We studied Isaiah 60 in Bible Study Fellowship this week.

Isaiah 60 is all about hope and light.

Hope for our future.

Peace for today.

I’m so grateful for how the study of Jesus as our future light and present hope coincided with rejoicing at Jesus’ entry on Palm Sunday and the following events of Holy Week.

In Isaiah 60, God promises His people that one day they will not need the sun to shine on them, because His glory will provide all the light they need.  It will make them radiant.

Their hearts will swell with joy.

The gates of their city will never close.

I have looked on and sat in darkness this week.

I have seen faces without hope, without a trace of joy.

I have seen lots of doors closed.

I try to imagine Jesus’ glory so bright that it will outshine the sun.

I know that my brain cannot envision it,

but the trying is making me thankful today.

a few other gifts from the list this week:

a sea of waving branches on Palm Sunday

walking during soccer practice

the contrast between a raging storm and a quiet drizzle

azaleas

roses

electricity, and how the lack of it makes me remember to appreciate it

a borrowed car

sun setting over the soccer fields

fresh farm eggs, delivered to my door by a friend

an open home with electricity while ours was without

grilled vegetables

rides to soccer

The post Grateful for Hope appeared first on Alison Chino.

I was doing my BSF lesson this morning and I wanted to write all about this one question that is on there, but then I remembered that I was a volunteer in the BSF children’s program last week and I had wanted to write about that. So let’s just pretend it is last Wednesday afternoon. Before I left BSF and went on to the rest of my day.

And forgot what it was like to be a toddler.

Something I haven’t told you about BSF is that once a semester you are encouraged to volunteer in the children’s department. I find that generally BSF-ers don’t care for this requirement, and tend to sort of grumble about it without any regard for the fact that you, sitting right there in their discussion group, actually have a child in the program.

So if you are prone to guilt, like me, you feel bad that this person, who doesn’t want to be around your child (or any other children), has to be a volunteer and you wish you could help them out of it.

Usually, it’s not necessarily that BSF-ers don’t like children. It’s just that it takes so much to get to BSF every week with your lesson done and it seems like a waste to have to miss the entire day of Bible study to play with toddlers, who, by the way, already have two BSF children’s leaders in their rooms with them.

But I am here to tell you that it is not a waste.

This is one of those annoying BSF rules that I can actually defend. Now I know that since I would often rather be with children than adults, maybe being a volunteer in the children’s department comes a little easier for me than some. That being said, I still think it is a valuable use of anyone’s time. And anyone can do it. It’s not like in the other places in your life where you might be asked to work with children where you have to prepare activities or even lead lessons. When you volunteer at BSF, you just show up. Bring along your little childlike heart.

You go in. You sit right down on the floor and you say something like What are we doing here? Oh goody! Blocks. I bet I can stack ten of these up. Can you?

And for the next two hours you don’t have to do anything but be a well behaved child. When the leaders say it is time for songs, you pull the chairs over and sing songs. When they say it’s time for the bathroom, we all line up and go to the bathroom. When it is time for the story we do little finger plays with our hands and then put them in our laps and be real real quiet and listen to the story, which is always some portion of what we are actually studying in the adult class at BSF. (This was especially fascinating during the year that BSF studied the minor prophets.)

You move with the class through all of these little 10 minute increments into which the BSF masterminds have segmented the BSF children’s program experience. And I truly believe that it works beautifully because children, especially small children, really crave order.

And orderly it is. If a child gets out of line, the director is called in to handle the job. She gently sits with the little demon that won’t sit still for the 10 minute story time, patting his back and encouraging him. She tells him the answers when questions are asked so he can exercise his turn to talk. Notice that this is not my job as a volunteer. Nope. I’m still just sitting there. Maybe sometimes someone sits on my lap. I don’t get to answer any questions.

Towards the end is my most favorite part. It is something that revolutionized how I spent my early mornings with my toddlers when I had them in BSF.

It is quiet time. It’s not nap time. It’s quiet time.

It is when the leaders turn off the lights and you lie down on the ground with your head on a paper towel (your pillow) and close your eyes and talk to God. In my view, quiet time is just another word for shavasana. And so I lie down in corpse pose (with my head on a paper towel, you know, to protect it) and enjoy the quiet 10 minutes. Praying. Thanking God for these women who love these children every week. They pray for these children every day. They prepare for these children’s classes with as much or more rigor than we prepare for the adult class, and they still do the adult lessons too.

In the midst of a week that was swirling around me in a way that felt uncontrollable, I was completely still on the floor in a room full of toddlers. 2 year olds, fidgeting and sucking their thumbs. Talking to Jesus.

The best bit is when it is your turn to get up from quiet time, the BSF teacher comes around with a little puppet that taps you on the cheek and she says, God loves you, Alison.

Oh yes, she tells me too. Just like the others. And I was glad to hear it. I always am.

He called a little child and had him stand among them.

And he said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 18:2-4

The post Whoever Welcomes One of These appeared first on Alison Chino.

I have gone to a Bible study every week since I moved back to Arkansas called Bible Study Fellowship (BSF), and I really love it.

I’ve studied the Bible a lot of different ways with different groups and different materials…with just women, with men and women, with children…with books studies, with topical studies, with discussions about books written about the Bible.

There are as many different ways to study the Bible out there as there are personalities.

So what is special about BSF?

Let me tell you. It’s very very straightforward…just you and the Bible. You read the scripture. You answer your questions. It’s set up to do a little bit every day.

You go to bible study on Wednesday. You discuss your questions in a discussion group. (not a small group…a discussion group…I’ll come back to that.) You hear a lecture from the teaching leader, which at my class is very good. (My teaching leader’s name is Carla and she is precious).

After the lecture, you pick up your questions. You go home and start over. It’s routine. It’s consistent. It can even be monotonous. But, I can honestly say that I have not ever learned more about the Bible or studied as consistently in another Bible study setting.

If you stay in BSF (a lot of people drop out), you just do it. You kind of get lost if you don’t, so you just plug through.

As far as my spiritual journey goes, I have had a lot of ups and downs but one thing I’ve learned is that I am pretty much guaranteed for DOWN if I’m not reading God’s word. It’s that simple. I can still be down anyway, but I don’t have a chance without the words of God pouring into me consistently. BSF sets me up for success as far as studying the Bible daily.

Also, I love the preschoolers’ program (ages 2-6). It’s so good. This spring Ben has enjoyed his last season in the children’s program at BSF and I just cannot say enough about how wonderful it is. I will definitely take simon when he turns 2. Again, very bible based, very consistent. The teachers take so much time preparing to teach the bible story. And they really love those little ones, praying for them and encouraging the mommies. It is such a great ministry.

Every week at BSF, they pass out these little invitation cards and strongly encourage us to invite people to come to BSF. So why haven’t I told you about BSF?

Why haven’t I invited you?

Well these cards are very small and I can’t quite fit all my disclaimers about BSF onto the margins of this little card. So I thought I would invite you now. But first I will tell you some of the things you might not love about BSF, so that you will not get mad at me when you show up and you are ushered to your seat. That’s right, you will be told where to sit. Just like kindergarten. And that brings me to my next point. There are sort of, a lot of, well, for lack of a better word…rules. What’s crazy is that the rules that really bug me also contribute to creating the environment for consistent Bible study that I love.

For example, you can’t talk if you don’t do your lesson. And you can’t talk about anything except your lesson. That is why it is a discussion group, not a small group and definitely not a support group. You are talking about the lesson. No one is saying what their pastor said last week or worse, what Oprah or Dr. Phil said last week. I appreciate this because everyone is motivated to complete their lesson and I love hearing what the other ladies got out of their lesson. They are all from way different walks of life than me, which is another great thing about BSF. Varying denominations, ages, races, spiritual maturity.

But all these rules can be a little intimidating. Especially because on your first visit to BSF, you don’t attend a discussion group. You go to what is called Introduction Class…also known as a boring recitation of the history of BSF and all the rules and guidelines. This class is more than I can bear, and I am sorry to send you to it, but you must endure it if you are going to enjoy the wonderful benefits of being in BSF. All I can say is, endure it with a friend and maybe you could get some material if you worked for a comedy channel or club that needed material for making fun of Christians. Ok, that is a little harsh, but really. It is also true. I have said that I wish somehow BSF could sort of ease up on things like strict attendance records and a very short window of opportunity to get your lesson for the following week, because it seems to hinder a lot of people from coming to something that is actually really good. But the legalism must preserve the whole thing from becoming fluffy. And incidentally, if you are a BSF-er, you kind of need something fluffy on the side to balance you out. Because bsf is not fluffy. It is anything but.

In fact, it is best to approach it as signing up for a seminary class, because, if you wanted to, you could get as much or more out of it as some people get out of a seminary education. And unlike seminary, it is free.

So consider yourself both invited and warned. The next two wednesdays are introduction classes for the fall BSF study, which is Matthew. C’mon matthew! May 2nd and 9th. at Cornerstone Bible Fellowship on Warden Road. 9:10am. If you wander in around 9:15 or so, come stand in the back with Whitney and me and enjoy the singing of a very old and noncopyrighted hymn an octave higher than is humanly possible. You’ll love it, I promise!

Update, January 2013:

I wrote this post about BSF six years ago, and I need to add that BSF has become kinder and gentler with the rules about lessons and attendance and such.  It is still the very best way I know to study the Bible and now all of my kids have graduated from the wonderful preschool program, which makes me a wee bit sad.  Some days I think I will just wrangle up a preschooler to take along to class.

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The post Introducing BSF With A Warning appeared first on Alison Chino.