I’m leading a Bible study at my house for the summer. I wanted to be the hostess and just offer my house, but it’s morphed into something that looks quite different than what I had envisioned. Isn’t that the way of God sometimes?
Last summer, a thirty-something asked another thirty-something and a twenty-something and me (not a twenty- or thirty-something) to take part in a Bible study at our sweet little coffee shop. I was thrilled to be asked. I loved it, but meeting at the shop was difficult sometimes for the moms with children.
This year, I decided to offer my house and let the children come and play. Then I decided to open it up to any young woman in our church who had time off in the summer. The number of women and children began growing. I mentioned it to the Sunday School teacher of these women. She quickly offered to watch the children and secure helpers, “but,” she said, “we’ll do more than play. We’ll have a craft and tell a Jesus story.”
The first day was a little shaky. One of the young women compared me to her mother who evidently is also a bit tech-challenged when it comes to playing videos streamed from a laptop to a TV, a pointed reminder that I’m not one of the young mothers any more.
Before that one of the volunteers said something like, “Hope asked me to help with the children but not the Bible study.” Was she disappointed? Did she feel left out? Was she irritated to be grouped with the older women and not the young?
It’s my house, and yet I feel like I’m in the wrong place. I’m meeting with the young women while my contemporaries are keeping the children. Yep. A little awkward.
Today seemed better…at first. I started the video without help, but five minutes in, I remembered I’d planned to begin the session not with the video but with a discussion on last week’s questions. Ack! Then the laptop-to-TV-stream connection was lost somehow when I tried to finish the video. Oh. My. Stars.
Have you noticed anything? All of these awkward and frustrating moments were surface things, things that don’t make one bit of difference to the heart of the study.
We’ve had rich discussions in both sessions about faith and Jesus and authenticity and love and inclusion and acceptance. In two sessions, we’ve talked about real anxieties and fears and struggles.
The children are being fed with Jesus and Goldfish. They’re learning their mommy makes Bible study a priority.
The women are growing in their faith, building friendships, being vulnerable to share about their faith walk.
For me, I’ve been convicted once again about my fear of man, fear of confrontation, fear of judgement. Just plain old fear.
Thank God He does more than we can ask or imagine, and He works with or without a video on the big screen!
Leave a Reply