We started this summer with one of the most important things we could do as a church; study the bible together outside on our lovely deck over food and fellowship.

Fr. Mirabile and his wife Inger hosted the bible study at their home. Thankfully the weather was great just about every time, so the bible study was held outside on the deck.  Our bible study was designed to be short, only six weeks, so that no one felt they were making a huge long term commitment. The book of Ephesians perfectly fit the time span and provided great material for this inductive bible study. Each week we gathered at 7pm and everyone brought some food. We enjoyed pastries and watermelon, grapes and brownies while we had time to simply share what was happening in our lives over the preceding week. We then opened our study with some extemporaneous prayer and Fr. Mirabile led us in the study through an inductive process of asking the group questions about the text and encouraging them to share their thoughts. The goal was not to merely discover the right academic and theological answers to the text, but to share on a personal level what those passages meant to the reader. Fr. Mirabile provided background information on the texts from time to time to help keep the discussion theologically grounded. After spending about an hour sharing our thoughts we then shared prayer requests. These requests ranged from items of personal need to the needs of others. Then each person took the prayer request of another and together we vocally prayed for each of the needs mentioned. The amazing thing was watching how God had answered this or that prayer each week in some way. On a few occasions some stayed after the group was dismissed and enjoyed the evening and more up-building conversation.

Two weeks have gone by since the last bible study and already people are remarking how much they enjoyed it and how meaningful it was. The group has ended for the summer, but we are looking forward to beginning again in the Fall.