Every Bible Study at Rock Island is different. Like I wrote in a previous blog, the studies each seem to have a life of their own. Sometimes slow developing, often off course, but always successful. The only sure thing each Bible Study is that we will end in prayer. A few weeks ago Ron recorded the special on the news called, "Crystal Darkness". We watched it the following day at Bible Study and let the video determine the topic of conversation.
This particular study was smaller than usual. Generally there are 4-7 high schoolers there, this study had 3. Following the 30-35 minute video we opened it up for any general comments, questions or thoughts......nothing. No big surprise there, that's normal (especially with 3 kids). After a few seconds of no comments, questions or thoughts Ron, being the good man he is, took some initiative and talked about the realness of drugs, not just this drug, but of all drugs and the effects they have on both users and their families, friends and their sphere of influence. The kids were attentive, mostly nodding their heads in agreement, and one of them mentioned a life experience where they had a family member who used a certain drug and told how it made him feel, not too much talking, but some insight.
After this young man had shared a girl, the only in attendance that day, began to share about personal experience with drugs. She shared about her experimentation with all sorts of drugs and some of the effects it had both on her and her family. After a few minutes of sharing she began to cry when she had somewhat of a self-realization that she is still unsure of why she ever stopped using. She explained how she used mainly because her friends at the time were using, not knowing full well why she was and not having any real desire to use. As she continued to unfold her story and talk out loud her past actions, which seemed like the first time, she started to lose control. I believe that she was begining to question why she ever stopped. She considered herself lucky and explained how bad it made her feel, both then and now, in retrospect.
After a few more comments here and there by Ron and I we tried our best to wrap up the the discussion and ended it with a prayer.
During our most recent Bible Study, this past week, Ron and I decided that it was time to plug in to a specific book of the Bible. We choose Luke because, we agree, he does a good job with details and gives some stories about Jesus and his life that we think the youth would find interesting, which may then lead to questions.
So, we did just that. We began reading Luke and made it through chapter 2, I believe. We made it far enough to get to questions such as the following:
Why is so Jesus so important and why not Mary?
Why was Mary chosen to have Jesus and not Elizabeth?
Why was Jesus born of a virgin and it doesn't say whether John was or not?
Why are people singing? (good question)
Why are they circumcised?
as well as a few more.
One student volunteered to read and anytime one of the others had a question, wasn't sure about something we had read, or just wanted to make a general comment they would interrupt. Also, there were a few times that we would read over something and stop if no one had a question just to, more or less, recap. So, after we had finished reading and Ron and I did our best to address the questions and tried to get their input on their own questions, we decided to wrap things up with...you guessed it, a prayer. Regardless of what shape or form our Bible Study takes the young'ins know we will always pray.
This Wednesday we will tackle the next couple of chapters, 2-4, and see what happens.
