Wes Peppers

Michigan Camp Meeting 2016: The Harvest is Great

Emmanuel Training Sessions

Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

11. How to Give Bible Studies- Part 1

We're a bit behind from losing an hour, so this next section I usually spend a pretty good bit of time on, but I'm actually going to breeze through it pretty quickly, and I'm going to just hit some highlights.

Some of them I might say that's pretty self-explanatory and move on, But I do want to get into the meat of how to write and give Bible studies.

So we'll just blow through this, but I don't want to just totally skip it because there are some important things in here.

And what this is, is a section on how to, we talked about how to get Bible studies, right?

They'll be talking to you about that, I don't know what happened to it, but that card that we will be using all throughout Michigan, there it is, thank you, all throughout Michigan that refers people to BibleStudyOffer.com and this will be the card that you'll be able to use with all of your Bible studies, all of your outreach events.

And even if you're not from Michigan, I'm quite sure you can still use this.

You can probably order them from Michigan and use them wherever you're at.

If you're in, some folks are from Tennessee and other places, and you'll still be able to use these.

And these are very powerful tools because it's the simple, remember we talked about yesterday asking what?

And all you have to do with this card is ask people that come into your church, ask people that come to your events, is have you heard about our Bible school?

And you just kind of present the card as you ask that question.

They'll take a look at it and we say, we have this amazing Bible study course.

We have a couple different options that will suit your lifestyle and your needs.

And you'll be able to sign them up right there, get them enrolled in Bible studies.

It's a brilliant idea, it's very simple, but the beauty of it is, is that so many times church members seem awkward, because it's like I'm trying to build that relationship and I'm not sure how to ask them for Bible studies, I'm not sure if it's the right time.

And it's very easy, it's non-threatening to the person, it's not awkward for you, and it gives you that tool right in your hand.

So what we're going to do in Lansing, where I pastor, is we're going to actually have multiple banners.

There's stuff that goes on that I don't find out about until it's over with.

I meet with my departmental leaders, my elders.

And but what we're going to do is We're going to have about 5 banners, pop-up banners, and we're going to have tables, and we're going to store them in a certain place, and all of our departmental leaders are going to be trained.

It doesn't matter how big your church is, you can do the same thing, you may only have 1 banner.

Our departmental leaders are going to be trained that at every single event they host, we have a Tuesday night fit club, we have school events, we have health events, We have all kinds of things where there may only be 1 or 2 or there may be 10 non-adventists that come.

They're going to put that banner up or they're going to set that table up.

They're going to have, we're going to have probably a really nice frame that has both of these lessons in the frame, and we'll fix it up somehow really nice.

And we'll have that sitting on that table, and we'll have a stack of these cards.

And at every event we do, no matter where it's at, whether it's at the church, We're talking about doing a 5K next year.

This past year we did a dental clinic for the community.

We had 200 non-adventists come through our church.

Whatever we do, it doesn't matter what it is, we're gonna have that banner up, we're gonna have that table up, that picture frame up, and we're gonna be having someone manning that table saying, asking the question, have you heard about our Bible school?

Even on Sabbath morning during church, we're gonna have it set up, we have visitors coming in all the time, and we're going to have somebody there, and we'll have other resources there, we're going to have a resource table, whatever, but we're going to be asking people, have you heard about our Bible school?

When a visitor comes, they're going to be directed there, have you heard about our Bible school?

And so it's beautiful and you can use this magnificently.

So my point is with all of the things I'm about to share with you in this class, It all goes back to this card.

Everything I'm about to show you, this card, have you heard about our Bible school?

1 more time, have you heard about our Bible school?

All right, well, let's pray together, and then we're going to dive into this.

And the last 1 was a blessing to be with us and the Holy Spirit to guide us.

Father, we thank you for new mercies this morning.

We ask for forgiveness for our sins that our hearts and minds might be in tune with your spirit.

We ask for the gift of repentance and whatever it is we may need it for.

And we pray today, dear Father, that you would open our eyes to new things, you would help us understand the concepts and apply them.

And Lord, help us to remember not to overthink it, but to just understand it in a simple way that we may use it and apply it to others and it'll win souls.

We ask your blessing now in Jesus' name, amen.

All right, what I wanna do and really strive to do probably in the next 15 minutes, I usually take an hour and a half for this thing, is go through this and show you different ways you can, I told you how to talk to people, how to ask them for Bible studies?

But now I want to teach you some seed sowing things on how to generate Bible studies.

OK, and these methods, you may not use all of them.

And let me just say this, that it's important to understand that there's no just golden method to say, oh, if I do this, I'm gonna get 500 Bible studies.

It's never happened, it's never been that way, it never will be that way, Because if you remember what Jesus said, there's what types of soil?

And there's different types of people and there's no 1 sure method.

This is probably about as close as you can get.

Have you heard about our Bible school, right?

But if you do different things in your church, you may get 2 or 3 from this thing, 3 or 4 from this thing, half a dozen over here, 1 over here, 4 over here, and before you know it, you got 20 Bible studies, but it's from different things.

And the beauty of these things that I'm about to show you is, they don't really cost much.

So if you have a small church and a small budget, it's not a problem.

And you don't have to have big budgets to get Bible studies.

You just have to be, you have to have big hearts and you have to be willing to, you have to have a lot of elbow grease, or Holy Spirit grease, amen?

All right, 1 thing that I do is we do what we call final events or cosmic conflict surveys, And I actually have these.

And then at the end, instead of offering them Bible studies right then, we actually offer them a DVD because more people will be more receptive to a DVD than just straight up Bible studies.

So we give them the DVD, we ask them to watch it and ask them to tell us what they think about it, that we would like to get their input.

Then we go back about 3 days later and see if they watch the DVD.

You know, there'll be some people that don't.

But then after that, we offer them Bible studies.

If they didn't like it, then, and that's gonna be the case sometimes, but those are probably the people that would have been open to Bible studies anyway.

But there'll be people that'll be interested.

And you say, we have these wonderful complimentary Bible studies that go with the theme of this DVD.

We'd like to offer them to you free of charge.

Then you can have 1 of these cards right here in your hand and say, here you go.

8. How to Get Bible Studies- Part 2

All right, just 1 more illustration, then we'll move into some practice.

I've been giving you a lot of theory that you probably already heard, but that's okay.

Just suppose that every church member decided, I'm gonna give a Bible study.

When I was doing Bible work in Tennessee, we had little kids, nine-year-old girls, girl, she was 9 years old, she was out leading people to baptism.

In our school last year, we had our students going out and giving Bible studies.

But just suppose every church member said, I can give a Bible study.

Let's suppose you have 50 people attending your church, or all members, or 50 attending members, And every person, let's just say every person was able to get a Bible study.

Let's just say you have 50 people attending, but only 40 can do it.

Typically, about 1 out of every 4 people will be baptized that you study with.

So if 40 people are given Bible studies, how many baptisms are there at the end of the year?

Because that many people are working, God will bless you more.

So now I have in my church how many members?

When I baptize people, before I baptize them, I ask them, do you have somebody in your family or friend that would want to study the Bible?

I want you to go ask them if they would study the Bible because those newly members, they're not afraid.

They're not like the Laodicean lukewarm Adventist, right?

And I say, I want you to go out and find people to study the Bible with.

And let me tell you, we baptized a guy in April of this year, like 2 months ago, and he's already given Bible studies.

We baptized a guy in December in Lansing, giving Bible studies.

Baptized another lady in Lansing, She's giving Bible studies to her best friend.

Baptize, let's see, there was another 1, I don't remember, but these people, I asked them right before they're baptized, who do you have that would want to study the Bible?

There's none of this business of, oh, we need to give them a year to get comfortable in the church.

Yeah, we need to give them a year to get comfortable and not want to do anything.

Because they hang around other lukewarm Adventists who tell them, oh, you don't need to do this and that.

No, We want them moving now because that's how you change the culture of your church.

I say, I want you to go and I want you to give 2 Bible studies and they're going to watch you.

And then after you do that, you go with them again, and you have them give the study, and then after that, they're on their own.

I tell my Bible workers, you don't go give a Bible study unless you have a church member with you.

And as you become more experienced, you'll be the 1 coordinating all those people in your church who are then giving Bible studies.

So now I have 50 members and let's just say I have another, I have 40 that will still give Bible studies, right?

So we're not now just adding members, we're now what?

All right, so how do we invite people to take Bible studies?

It's very simple, it's very practical, and I have 8 little scenarios here that talk about different types of people who you might ask Bible studies, to give Bible studies to.

What you have to remember is that everybody, somebody, not everybody is going to say yes.

There's gonna be some people that are gonna say what?

If you will go into asking people to take Bible studies with the mindset of knowing ahead of time that some will say no, it won't freak you out as bad.

Look, what in life can you do where everybody's going to say yes?

I saw this video on YouTube where this guy was going around to people on the streets trying to give them free $100 bills.

And he was like, I just want you to know that I'm just trying to do an act of kindness and I just want to give you $100.

And some people took it and they were excited.

And other people said, they were looking at the guy and they were like, no, no, what are you trying to do to me?

And they said, no, people were refusing free money.

So if people are gonna refuse free money, they're also gonna refuse what?

But listen, at the end of them saying no, did you die?

Now you can move on and ask somebody else.

So we are looking for, I think I heard, How many of you heard Sean Boonstra's sermon on Sabbath morning, right?

About you're looking for people that are convicted, that are interested.

And there's going to be, and there may be somebody that's not interested today, but next month they might be interested or next year.

Because people are on different journeys and the Holy Spirit is working in their life and they may not be ready yet, but we are looking for the ripe ones.

And some people say, well, I've been doing my evangelism, I've been working with my neighbor for 25 years, and he's still not there, but 1 day, but he's not ripe yet.

Okay, there's different ways God begins to bring conviction in people's life.

We're ripe, but we're looking for people to be ripe.

Because if you ask enough times, somebody's going to say yes.

If you knew that your children were going to die if you didn't go in because you didn't have enough money to buy food, if you didn't go in and ask for a raise, how many of you would do it?

And you thought, well, he might say no, but you'd say, you know what, my kid's got to eat.

And how much more important is the eternal value, right?

All right, so number 1, the person who doesn't know a whole lot about the Bible.

How many of you have met somebody like that?

And why might they say no to you about giving them Bible studies if they don't know a whole lot?

So how many of you know people like this?

7. How to Get Bible Studies- Part 1

Have you learned something you can apply?

And we're going to talk about the next 2 days how to get right and give Bible studies.

How many of you have given Bible studies before?

How many of you realize you need some help after you gave that Bible study?

You need some very basic fundamental things and we're hopefully gonna help you with that.

And today we're gonna talk about mostly how to get Bible studies.

And then tomorrow we're gonna focus on how to write and give Bible studies.

And by the time you leave tomorrow, hopefully if we have enough time, usually we have a little bit more time, we will actually write a Bible study, and I'll teach you how to prepare a Bible study from a lesson that you might use, like the Landmarks of Prophecy or the It is Written studies.

Then I'll teach you how to write a Bible study from scratch.

All you have is a Bible, a pen, and a piece of paper, and maybe a concordance, and I'll teach you how to write a Bible study from nothing on any subject.

We're going to probably, in the next little bit, we're going to do some review from probably what you've already heard.

What is good, I'll try to be brief on that, but I see some of my church members here and former church members, so that's a blessing.

We're actually going to have a 10-day Emmanuel session down in Lansing, September 8 to 17.

So if you didn't get enough here and you say, man, I want the full version, the all day version, you guys could come to that and they'll be doing those all over the place.

I did work at Amazing Facts for about 5 years.

I worked at the Center of Evangelism, had a great time, trained a lot of students who are now working in ministry in different places as pastors and Bible workers and evangelists even.

And The reason I can give you very valuable information is because I have made a ton of mistakes.

So if there's anything I can tell you, it's what you shouldn't do.

So I'll help you not make the same mistakes because we've all blown it at some time or another.

But do you think that God in his foreknowledge knew that we would do that?

And the only way to avoid those mistakes and to get better from them is to keep what?

And the more you do it, the more God teaches you.

And if you read the Gospels, you find the apostles, early apostles made a few mistakes, didn't they?

But there's something powerful, there's something life changing and transformational when the God of heaven uses you to win a soul to Him.

There's something that happens not just in their heart, but in your heart.

And let me tell you, friends, my faith probably would have died long ago if it had not been for me sharing it with others.

And every time I get in a spiritual rut, every time I find myself just kind of declining and becoming discouraged, I pray to God, God send someone into my life that I can speak to about you and he does it every time and it always revitalizes my faith.

Some of the times I've been the most depressed.

You know why a lot of Adventists are kind of sour and they're kind of discouraged and they're kind of depressed?

It's because most of them are not sharing the gospel with other people.

When you do that, you cannot help but become on fire.

And so God wants to use you, he wants to do great things through you, and you will change when you begin to do this.

How many of you know this fire that I'm talking about already?

You've tasted it, you love it, and You just want more and more of it.

You just want to quit your jobs and just do full-time Bible work, right?

I remember when I was in college, I became a Seventh-day Adventist when I was 22 years old.

I thought it was the most foolish stuff on the planet.

You know how they have this little campus ministry thing?

My brother Daniel back there, they had campus ministry.

And I got to the point in my life where I was going to commit suicide because I was so depressed and had no purpose in life.

My mother had attempted suicide when I was 17.

Fortunately, I called the ambulance and God saved her life.

And so I had all this baggage in my life and I was ready to kill myself.

And I actually studied the Bible to prove it false.

And the only Seventh-day Adventist in my family at that time was my uncle and my aunt.

I took those Bible studies and I took a Bible that my grandmother had given me many years before.

You don't, even if you're an atheist and your grandma gives you a Bible, you just don't throw that away because grandma gave it to you, right?

I have a little box with all the stuff that my grandparents gave me and in there was this little Bible.

I knocked the dust off that thing and I started to try to prove it wrong.

So I went through the amazing facts Bible study guides And as I went through those, truth began to be open to me.

And this stuff made more sense than anything else I had ever seen.

And so as I studied those prophecies, I found evidence that the Bible could be trusted, that it was true.

And the prophecies reveal the truth of our world from ancient days until now it speaks to 20 16 so as this just became real to me I began to go to my professors and I began to say look this is what I'm finding from the bible I know you think it's false and I did too, but what do you say about this?

How can the Bible and how could Daniel predict 2500 years worth of world history with 100% accuracy way before it ever happened?

We don't have time to talk to you about that.

And so I went back to my room and I kept studying.

And I came to the conclusion, I came to this crossroads where I had to decide for myself, is the Bible real?

And so the conviction was so heavy in my heart, I knew the answer to that question.

And then I began to read the Gospels and I came face to face with Christ.

And I saw how nasty my life was and how righteous his life was.

And to make a long story longer, I knelt down and I accepted the Lord.

22 years old in my college apartment, former atheist on a state university campus, and my life radically changed forever.

Now what fueled that faith, it wasn't just the excitement of receiving Jesus, that's wonderful, it's joyous, but the greater joy came when I began to see others whose lives were changed through a sinful person like me.

Advent HOPE Sabbath School

The Adventist Atheist

Father, we thank you so much for the opportunity to visit together with you, the Almighty, the God of heaven, creator of heaven and earth, the maker of all things, both that breathe and both that are inanimate throughout the earth and throughout the universe.

And Lord, all things have come from Your hand.

You have such wonderful and magnificent thoughts towards us.

Back to Menu

Presenter

Wes Peppers

All Recordings

11. How to Give Bible Studies- Part 1

36m

8. How to Get Bible Studies- Part 2

1h 4m

7. How to Get Bible Studies- Part 1

51m

The Adventist Atheist

1h 1m

The Atheist Who Found God

1h 25m

Adventist Culture Vs. Adventist Faith

1h 19m

How Can We Own It?

1h

I Will

30m

The Faith of the Faithless

34m

Nehemiahs Needed Now

32m

When Righteousness Becomes Sin

35m

Freedom’s Freedom

34m

Sound Doctrine