This handout briefly for you and just to let
you know that our Wednesday night personal
Bible study class that Shiloh wrote in Tyler
became a realized dream in 1987 and the main
purpose of this type of class is to provide a
structured format by which we can study
the Bible on a daily basis.
It is not a class for everyone. It does not
meet all needs. It is strictly for those who
are looking for help in studying the Bible
regularly. Our hope was that we would all
become addicted to this type of help and we
have. Basically Diane and I started the class
because of our own need. We struggle with being
disciplined and committed about meeting
God daily on the written page of his word. We
needed that help ourselves and frankly
I have to be a part of this class leadership
just so that I will do what I want to do.
The class is patterned after several other
Bible study groups that ask for a high level
of commitment in this daily study and prayer
effort. Bible study fellowship is one of those
classes that both of us were in Bible study
fellowship for a long time and we hasten to
say that much of what we have developed into a
Wednesday night one hour program is taken
from the pattern that we saw in Bible study
fellowship. The lessons are worked during
the week and then on Wednesday our class
happens to be on Wednesday evening. Everyone comes
to discuss that together. Those discussion
groups are led by trained discussion leaders
and then that is followed by a summary lecture
with all the groups combined. So when we come
on Wednesday night we go to groups. Usually in
our church we have two to three groups.
Your group leader is waiting there for you. We
have a certain number of minutes allotted
for that group discussion period and then we
all get up and go back into the large room
that we have available to us and we have a
prayer time. Diane will talk about the prayer
request system, how we work that out and there
is a summary lecture which ties it all together
in a little wrap up sort of approach at the
end, about ten or fifteen minutes. Now the
material for our lessons have over the years
been written by several of us on the class
staff and our education minister. You will find
that well they would have been nice to
use Bible state fellowships but they are
copyrighted and they are much too long for our format.
So over the years we have written a nineteen
series of lessons for our particular class
and because of our class there and the fact
that people move on to other places you know
and then they think well it would be nice to
have a class like that here. We have gotten
requests to come and help other groups start
classes and that stimulated us or when we,
you know it is just hard to say well no I don't
believe so God. So we had to get ready
to do that and so we gradually wrote a manual
which is for the leadership of the class and
it gets fatter every year but it is a help that
we have. Over the years we have accumulated
this. We never, it was never our plan in the
beginning. It was really truly never our plan
in the beginning to have it come about like
this. But when it did seem to begin to happen
then we began to pray about how we should
handle it and we made a commitment to include
in our ministry helping other classes begin by
providing the training that we know has
to be there for you in order to have a
successful class and materials. We, in order to
be faithful
to our commitment to provide that strong
foundation for any class that we help start we
have set
forth some guidelines for ourselves and those
interested. I am not going to go through all
of this but just the first one is that the
training of the class leadership has to happen
before starting a personal study class. It is a
must. In order to be successful in a
class like this there has to be a core group
who are willing to commit to train for the
leadership. It is not something you just jump
up and do. It is not for the faint hearted.
It is something that requires effort. We feel
strongly that it is necessary for us to share
what we have learned about conducting a class
such as this and we have learned a lot by
just doing things wrong and so we don't see any
reason why you all should have to struggle
through some of the mistakes that we have made.
And so at this time we make ourselves
available to interested groups by coming to you
with help. Now we don't know where this
is going to lead. Actually we don't really want
to encourage that you use only our materials.
I want to tell you about some other materials
that are out there available to you. If you
go to any Bible bookstore now you are going to
find a lot of materials written for discussion
groups because this is something that is
becoming quite popular. Becoming a woman of
God, a
woman of Excellence, a woman of purpose,
Cynthia Hill. This is a wonderful series. There is
another study called the Joy of Living. It is a
women's study and they have written a
lot of good material. Some of it may need to be
adapted a bit and then Max Lucado has
a series of books, Life Lessons with Max Lucado.
This happens to be the Ruth and Esther study.
There are varying degrees of difficulty among
these studies but we are not the only ones
that have lesson materials and we don't want
you to feel that in order to start a class
like this that you have to have us to do it
because the fact of the matter is that God
will enable you to do what you need to do. If
you do use our materials it is our request
that we be able to work with you on the start
up of the class however. I have a problem
in this. I forgot to take these out. I've got
them in plastic sheets and the light is
just glaring right on it so I can't see very
well here. One of the things too about starting
a class like this that we like everybody to be
aware of is that really the first thing
you need to do is God lays it upon your heart
that a class like this is something you would
like to be a part of that you began by praying
about it. It may just be you. You may be the
only one who has it on your heart to do this
type of study. If you begin to pray about
it then pray for a partner. It's so much easier
to do it with a partner and then pray with
that partner. You pray for timing. You pray for
leadership to be raised up. Other interested
people to come about and be supportive. You
pray for the materials that you are going
to use. Just begin by praying and listening and
waiting because God will be faithful to
lead you in the direction that your class needs
to go. Every church body is different.
Every place is different. You may have a
situation that is not going to lend itself well
to this
exact approach. In fact, one of the groups that
we helped start were friends up in Vermont
where I was for years. That's a unique
situation there that they have. They were able
to take
what we shared with them and adapt it to their
particular situation.
In your handout, here's a page that has the
lesson topics. If you want to just flip through
there, it's in a different order. It's near the
back, about three or four from the back.
We have written some long series. There are
some that are 13-18 weeks. Most semesters,
after we started doing this years ago, we
learned that most churches are on a 13 week
semester. We never thought about other churches.
We were just writing for our group. We have
some three to eight week series. We did some
summer six week series. There are some short
series and some long series. Then you'll see
there are two year long series or two semester
series Genesis and the life and teachings of
Peter combined with the life and teachings
of Paul. Writing questions is a real learning experience.
That would be another thing to pray for. If you
want to start your own class, you can
write your own materials. If we did it, believe
you me, you can do it. You pray for someone
that is equipped to do that, who God is going
to use that way. You just pray them up because
they're out there. We have talent among our own
group and talent that some of them didn't
know that they had. They accepted the challenge
and together we have learned as we've gone
along what makes it better. We hasten to say
that our lessons are not infallible. We continue
to find mistakes or questions that could have
been better written. We are constantly working
on rewrites and editing and it's an ongoing
process. They are what they are at this time
and they will get better as time goes by. We've
included in this packet something that
we wrote especially for this so that we want
you to understand that we want to encourage
you to do this class of course but we also want
you to know that you can do it. You can
generate the talent right out of your group of
women. There's a page in here, I'm sorry
this is not numbered, called tips on writing
your own Bible study materials, kind of in
the middle. I changed the order of everything
after we stapled it. And this is I think would
be helpful to you. We did not have this when we
started. I don't recall that we had much
of anything when we started except the pattern
of a Bible study fellowship type of questions
that we had nine years worth of experience
there with that and so we did have that example
but Diane is a very good writer. Gail is a
writer that's done a lot of the work and there
have been some series that all of the leaders
wrote portions of the questions and turned
it into one leader who then edited and compiled.
We've done it a lot of different ways so don't
be afraid to try that. It's really you know you
are more blessed I think when you do that
work because you really do learn what you're
dealing with. It is really truly a blessing
to have to do that. Okay and let's see now find
the page that says guidelines for Bible
study classes. I think that's about the third
one. I'm just going to have to take these
pages out of here because I can't see a thing.
Getting feedback on. I wear a hearing aid
in the. I'm getting feedback in that. The
guidelines for Bible study classes. At the
top you'll see that we have listed our aims. We
share this information these two pages
or three pages with the whole class every
semester before we start. We're going to demonstrate
that in the third session. It's very important
that everyone who does a class like this starts
out on the same page with the same
understanding about what our goals are, what
our aims are
and how a class like this has to be organized
in order for it to be successful. In order
for it to do what we want it to do. So remember
that the goal of a class like this is to encourage
daily Bible study and prayer. It is not a time
necessarily fellowship does not do some
of the things that other classes do. However
the sweetest fellowship that I know has come
from sitting and hearing the answers of other
women on their personal questions and their
sharing their experiences. I think I know them
better than visiting with him with them
over any cup of coffee. So there is there is a
fellowship factor there. And it is an
encouragement situation when you have a group
of women that have made that same commitment
that you have to be there and study. Then it
encourages you to be there and be devoted
to that daily study and prayer life. It
encourages growth and love and understanding
among that
group. We have learned to know people that we
never probably would have had would have
had such an appreciation for or maybe not have
been in that group of friends by naturally
but because they came to the class and we came
to the class we found new friendships.
The class format is designed with a threefold
approach to Bible study. There is first the
questions when you discover what the Bible says.
Second the discussion groups for sharing
the answers with other class members and third
the summary which is in the form of a lecture
or if you do not have a lecturer for a series
you can do type notes hand out a summary at
the end of the class. Therefore you've been
exposed to the lesson material in three different
ways. Your own personal study which is probably
the most valuable hearing the discussion by
your group and then listening or reading a
summary or both. Commitment is the key word
undertaking this type of study. Spiritual
growth takes effort and it takes commitment
and it has to just be worked out daily. You
have to recommit daily. It is something you
have to hammer away at. One way to place
yourself in a position to grow in your relationship
with God is to commit to an organized committed
group study. You will certainly be encouraged
and stimulated by the group leaders that make
that commitment to interact with you. You
will hear more about that in a minute. The
group leaders are very important to a class
like this. Now turning on over Let's just find
the page that says semester overview
just so we can give you the big picture here of
how a class like this runs. There is a
pre-class beginning when the leadership of the
class which is usually five or six women
each semester who are the leaders prepare and
mail out a letter informing the congregation
of the upcoming class and encouraging their
participation. This is called marketing. Marketing
your class. It announces the topic to be
studied and it points out our basic need to be in
God's word on a regular basis and invites them
to an introduction class. This is one
that we use for the study of proverbs. Dear Ann
Landers, I'm having the most difficult
time with my children. I do not know what to do.
They become disrespectful and unruly.
I'm losing control over them. I've reached the
end of my rope. Please tell me what to
do. Basket case mom. How often do we search for
advice from other people on raising our
children? Marital problems, business decisions,
so forth. How often do we seek opinions from
books and experts before we turn to the Word of
God? Well, God wrote an infallible advice
column called the book of proverbs. Like the
advice columns and expert opinion books we
have available today, it is a collection of
wisdom and instruction for men and women like
ourselves. Proverbs instructs us concerning our
behavior in our family life, our society
and our methods in business. When we pay
attention to the book of proverbs, we have the best
advice available from a loving father on how to
behave wisely in every relationship in
life. So ladies, before you write to Ann
Landers, come join us for an in-depth study of the
book of proverbs to search for the solutions to
our problems through the wisdom of God's
word. We will be meeting in room such and such
on such and such night and the dates
and sign the class staff. This is an example of
another letter that we sent out before
we studied Isaiah. Or is it after we studied
Isaiah? Why did I enjoy the Isaiah study class?
Because of the Isaiah study class, my hunger
and thirst for more knowledge, wisdom and
understanding is growing stronger daily.
Waiting, wanting to know what God's will is in
my life
is helping me weed out daily, time-consuming,
unimportant trivia. And we've gone on and
listed several other testimonials, which is
encouraging to all of us to know what somebody
else thought or felt. Dear ladies, do you
struggle with the discipline of a daily Bible study?
Is it difficult to find time for prayer? Do you
find yourself putting God on hold until
tomorrow, next week, or just until you have
more time? If you do, then you share the same
struggles as the rest of us. We all know there
is strength in numbers, so after much prayer
and consideration, we began a structured Bible
study that developed a regular, meaningful
study of God's work and prayer. This is
actually the second letter. We started with Psalms
and the next series was Isaiah. So this letter
is 1987 vintage. But this gives you an idea
of how it is helpful to send a letter out to
all the women in your congregation. Let
them know what it is that you're going to do,
what your plan is, how the class works.
But you've got to keep it from being dry. How
many have we gotten that says ladies Bible
class begins on such and such and such and
such, the who, what, when, where. This you
need to encourage people all along the way to
jump in and try this because it's intimidating.
It's scary to a lot of people. So it takes, for
the lack of a better word, marketing for
this kind of class. You have to really
encourage. Then on the first night of the
class, we have
what's called an introduction class. That's the
first meeting time of each study. Every
semester, we have an introduction class and
it's devoted to introducing the concept of
the class. The class guidelines are explained
every semester. The guideline page that I
started on there a minute ago will finish up
the session three with. We go over that
every time. Now there have been, there are
women that come to that every semester and
they've been in it 10 years. We go over it
every time because you never know. Well, there
are always women who are new, so it's not fair
to them not to know what everybody else
knows and not to be ready to start in the same
manner as everyone else. In fact, I think
some of our old leaders could probably say the
guidelines in their sleep. In fact, we
began to think, how can we do this differently?
I mean, can we act it out or have a play to
make it interesting? We do have registration on
the first night. We introduced the class
staff for that semester and there is a lecture
presented by our lecturer that's giving the
background material of the topic that's going
to be studied. And then for those who register
at the end of the class, we give them the
opportunity to register and we hand out the
first lesson on introduction night. So the
second night then is the first discussion
night and then there will be 11-13 of those. At
the end of the series, we have what we
call share night and that is one of our
favorites because it's where we sit in a circle and
everybody is able to share what they have
learned, what blessings they've gained from
the study and that truly is one of the most
encouraging times of all. It's a summary time
for the study and we find out what's going on
in the minds of people that maybe haven't
had an opportunity to say exactly how they feel
about the class. So share nights are
always wonderful. We have refreshments and we
have fun. It's a little looser and very
helpful, very encouraging. Okay, now let's go
on to the page that says weekly schedule.
Oops, sorry, one minute. Yeah, I think that's
right. No, needed staffing. I knew I'd turn
this page on. Needed staffing. I wonder where
Kevin is. I don't know if there's anything
I can do about that or not. Well, you all hang
in there. Somebody's going to find our
soundman. Needed staffing. Usually it's about
five or six women needed to be in leadership
for a class of anywhere from 40-50. You can
manage it with four. That doesn't mean
that if you're thinking of starting a class
that you necessarily have to start your prayer
time praying for the class with that many. You
may have that many but you can start with
one or two and it will grow. God will find you
other people. You really probably need
at least four. These are the various jobs. Now
sometimes people can build two jobs during
a semester. First you need devoted group
leaders and in our training manual that's shortened
to GLs. Each group leader has a group of about
15-18 members which he ministers to during
that semester. Now these women are on the front
lines. They're the most important part
of the leadership team. The group leaders are
the ones who are the encouragers. They're
the ones who are in there with those women in
that discussion group and they matter a
whole lot as to whether or not those women keep
coming and loosen up and begin to share
more and more. We've noticed that this type of
class will dwindle after a few months if
that group leader is not a well trained caring
person. They have to commit to a considerable
job. They have to commit to be present every
week. We've sort of made an agreement between
ourselves that if we accept leadership for a
semester that we will promise not to be
gone more than two times out of that semester
if that much. So vacations and trips are planned
around being there on Monday night and
Wednesday night. You'll hear about that in a minute.
Being there for leaders meetings and Wednesday
night class. That's when our class is. The
person that then the class administrator is the
person that is sort of the hub of the
wheel in that they hold the class together
training the staff motivating the staff. So
the class administrator is the leader for the
leaders. She is the one who helps them.
The group leader is the leader of her group. So
the class administrator's responsibilities
are to the leaders first and foremost. She is
the liaison between the church education
minister and the class and she is responsible
for planning and leading leaders meetings
which we're going to talk about in just a
minute. She is responsible for the staffing
for each semester to be sure that there are
enough leaders available and then by prayer
with the staff she determines the subject for
study for the semester following her.
The class administrator has to be very faithful
to be a good example for one thing. She has
to be there every time. She has to do her job
faithfully and completely in order for
her her leaders to have a good pattern. The
class secretary is an important person. Needs
to be someone who is well organized who will
take care of the tedious things that are part
of a class like this lesson copies for one
thing. Seeing that the rooms are set up that
we have name tags. We all wear name tags in our
group. Preparing the class roles. Copying
the prayer request. She has the responsibility
of orienting additional people who come in
after the first Intro night. She's going to be
sure that everybody gets a copy of
the guidelines and that she sits down and
discusses that with them. The class secretary
is very important person because without her
the rest of us kind of become disorganized
and don't have all of our tools. The lecturer
is an important part of the team in that she
is going to take what has been studied at home
discussed in the group and try to tie
it into a nice neat little package and
hopefully send everybody home with a nugget.
Now that
sounds not too bad. A 10-15 minute lecture.
It's only a 10-15 minute lecture. But let
me tell you there is nothing harder than trying
to tie up a lesson into 10 or 15 minutes.
What do you say? What points do you choose to
emphasize? So the lecturer is someone who
takes on a considerable responsibility. There
will be someone with that talent. We have
several in our group over the 10 years that
have actually discovered they have that talent
and they have developed that talent. So we take
turns lecturing and that's been wonderful.
We take turns being group leaders. We take
turns being class administrators. So when
you have a team then the responsibility is
spread out among all of you. Then the class
prep leader. That is the person who on
Wednesday night, I'll back up and explain, on Wednesday
night 30 minutes before our class which is at
7:00, all the group leaders meet
at 6:30 and we sit down to pray. That class
prep leader is the one who is there. If none
of the rest of us are there at 6:30, our job is
to start praying. Now we are trained to
be there by our class administrator. There are
almost no excuses for not being there.
I just don't know if I can stand it. So we have
found that that time calms us right down.
We focus on who is doing this job, whose work
it is, that we don't place confidence in ourselves
but we place our confidence in him because it
is his to do with us. We are just his tools.
And I found myself so many times feeling such
relief after that prayer time. Okay the weekly
schedule for those in leadership is the next
page we'll look at and we'll be about through.
The leaders meeting is our preparation time. We
meet together, our group meets together
on Monday night usually. We've met together
from 5:30-7:30 in the morning. We've met
together from 8-10 at night. We've met together
all kinds of times. We find what
works for us. But that is our equipping time.
The leaders come together to share the lesson
together. We do not share our answers
necessarily in that group discussion. That is
the group's
time. Our time is with one another. But first
we sit down and we pray. We spend a considerable
amount of our time in prayer. We work through
the lesson together and find out where the
trouble spots are. And then we review and
practice and train on responses and handling
group dynamics. And that's so important. And we
take that job of leadership in a class
like this very seriously. It's a commitment
that we make to one another. It's a commitment
we make to the Lord. We don't do this job to
get an A from one another or the class
members, but we do it as unto the Lord.
Colossians 3:23 is one of our verses that we
read and
remind ourselves. When we begin to fatigue and
kind of wear out toward the end of the
semester, whatever you do, do your work
heartily as for the Lord rather than for men.
And I
wanted to show you on the front of Diane's
notebook. You want to look at this. This is
our group. This is a precious group of people.
And I would just say this. There's no more
precious thing that can come about out of an
effort like this than bonded Christian
sisters who love and support one. We've been
through a lot together. They have helped me
through the tough times. And I try to return
that because I love them.
Remember how she said it was going to be hard
to lecture in 10 or 15 minutes? How much she
loves me. Have you ever tried to make a
gingerbread house? I have always loved
miniature things.
And I just, that December issue of good
housekeeping, you know, when it comes out and
there's these
elaborate creations made from gingerbread and
icing and candies and everything. One
Christmas, my girls and I bought a gingerbread
house kit. It's a little easier. And we tried
to use the icing that it provided and stick
this thing together and bond it and make a
structure that would stand. It was not a
successful venture. And as much as I tried to
make that
thing stick together, it just wouldn't stand.
We've been describing this type of ladies
class as blessed our lives and other lives of
the women of our congregation for about
10 years. And if you compared this class to a
gingerbread house, the bond that will ensure
that it will stand firm and stand together
would have to be prayer. Without the firm
commitment to prayer by the leadership group,
then this structure won't stand. We include
prayer as a regular part of our class, really
three times. When we actually run the class
on Wednesday nights, everybody in the class has
the opportunity of turning in a prayer
request. These are run off and passed back out
to the group and prayed about in the middle
of our discussion time, after the discussion
time before the lecture every week. And then
those copies are sent home with the women to
pray about that week. The leaders pray
as a part of their leaders meeting every week.
This usually lasts about 30 minutes. It's
a round robin kind that we'll describe in a
minute. And then we meet early before class
as she described in prayer, specifically about
the needs of the class that night. Just as
icing on the Gingerbread House are supposed to
hold the things together that wouldn't
normally stay together, this time spent in
prayer has bonded this group of women that
she showed you together in a way that we
normally wouldn't be bonded. We come together with
different personalities, and sometimes they
have clashed. And it is the prayer time that
has forged a bond between people that might not
normally be bonded together, just as in
the Gingerbread house they make things stick
together that would normally fall off. So
this time of prayer has become precious to us
all. I think that probably our leaders
would list that as the top benefit that they
have learned as being a part of the class
in leadership. It's powerful. The leaders met
with us last Sunday, or the Sunday before
we came and prayed about this lecture. And I
can still hear their words echo in my mind.
I know they're praying for us. They came.
They're over here. They showed up. We didn't
know they were coming. And so if you have any
interest in beginning a class like this,
or if you're already working in any kind of
class, there's nothing I can encourage you
to do more that would impact your ministry in a
positive way than to commit to prayer
regularly and specifically for that ministry.
Whether you do it individually or whether
you do it in a group, you will see results. As
we began trying to learn how to pray together,
we had to kind of work through some stuff. You
know, I feel like that if somebody really
gave me step-by-step instructions or a lesson
or showed me how to make that gingerbread
house, I could probably do it. And we struggled
at the beginning with some of the logistics
of just how to pray together in a group. And so
one of the things that has become something
we use all the time now is a pattern for prayer
that you've probably heard of called the acronym
ACTS. And this is the way that we move through
our prayer time. This tool has helped me so
much personally because it just helps my prayer
time to be more focused and more on track.
We pray in a round robin kind of order. There's
no certain order. We do designate a specific
leader to lead the prayer, and that changes
every week. And that leader will begin a time
of adoration. And when everybody just responds
as they want to, when she feels like they
all have responded that well, then she moves to
a time of confession and begins by confessing
herself. And then when everybody seems through
with that, then she moves us to Thanksgiving
and then to supplication. And we realized early
on that we were not very good praisers.
Have you noticed that in your walk? We really
didn't know how to praise God very well and
seemed kind of uncomfortable with that. The
biggest help that we found to become better
praisers was to notice and collect the
scriptures that God has put in so completely in
the Bible
about himself that are attributes of God. And
so we even had an entire semester study
where we studied the attributes of God. And it
kind of taught us to watch for those scriptures.
They're really throughout the Bible. So after
we studied this and just became so taught
by that, we began to bring to leaders meeting a
scripture that would be an attribute of
God that we shared. Just go around the circle
and read. Everybody reads their attributes.
And then most people use that in the time of
adoration to kind of give them some fresh
phrases and thoughts to praise God about. It
kind of got to be a contest if you could
find an attribute in a very obscure book. If
somebody named one from Hezekiah or something,
we all went, whoa. But they really are. God has
been so faithful to tell us about himself
in the Word when we just learned to look for it.
Some people have marked those in their
Bible. Some people kept a little flip book,
like the index card flip book and just written
down. It's been a really precious addition to
our prayer time. It has helped us with
this time of praise. Let me expound a little
bit on what an attribute of God is. Sometimes
he actually tells us himself it's first person,
like Isaiah 43:1-3. But now this
says, the Lord your creator, O Jacob, he who
formed you, O Israel, do not fear, for I have
redeemed you. I have called you by name in your
mind. When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you. And through the rivers,
they will not overflow you. When you walk
through the fire, you will not be scorched, nor
will the flame burn you. For I am the
Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your
Savior. So sometimes he actually tells us
himself what he is like. And then sometimes
there are verses that just tell us about him,
like in Isaiah 26:4 describes God as saying,
trust in the Lord forever, for in the God
the Lord we have an everlasting rock. And I
like that picture of a rock. Sometimes you
can get an attribute out of a verse that really
just describes what God does, like Psalms
147, 3. He heals the broken hearted and binds
up their wounds. And from that you can praise
him as a healer. God's wisdom in instructing us
to praise him has been made evident because
when we come to him in prayer, if we will first
spend the time of praise, he makes us
focus on him and focus on how powerful he is
and how completely capable he is to deal
with anything that we're going to bring before
him in the way of a problem. All those problems
will pale in comparison and it puts us in a
position of faith. Sometimes when we fall
to our knees and just start right in on our
problems, you know, we can get up and think,
you know, that's really worse than I thought.
You know, we feel no better for praying, we
feel more depressed. So this was a habit that
we set to first focus on God and we collected
those scriptures of attributes and that has
really been a blessing in our prayer life.
The leaders also bring to, leaders make some
prayer requests that they write out like three
or four. That will be on down. The next part is
confession. And you know, I think God was
not kidding when he told us that we need to
confess our sins. I think that's probably
the thing that bonds us together quicker than
anything. It's hard to stay mad at somebody
when you hear them confess the same thing
you're confessing. And sometimes when we've
had tendency to have clashes within our
leadership group, it is that time of
confessing, I think,
that brings peace back to the relationship. The
T then stands for Thanksgiving. And you
know, when you've gone through the discipline
of praising God and confessing your sins,
that seems to be a natural outgrowth. You have
much to thank him for at that point.
And it is a choice, again, not something we
necessarily have to feel. You can choose to
look for things to thank God for in any
situation. And then the final part is
supplication. Logistically,
what we do here is we just pass our prayer
requests to the next person and they pray
for, you pray for somebody else's list that
they brought. And then the prayer leader would
close the prayer after everybody has finished.
And then on Wednesday nights when we reconvene,
we shorten this. We take out confession. We
just do a quick time of, we don't bring an
attribute to read. We just do a time of praise,
a time of thanksgiving. And then the things
that we pray for on Wednesday night are
specifically about the class, that the women
can get there,
that God will remove obstacles from their path,
that the leaders will be prepared, that
there will be an open feeling in the group, you
know, a warm, you know, that new people
will come. I mean, just anything about the
class, that Wednesday night preparation leader
prepares that list for us to pray. We just
usually kind of pass it around and everybody
prays over the next one. So you can tell that
this time of prayer has become precious to
us. It is the bond of our class. It has kept us
together. I think it's the reason that
we have been going for 10 years. And it's, and
so you could say it's a cornerstone. I
wanted to turn back to Ephesians 6:18, because
there was one verse that we didn't
read this morning that talks about prayer. With
all prayer and petition, pray at all
times in the spirit and with this in view, be
on the alert with all perseverance and
petition for all the saints. And, you know, I
think here's a picture of constant prayer,
prayer to keep us alert, a persevering prayer.
You know, what if you prayed about the longest?
I mean, one of our leaders just adopted a child
from Russia. We've prayed about her
children for 10 years, we realized. And we
didn't know it was going to be this little
boy from Russia that was the answer to that
prayer. So when, you know, you pray and then
you get back in line the next day and you pray
again and you get back in line the next
day and that's perseverance. And then I like
the phrase where it says petition for all
the saints. If you were going to name, right
today, if you could get over feeling embarrassed
and you were going to name your best physical
feature, what would it be? We're not going
to ask you to do this. But do you really think
my eyes are the best or I have good hair or,
you know, whatever it is? Did anybody think of
your knees right off? No, that didn't come
to mind. It's not really generally thought of
to be an attractive part of our body. They're
hard to shave. I've never heard a man describe
this as a knee man, you know. No one's ever
been written up in the newspaper for donating
your knees for a transplant or donating your
knees to science for research. Did any of you
ever have a nickname when you were growing
up that had to do with a physical feature, you
know, blue eyes or radar ears or whatever?
Well, what if somebody called you camel knees?
Would you be flattered? Ledzen tells us that
the apostle John was nicknamed camel knees
because he knelt in prayer on behalf of others
so often. I don't know if that's right or not.
I love the picture of it. Now would you
like that nickname? Would you like to be called
camel knees? This makes us think of the petitioning
for the saints or intercessory prayer. The best
gift you could give another is the gift
of your knees, of going before the Father on
their behalf. Nothing we can buy our kids
can compare to the priceless gift of regular
committed prayer on their behalf. And nothing
we could do to strengthen our ministry would be
greater than being involved in regular
committed prayer. We need to all develop camel
knees. And as you, I want to give you this
illustration. If you were given the job of
keeping this room clean and it's totally
up to you to keep this room clean, wouldn't you
kind of watch with anxiety if people track
in here and you watch them drop little pieces
of paper or maybe leave trash and everything.
But you could handle the trash and you could
even pick up the little paper, but how are
you going to handle the dirt that comes in on
this carpet? What if you had a friend who
constantly complains and whined and worried
about not being able to keep her floor clean,
not being able to get that dirt out of her
floor? What would you say to her? Vacuum it,
right? And what if she said, I tried, but it
didn't work. And then you go over one day
and you watch her and she pushes the vacuum
around on the rug, but it's not turned on.
You would say, turn it on. And she said, I
tried, but it didn't work. Why did it not
work? She didn't have it plugged in. You need
the power source. How I think we must look
to the world when we stand and wring our hands
and think, I don't know, I can't do this.
As Christians, we should just plug in our tools.
Stand strong and release our greatest
weapon, prayer. Consistent, specific,
faith-filled prayer. Nothing cleans like it.
God does not
want us to be frustrated, afraid or cringing
from Satan. He wants us to stand firm in a
position of faith with our greatest weapons.
Poised, trained and ready to be used. The
weapon of the sword, the Word of God and the
weapon of prayer. Satan cannot stand against
the women of faith who are armed and made ready
by God himself.
I love the picture in Exodus 17. This is where
Moses was standing up on the hill and the
battle was raging down below him. And he held
up his arm. And when he held up his arms,
the battle went for Israel. And when his arms
got tired and dropped down, the battle went
for Amalekite. And verse 12, the 17, verse 12
said that Moses's hands were heavy, but
they took a stone and put it under him and he
sat on it. And Aaron and her supported
his hands, one on one side and one on the other.
Thus his hands were steady until the
sunset. So Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his
people with the edge of the sword.
And you know, I think this is a beautiful
picture of prayer. So you cast yourself into
that picture wherever. Maybe you're in the
thick of a battle and you need someone up
on the hill praying on your behalf. Maybe
you're called to be that prayer warrior up
on the hill, not directly involved in the
conflict, but praying on behalf of those who
are. Or maybe you're Aaron or her just helping
another to be the prayer person God wants
them to be. What I love about this picture is
that it shows so clearly that the battle
is not won by what's done on the battlefield.
The battle was won based on the prayers of
the faithful. Jeanne loves to say that prayer
is not the preparation for the battle, it
is the battle. So whatever your ministry is,
whatever type of call God has given you, be
a prayer. If there are some of you here that
were not here the first time, this is a handout
or a lesson that we're going to do. The third
session, if you'd like to pick one up. Also
in this material that we handed out today, if
you want to get in touch with us, our names
and phone numbers are on the end of the second
page. And then the back two pages are testimonials
from our group.
Yeah, and that's right. I'm going to put your,
we didn't get to this.