For a while now I've been thinking a lot about how the Christian Community tends to use the phrase "Bible Study"  and I've come to a decision that I'm going to move away from trying to identify any particular group with that terminology anymore.

First some background.  I'm from the West Coast.  I've been involved in the Church for many years and have been a career paid youth minister for a long time.  I'm a huge proponent of small group ministries and think that is where the life of the Church needs to happen. 

I've called them "Core Groups" for a long time and my working definition is a group of students (usually under 15) who are committed to regularly meeting and exploring life and faith together with one or two great leaders who love Jesus.  I've had several great experiences with these types of groups both from a leading standpoint (Bel Air Pres Class of 2003) and watching my wife lead several groups at a couple different churches.  The key part of these groups for me was the part where we lived life and faith together. 

Typically these groups would meet for 2 hours. We'd eat pizza, talk about relationships, families, struggles and at some point would talk about faith. Often we studied a passage of scripture and how it was applying to the night but more often than not we spent the most of our night providing practical theological insight to the students on how to "Live Out" their faith in their lives.  We found that this was a better place to start because it engaged the students in the practical outcomes of how to live their faith and then they would often want to have more deeper insight.

One of my favorite things now is to see these groups again several years or more after they have graduated and still have a cohesion and a purpose when they come together.  Going around the table and asking the questions: "Where is God in your life?"  "Where do you want him to be?" "What's in the way?" "How can I help?"  is something they've heard from me 100's of times while I lead their groups.

So back to the "Bible Study" phrase.  Let me first say I am a fan of studying the Bible and correctly interpreting the scriptures I just have come to realize that for many believers that studying the Bible is the end for their faith and not the beginning.  

Using the phrase "Bible Study" to describe any group often can give them a singular focus and can be a limiting factor to allowing new students to join.  I seems to be much harder to invite a friend to a "Core Group" than it does to a "Bible Study". 

In the Western Evangelical Christian world we have often taken the word "Church" to describe the 1 hour service which happens on a Sunday morning.  Because of that we tend to equate "Good" or "Bad" church experiences and teaching around the 20-minute sermon that is given by the pastor.  But "Church" is much more than that 20-minute experience each week though right?  Yet, how many of us have been guilty of complaining about a pastors message and have called it not "Deep enough" or "Lacking meat"  How robust is your "church" experience if your only interaction with your church community is during that 1 hour service?

I often interact with parents who's students are involved in multiple weekly Bible studies and they rave about what their students are learning  and the value they place on the "education" they are receiving about the Bible.  I'm usually not very supportive of parents who focus their attention on the curriculum or the words ending in "-ology" that their kids know.  I'm also not particularly fond of groups that have taken students out of their faith community and don't provide a place for students to serve or grow in the context of their Church.

So back to my original idea.  I'm not a fan of calling anything a "Bible Study" anymore.  Instead I'm going to start using the phrase  "Bible Living."  Let's place the importance of learning the Word of God  as it applies to living out our lives.   We don't hide in a room with a concordance a dictionary and a Bible learning complex theological concepts. Instead we open up our Bibles on the street, in the broken home, with our friends who we know are doing things they shouldn't, in front of the TV that depicts negative things, as we download music illegally, in the midst of gossiping about that other person,  at football practice, with our boyfriend, girlfriend,  at the mall and everywhere else where we are "living". 

Too many students and families compartmentalize their faith elevating the "Knowledge" of the Bible without elevating the "Practice" of living it out.  I'm advocating a change to how we teach and we live that we don't graduate students who know all "the stories" but that we graduate students who know "Their Story" and how putting it in context of the scriptures and God's ultimate plan for humanity changes how they live their lives. 

The Church needs to graduate students who understand how to "Live out their Faith."  We don't have time anymore to waste graduating Biblically literate students who know Bible stories and concepts yet who's lives look nothing different from everyone else at their colleges.

Do not "Study" the Bible.  "Live" the Bible.