Tag: Catechesis

Growing in understanding

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Question: “How do we grow in knowledge and understanding of Scripture?”
Answer: “Ask more questions”.

If you want to grow in knowledge and understanding of anything, asking questions is a great way to go about it! The sure and true way to stagnate in anything is to simply be satisfied with your current level of development and understanding and let yourself slowly atrophy.

So, if you want to grow in your knowledge and understanding of Scripture, ask questions about it! If you read a passage which contains lots of things in it that you don’t understand, get a good study Bible, find a Bible geek and keep asking questions until you’re satisfied with the answers!

Institute of Catholic Culture

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Today I would like to draw your attention to one of the best online sources for Catholic education, the Institute of Catholic Culture.

The Institute was founded by Rev. Franklyn McAfee and Deacon Sabatino Carnazzo. The activities of the institute are centered on the east coast of America, not too far away from where I used to live in Washington DC. However, their work and reach is extended through the magic of the Internet. Their website hosts a huge library of lectures on theology, philosophy, history, Scripture and many other topics. In fact, the website recently underwent a redesign and it is now even possible to watch the lectures live.

Institute Of Catholic Culture

I think I first encountered the Institute through Joe Heschmeyer, Catholic blogger extraordinaire and recent Kansas City seminarian. After he once mentioned the Institute I immediately began consuming all their talks, especially those on Sacred Scripture and the Early Church Fathers. So much great stuff! Here have been some of my favourite talks:

Lives of the Apostolic Fathers
Protestant Revolution | Kingdom of the Cults
Shadows of the Virgin | St. Augustine’s Just War Theory: Then & Now

Anyone who has attended the JP2 Group within the last two years will certainly be familiar with the Institute since I have mentioned them frequently and distributed many of their talks on CD.

The topics are varied, the content is solid and the speakers are engaging. So, if you wish to gain a better understanding of the Catholic faith and experience more of its riches, I would thoroughly recommend that you check out the Institute of Catholic Culture.

Leading Bible Study

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Saturday was the last installment of my “Do’s and Don’ts of Leading Bible Study” series. I’ve decided to create this short post to aggregate all the different entries in the series:

Part 1: Preparation
Part 2: Beginning the meeting
Part 3: Starting the discussion
Part 4: Fostering discussion
Part 5: Tricky issues
Part 6: Concluding thoughts

Bonus: Feedback #1
Bonus: Feedback #2
Bonus: Feedback #3

I have used this blog series to capture some of my experience in leading Bible study, as well as record some of the hard lessons I’ve had to learn. It is my hope that this will be a useful resource for anyone new to leading a Bible study group, such as the many new people we’ve recently had leading in the JP2 Group.

DO: Be welcoming…just not too much…

When I began this series, I had hoped that there would be more discussion. Unfortunately, despite these posts getting a large number of hits, there was fairly little feedback in the Comment Boxes.

Therefore, over the next few days I’m going to be emailing this post to everyone I know who has been involved in leading Bible studies, discussion groups or are involved in leadership in some kind of way 🙂

I invite you to do the same 😀

Even if you’re not a Bible study leader, what have been some good experiences and bad experiences you’ve had in a Bible study group?

What, in your opinion, makes for a good Bible study?

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