Beginning this Thursday, my daughter Julie and I will be offering a twice-a-week online class about The Story of Scripture. Originally designed as a brief course for my grandkids during the pandemic, we also decided to make it available to other interested families. This class will explore the story that runs through all of Scripture and how it connects us with the Living Jesus as he makes himself known in each of our hearts today. It is an adaptation of the material Wayne taught in The Jesus Lens, which is available for free on this website and takes the view that Scripture is a progressive revelation of who God is and how we can engage him and his unfolding purpose in the world.
No you won’t see Julie on camera, most likely, though I’ve offered to split the sessions with her. She is doing all the behind-the-scenes work, though, and I’m really grateful to be on another project with her. My grandkids are 15, 12, and 9 and I’ll be working to help engage them with this incredible story, but I also suspect adults who haven’t taken the time to work through the full Jesus Lens will find it helpful as well. While The Jesus Lens directly addresses those who have experienced a real disconnect from Scripture because of “teachers” who have abused them with the Bible, we will not be addressing that here. We will be starting fresh to uncover the treasures and mysteries this book contains that can help people recognize the voice of Jesus in their own life today.
The classes will be about twenty minutes long and start at 11:00 am Pacific Daylight Time, Thursday, March 26. They will continue on Tuesday and Thursday mornings for 13 sessions. For those who can’t join us live, the videos will be available afterwards for you to share with your kids when it’s convenient for you. If you’re interested in further details, please join The Scripture Story Facebook Group to get updated announcements and the link to the live feed.
The video instruction will still be available after we record, if you can’t join us live. Also, we will provide a place at Lifestream.org to contain the full class and handouts as we progress, so you’ll be able to watch it ten years from now if you can wait until then.
This is an experiment. I’ve not done on-line teaching before, nor tried to scale this down for young ages. After the twenty-minute video lesson, I’m hoping you’ll spend some extra time helping your own children by answering questions or sharing with them what you think of the lesson. Julie and I did a brief podcast about this which you can listen to here. It can give you more details and ideas.
Of course, we reserve the right to cancel this whole thing if it turns out to be not very helpful. I feel like a little kid standing on the high dive about to jump in for the first time, and I still want the freedom to walk back down the ladder if I need to. 🙂
This sounds wonderful and I can’t wait to listen to all of it. I’ve listened many times to the Jesus Lens. I enjoy so very much your studies from the Bible – Transitions, interviews, etc. Of course, I have listened to all the podcasts on the God Journey. You have such a unique way of teaching from a love standpoint of the scriptures and not fear, condemnation and rules. Thank you for all the work you do to help myself and others know the real Jesus!
I am so excited! And love the analogy of kid on diving board and still being able to walk back down it wanting to:)!
I am not on FB so don’t think I can listen live? But look forward to the videos thank you thank you thank you thank you so so so so so so so so so so so much for offering this!!!!!
This is very exciting! Thank you for doing this Wayne and Julie!
I applaud your efforts here! Way to adapt! I think you’ll have fun with this – a new way to connect with people, something you are great at doing. As teachers my husband and I have learned much in the last week about taking instruction on-line. Who knows how it will help us in the future? It won’t be perfect as we learn, but it will be fun to be “together” in the only way we can right now. Thanks for doing this! Enjoy!
All I can say is, “JUMP Wayne, JUMP! Really loved The Jesus Lens and as a former Pastor for almost 30 years whose major was Biblical Studies (mostly to become a better Pharisee) I listened for any of those key words and terms that we were trained to listen for in Evangelical/Fundamentalist circles to identify heretical teaching about our treasured book! What I found was very sound teaching that spoke to my heart and confirmed things I was already sensing but sometimes afraid to say out loud with other colleagues in ministry! So, JUMP Wayne, JUMP!
I already did!