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A Great Resource for Small Groups

by Heather King

August 24, 2012

@Heather_C_King

Years ago when I started a small group for women, we wanted to study God’s Word together and do so with some depth. But we were busy. We had young kids, jobs, ministries and more. Many of us were already doing one or two other studies for Sunday School and other groups.

That’s when we discovered Kay Arthur’s 40-minute Bible Study series, which includes this book on Breaking Free From Fear, as well as topics like worship, prayer, discipleship, contentment and more. The books are written to be done during the group time together, not with homework prepared ahead of time.

Some of the ladies still did the homework in advance, preferring to take time for thought. As the leader, I always prepared the lessons in advance, as well. Yet, others were able to come to group, open up the book, read the passages with us and participate without difficulty. The Scripture verses she references are printed on the side column of each page, saving us the time it takes to flip from book to book of the Bible.

I’ve never been a big fan of Kay Arthur’s style of having us circle this, put a red triangle around that, and a cross over every mention of “Jesus.” This is probably a technique that some people love and others could do without. When we found that those exercises didn’t do much for our group, we just adapted and spent more time on the questions themselves. The studies were in depth, truly discussion-oriented and great for encouraging participation and Spiritual growth. In other words, a hit!

In fact, we liked the studies so much, we did another kind of study by Kay Arthur from a different series. That was a disaster for our group. The format of the 40-Minute Bible Studies was a much better fit and is one of the more flexible group study formats we’ve ever done.

I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review and the opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”