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Acts: Living with Passionate Faith (Annual Bible Study 2009)

Make your annual Bible study an exciting church-wide event. This illustrated study in Acts involves children, youth, and adults. Plus, outlines are included to help worship connect with the study.

Leading the Study
Offering an annual Bible study emphasis at your church is a terrific way to deepen the Bible knowledge of your congregation. Because the emphasis includes a meaningful experience for children, youth, and adults, it is an ideal family-oriented study.

About the Study
Studying Acts may make readers feel as though they are stepping into a different world, a world of miracles, a world where God is alive and moving and doing remarkable things. How can that world intersect ours? How can the old story of people speaking in tongues and raising the dead come alive in a world where no one speaks in tongues and the dead stay dead? How can Acts be relevant to our lives and our church?

In Acts, the people who believe in Jesus are filled with the Holy Spirit and set about the business of gathering a community. They have to decide how wide their tent is going to be and whom they’re going to embrace, so they give themselves to the task of breaking down walls. Jesus is not just for Jews, they decide. He’s for everyone. They launch out spreading the word. Paul becomes the focal point of the story, and he and his friends move about the ancient world telling all kinds of people the good news about Jesus and his resurrection. But there is opposition, and Paul is imprisoned. He is faithful even there, though, taking a stand before the government authorities. By the time the drama of Acts ends, Paul might be confined, but his message most assuredly is not. The gospel has been unleashed throughout that entire part of the world.

Gathering a community. Breaking down walls. Spreading the word. Taking a stand. These four phrases organize this study of Acts and guide readers through a world alive with God and God’s mighty deeds. And all of us who have “drunk too deeply at the wells of reason and rationality” will once again pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe.

Sessions included in the teaching guide, by age group:
Acts for Adults
1. Gathering a Community
2. Breaking Down Walls
3. Spreading the Word
4. Taking a Stand

Acts for Youth
1. A Dynamic Church
2. A Distinct Calling
3. A Divine Commission
4. A Definite Conviction

Acts for Children
1. The Church Is Born
2. The Church Is for Everyone
3. The Church Has a Mission
4. The Church Builds Faith

Materials available:
Teaching Guide —$14.00
Study Guide —$6.00
Bundle options available!
Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary: Acts (with CD-ROM) by J. Bradley Chance
Reading Acts by Charles Talbert

Find print copies of these books through this web site, or call 800-747-3016. Bundle discounts are available.

Helpful Tips:

• Successfully implementing this emphasis will require coordination and cooperation from worship leadership and educational leadership in your church. Plan a meeting with these leaders to build commitment and excitement for the emphasis.
• Begin promoting the emphasis in December. Help build anticipation from your congregation about a special church-wide emphasis coming for the new year.
• Of course, if January seems too soon for a Bible study emphasis in your church, schedule yours for February or March.  
• Take advantage of the visuals available in the study guide as a part of teaching. Better yet, if you have access to a computer with a CD-ROM drive and a video projector, use the CD-ROM included with the Acts Commentary to display and interpret pertinent paintings and photos.
• Today’s adults and youth are visual learners, and respond well to images that illustrate or create dialogue within a study.
• Integrating Sunday morning worship into your emphasis can create an added dimension to your study of Acts. Of course, feel free to adapt and adjust the included worship outlines and resources to better fit your church’s style of worship.
• An Annual Bible Study is a terrific time to invite a guest leader. Of course, it’s also an opportunity for your church staff to enjoy a new setting for leadership and teaching.