Philippians Update

We are rapidly approaching our new study in Philippians!

I just sent each of you an email from docs.google.com that contains a link to the curriculum.  If you don't see it you might check your SPAM folder.  If something doesn't work, don't hesitate to give me a call or send me an email.

There will be student printouts in your classroom this Sunday, as well as a full printed Teacher's Guide.

Suggested Commentary for Philippians

The suggested commentary for our upcoming study is The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: Philippians written by John MacArthur.  This commentary has a deeper scope than the commentaries purchased by Brookwood for teachers in the past.  With the deeper scope comes an additional cost.  At this point in time the commentary cost will not be covered by Brookwood.

Over the past week or so I have been checking out the commentary and it is very good.  At 300+ pages in length it provides us with a depth of information.

As an example of the deeper treatment of verses, chapter 3 is titled "Essentials for Growth in Godliness (Philippians 1:9-11)" and is 18 pages in length.

I highly recommend this commentary to all of our teachers as well as anyone interested in digging in deeper to the book of Philippians as we study it together in our Life Groups.

The commentary can be purchased in electronic or printed form at many bookstores.  Locally, the print version can be purchased through Lighthouse Book and Bible in Hillsboro for $22.94.  Call Lighthouse at 503-693-1990 to place your order.

February Life Group Training in the Northwest Postponed to April

The NWBC has postponed the Life Group Training in the Northwest in order to allow for more churches to participate.  The schedule as we know it is listed above.

Philipians for next quarter

I had the chance earlier this week to head down to California for a few days to present a paper.  While I always miss Mindy and the kiddos, this trip provided some good time to read God's Word.  I was able to read through both Hebrews and Philippians and I think a study on Philippians would give us a good test run of the Ministry Point curriculum.

One drawback of the Philippians study is that it was originally written in 2001, so we may want to do some of our own legwork to update the video clips and illustrations.  In talking with Debbie at LakePointe, she suggested the following sites:

• Preaching Today
• Preaching Unleashed
• Ministry and Media
• BluefishTV

An additional resource to our church is through the company that we get our video license through:

• ScreenVue

We'll need to work together to come up with appropriate clips.  Let me know you're interested by replying with a comment below.  Click on the "comments" link below.

February LG Teacher and Coordinator Breakout Session Notes

Sunday, January 31st, 2010

1:00pm - ~2:15pm

 

Persons in Attendance: Bob Hagman, Russ Dusky, Donna Dusky, Jean Gard, Patti Ramos, Toby Zimmerman, Danine Brewer, Ted Cook

 

• Life Group Training in the NW
  
  • Had everybody mark down the dates that should interest them.
    
  • As soon as we know more information we will need to send it out.
    
  • Carpool from the church.
    
  • AR Torrey - check with Stewardship Team about helping with funding. NWBC says $10 per person. Is this for each session?
    
• We will be trying the Ministry Point Curriculum for March, April, May quarter
  
  • For this trial period:
    
    • Preference is verse-by-verse to start out with, similar to what we are doing now with Explore The Bible (ETB).
      
    • Choose a study that is about 12 weeks in length, so we can jump back to ETB if we choose to.
      
    • Preference would be for a New Testament study for the trial period.
      
    • Torrey made it clear to all that we will not be a church that only studies the New Testament, but we need to keep accountable to studying both the Old Testament and New Testament.
      
    • Based on this criteria the two leading options are:
      
      • Hebrews - 13 week study (completed November 2006, recommended commentary is Hebrews by Donald Guthrie)
        
      • Phillipians - 11 week study (completed August 2002, recommended commentary is The MacArthur New Testament Commentary Philippians)
        
  • AR Torrey - check with Stewardship Team and Dede as to when we could place the order for curriculum
    
  • AR Torrey / Office - When we receive the curriculum, print out all the material stapled together for the teachers. Right now this would be around 10 copies (teachers and substitutes).
    
  • AR Torrey / Office - For the students print out a stapled together packet of just the "Thee Word for The Week". This would be very similar to our learner guides we use now.
    
  • Visual element (i.e. video clips)
    
    • Video clips were well received.
      
    • As a side note: Talked with several people about helping with DVD creating. Torrey would like to get a team of 2 or 3 people to be able to share the duties of creating the DVDs. Provide Torrey with any possible interested people.
      
    • Once we have a single DVD, the duplicator in the sound booth can be used to make copies. In a trial run it seemed to take about 5 minutes to make 3 additional copies.
      
• Teacher and Coordinator Job Descriptions
  
  • AR Torrey - Somehow make it more clear that the Coordinator's main job is communication and enlisting the coordinators. The job description can seem overwhelming.
    
  • Pointed out that Class Coordinator has a 15 minute period of the class time to make announcements, etc. This won't be legalistically enforced, but is expected to vary a bit from class to class and a week to week basis.
    
  • AR Torrey - On the Job Description sheet need to add a list of all of the Primary Team leaders and their contact information (phone number, email).
    
  • There needs to be two way communication between the Primary Team Leaders and the class coordinators.
    
  • AR Office - Primary Team Leaders and contact information should be added to the first page of the church directory.
    
• Quarterly Team Huddle scheduling
  
  • Preference would be for Saturday afternoon/evening.
    
  • Times could vary based on the season. Seniors may have trouble driving as late as 7pm in the winter.
    
  • Saturday afternoon would most likely miss most of the kids' sports as many happen on Saturday morning.
    
  • Bit of preference for ending the meeting earlier than 7pm. Perhaps having it 2pm-5pm, or 3pm-6pm.
    
  • There seemed to be flexibility with the understanding that it was only once a quarter.
    

The time can vary from quarter to quarter based on the season and the needs of the meeting and calendaring issues.