Every Wednesday night for a year, some guys have been getting together to study the Bible.

For lots of people, that sentence would have been more comfortable if I had said “martial arts” or “leadership” or  even “for a book club.”

Getting together for a book club, everyone knows that the book may be great or awful, but the point is the interaction around the book. In responding to the book, you learn more about how the other people think and feel. You are learning. Together.

Getting together for martial arts, everyone assumes  there are different levels of learning and that is to be celebrated not despised, that showing off always gets you in trouble, that sparring is part of the learning process, that respect for everyone matters, and that learning from those who know more is okay.

Getting together for a leadership study, everyone assumes that we all have some experience that is valuable for others to learn from. Everyone knows that how the training session is led has to reflect the principles being taught, else they will be shown to be useless.

Intriguingly, this Bible study is doing all of those things, caring and learning and listening and sparring and respecting.  We’re always saying, What does that mean, what does that look like, what is that in non-church language?

Tonight, ten of us will get together to wrestle through more of 1 John 4, clarifying the theological words and working on God and love and what that means. We’ll talk about Gideon and how to tell when God is talking.  We’ll be willing to say that we don’t understand the Bible sometimes. It will be book club and martial arts and leadership. It will be church.

Even though I lead, I don’t think they know how much I need them.