News-Gazette, and it will run again Friday.

On Saturday, we will be leafleting in the residential areas around Lincoln Square, giving fliers that describe our fall class lineup. We need volunteers! If you can join us, send a note to urbanabec@gmail.com. All volunteers will get a free T-shirt — the shirts also were finally finished this week.

The new signs and the advertising appear to already be helping. Yesterday (Wednesday) was the busiest day we've had yet, with 9 visitors. Of these, 6 came in from 12:00 to 2:00 (when we would have been open before), and 3 came later. Many of those who came in mentioned that they had been seeing us for awhile—maybe the new signage made a difference in them coming in. Two new students registered. Also in the later time after 2:00, we got a phone call from a woman who saw the newspaper ad and was very interested. She is part of a Bible study group, and they ALL want to register for a class!

We feel very blessed, and we're excited about our Tue class starting up next week, and the Wed and Thu classes starting the following week.