Biblical engagement
I recently had to do a project where I read a couple of books and then created a “tool” that would assess the Biblical Engagement of a single church congregation.
The two books I read were Tribal Leadership and The Starfish & the Spider.
Because we naturally want to evaluate quantitative change/growth, I thought something like “Biblical engagement” should also require some qualitative understanding.
The tool I came up with was to really engage the culture of Biblical Engagement within a church. The purpose would be to come out the other side of the evaluation knowing the attitudes and perceptions of the people in your church towards engaging the Bible. I wanted to post my tool here so others could offer feedback or use it.
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In the project, there are 3 crucial questions with a ton of sub-questions that you can use, altar, or ignore. You could interview people with these questions, answer them yourselves, or do a combination of the two where you aggregate the answers to form a “story” of the culture of Biblical engagement.
1. Is there a clear culture of Biblical Engagement in your Church?
-How do people approach the Bible? With what attitudes and predispositions?
-What creates this culture?/How is the culture created?
-Who espouses the Culture? How is it espoused?
-What do newcomers get out of this “culture”? Are they attracted by the engagement of the text? Changed by it?
-What are the mechanisms of maintaining the Biblical Engagement culture?
2. What are the Core Values of Biblical Engagement in your Church?
-How do you identify those values?
-What do people talk about the sermon? what do they remember from it? What do they say about the sermon at lunch after church? What would they say about it midweek?
-What other times do they engage the text? What does it tell you (or maybe not) about their values?
-What seems to be the value system espoused from the pulpit?
-What are the practical effects of the value system? How do you see it effecting the lives of the congregation’s members?
-What are the mechanisms that create this value (how does it flow from top to bottom, or bottom to top, etc.)?
-Two important ways to understand the values of a congregation: 1) Get someone to tell you a rich, valuable story about the way the Bible has changed their life in regards to your church. What values surface? 2) Ask people: When it comes to the way our church handles the Bible, what are you proud of? Excited about? What ticks you off?
3. What is the “Noble Cause” of Biblical Engagement in your Church?
-What is the energy of the church’s interaction with the Bible directed towards?-If you could sum up how your congregation approaches the Text, what would it be? What is it aimed at accomplishing?
-And how does it go about accomplishing it?
-What is the Biblical Engagement in service of? (what/who does it serve)?
I'm a runner, writer, thinker, and pastor. I love to agitate people's consciences. I like to spend my time reading, running, and relaxing with family & friends.