Adult Study Reviews from All Saints, Agassiz

This report was kindly prepared and written by Sheila Barker, adult study group leader in the parish. If you lead or participate in such a group in your parish the Missioner for Christian Formation would love to hear from you too. It helps to share what works and even what didn’t to aid growth in our discipleship.   

The Book Club has met on Zoom since before COVID to accommodate members who live at a distance. Up to 10 people, including two from the United Church, meet weekly on Wednesday evening and the group has been led by Sheila Barker since May 2022.  

Before that the Book Club had been effectively taken over by Norman Caroll, a Roman Catholic deacon from the USA, who was dogmatically guiding the group through his own book “The Wedding of Science and Religion” 2018. The book was confusing and controversial and consisted largely of quotes from other authors such as Ilia Delio. Eventually our vicar advised us to withdraw from the meetings. Having the author present at every meeting inhibited honest discussion.  

Since then we have enjoyed the following varied selection of books that have all been recommended by members of the group:  

Ten People you’ve never met are about to Change Your Life by Sam Rowland (2009). Sam lives in BC and has travelled the world sharing the gospel through his music and talks. In this short and very readable book he shares his own Christian journey and how it has been influenced by ten wonderful people he met on the way. He kindly introduced the book and listened to our feedback when we had finished it. We were all encouraged, inspired or challenged by one or more of the characters.  

The Book of Joy by the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu with Douglas Abrams (2016). A Buddhist and a Christian leader, who are already great friends, meet in India to discuss finding ‘lasting happiness in a changing world’ and their conversations are reported by a Jewish writer. The Book Club spent three fruitful months exploring this book and its helpful coverage of eight obstacles to joy and eight pillars of joy. It was interesting to discover the common ground found by the two friends and especially moving to read about the archbishop learning the art of meditation from the Dalai Lama and offering communion to him.  

Cold-Case Christianity; A homicide detective investigates the claims of the gospels by J Warner Wallace (2013). A devout atheist decides to apply his skills as a cold-case forensic detective to examine evidence, eyewitness accounts and records related to the New Testament. In doing so he becomes a believer and gives his readers powerful tools to defend their own faith. A DVD course and Participant’s Guide are also available. The group found the book very helpful and is interested in a future study of Warner Wallace’s next book “God’s Crime Scene” about the creation of the universe.  

Scouting the Divine: Searching for God in Wine, Wool and Wild Honey by Margaret Feinberg (2009). The writer meets with a shepherd, bee-keeper, farmer and vintner to throw light on Bible passages. The book itself was enjoyable light reading for the group, but there was good discussion material available on-line to the leader and there is a linked Bible study book.  

The current book is Where is God when it Hurts? by Philip Yancey (1990). This is a very practical exploration of the problem of suffering, why it exists, how to deal with it personally as Christians and how to help other sufferers more effectively. This is particularly good for encouraging members to share their own experiences of suffering and their attempts to support other people.  

For Lent 2022 a separate group followed a short course on Forgiveness that was prepared by Revd. Canon Ted Goodyer for a parish in England and was used with his permission. It used passages from the Bible and other books to explore God’s forgiveness and how to experience and practice forgiveness in our own lives. It proved to be a healing journey for some members.  

The parish Bible Study group meets weekly on Saturday mornings on Zoom and is also led by a lay member, Karol Henrotte. The group studies the readings for the next day’s Sunday service. This really helps to absorb the Scriptures because four passages are a lot to process if heard only once in the service. Members have study Bibles and commentaries to help their understanding.

Photo by Sanjeevan SatheesKumar on Unsplash.