Do Catholics really know their bibles?
Earlier this week, in our Catholic parish, we began ‘A Quick Journey through the Bible‘, the Great Adventure eight-session course; and we were maxed out with around 70 participants showing up.
I was excited to get this comment from someone during the week:
I think I learnt more about the Bible in three hours than I have done in the last 30 years!
Amazing… well, amazing that a Catholic can go through 30 years of life with no Bible teaching, but also amazing for the prospects of this course.
Someone else said they never thought they’d see the day when a long line of Catholics would be queuing up for Bible study on a Monday night. Adult formation just has to be one of the most richly satisfying tasks when it works, and having programmes such as this from Ascension Press make it easy.
If your parish has not done this course yet – go out and buy it! See the website here. There are some great webinars from Ascension Press telling you exactly what to do to set it up in your parish, how to facilitate a small group – really, everything you could need.
If your parish does not have a strong history of adult catechesis, the Bible seems to be a fascinating topic for just about anyone, so it is a great place to start. My advice, for what it’s worth, don’t hesitate – get cracking!
Tags: bible, Bible Timeline, Jeff Cavins
For heaven’s sake – the prices are enormous. Far better equip people with something like New Community Bible – dirt cheap (Chinese slave labour, it looks like), very good translation, wonderful introductions to each book, fabulous notes based on solid Biblical scholarship but easy reading.
The Old Testament can be confusing without some sort of overview, some history and some help identifying themes and genres. Plus there are a lot of outdated and excruciatingly dull Bible study books around so it’s difficult to know where to start. This course sounds like an ideal way of spark peoples interest and give them the confidence to study the Bible further.
I’m still trying to persuade our parish to run the Strength to Strength prayer series during Lent, but if we do and it gets a good response, this might be next. It’s not cheap but compared to the cost of formal study at a college it’s a bargain.
I think it is worth it. Once a parish has the DVDs, you never have to buy them again. Plus, the costs can be divided among the participants – the more people you have involved, the cheaper it gets. Our participants are paying £24 each for the whole course, which I think is good value for eight weeks.