Thrilled - so sharing!

Front page - send your friends!

Sorry - this is only very tangentially about home group leading, but I was so excited about it, that I felt I just had to share it with anyone who I'm connected with.
We (that is, The Good Book Company that I work for) have just launched a new website designed to help people with questions about faith have them answered in a straightforward and simple way.
www.christianityexplored.org
Would love you to check it out, pass it on, blog it up, tweet it down, facebook it across, and generally big it over. It has been know for some people to actually speak to each other face to face about things as well - weird but true!
Be massively grateful for feedback, as the development of this site will be a long-term project for us, but here are some of the things we've tried to do well that is new or unique:

1. Simple, biblical, modern. Our review of other gospel websites out there that are "non-Christian friendly" basically produced a pretty patchy haul. Some of them do some things extremely well, but few embody a strongly biblical approach, and at the same time are attractive, have decently shot video content. They tend to be text heavy, and hard to navigate. Hoping that we have done some of those things well. The aim was simplicity, clarity, and ease of use, with longer text things being secondary to the video content.
2. International faces and voices. Variety of backgrounds. We've got some big hitters in there, but plenty of "ordinary joes" as well.
3. Ongoing development. We've a plan to continue development over the next 5 years to make sure that it remains up to date, with changing content. 
4. We aim to help local churches do the work of evangelism - rather than do it ourselves. The site is designed to support local churches in their evangelistic efforts, by providing a resource that supports your work, and points people who find the site randomly back to local churches where they can hear the gospel in the context of the gospel community.
5. Designed to work "gently" with CE, but not a platform for its naked promotion. If you don't know it, Christianity Explored is an Alpha-style course that takes people through the Gospel of Mark. It's huge worldwide, but not that well known in the US yet. In other words, there is some CE course content in there, but we hope it is subtle enough that even churches that are not using the programme will find this website a great resource for helping others towards faith.

Enjoy.

Potted proverbs: we've aversions to versions

Compulsive comparison disorder

We were boldly plodding our way through Philippians and making great progress until we came to 3 v 3 -- and the evening descended into utter chaos. I won't cloud the issue with the rather complex questions that came out of that particular verse, but the problem was that we had too many Bible translations around the table for our own good.

"He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words" 1 Tim 6 v 4

The blessing of translations
In the developed world, we are blessed with an extraordinary number of brilliant translations that help us get to the core of what the original text of the Bible is and means. We have literal word for word translations in the tradition of the AV, RV, RSV - the most modern being the New King James, and the English Standard Version.

And we have what are called the Dynamic Equivalence translations that try to translate phrase meanings, rather than words. The versions, like the now almost universal NIV and the New Living Translation (NLT) gain readability, at the expense of their making some decisions about interpretation for us.

And finally there are the paraphrases that do a lot of interpretation, and are more concerned with delivering the impact of the Bible using punchy language and modern idioms and expressions. Like The Message and before that the J B Phillips translation and the Living Bible (or the Living Libel as Ian Paisley used to call it).

Taken individually and together, these translations are a wonderful blessing to us. They help us see the richness and the nuances of the original Bible text. They give insight into what a difficult passage may be talking about, and, in the case of the Paraphrases, suggest brilliant ways of expressing these truths in pithy memorable ways, or even illustrating them with word pictures.

The curse of translations
But when you have a variety of translations around the table, especially when you are with young Christians, or even with those who are not yet Christian, they can be a curse. What could be a fantastic opportunity to talk about the challenge and nature of Christian discipleship, turns into a painful slog through the various semantic registers of the word "Confidence" - the whole study grinding to a halt as we run out of time, energy and willpower.

The tragedy is that the really brilliant things we could have been talking about have been hijacked by the fact that we have too many translations round the table. At their best, they can enlighten discussion. At their worst, they can completely derail it.

My solution? Simple.

Insist that there is a main translation that everyone works from in the group. Choose the translation you use, according to the lowest common denominator. And if "the least of these in the Kingdom" can only cope with the New International Reader's Version, or the excellent NCV, then that's the version to use. For most groups this will mean that you gravitate towards a well used standard version like the NIV.

Of course, un your preparation you will, as leader, make sure you have a look and a read of the passage in a variety of the above translations, so that you will be able to give a steer if a question is raised, without going off on a tangent.

And you won't ban people from using other translations. It's just that you will insist that there is one translation that you all default to. That way, you will spend your time talking about the substance of the passage, not nit picking over the details.

Do people think this is the right approach? What versions do you prefer to use, and why? Answers on a postcard (or alternatively, click the button below).

Brilliant April Fools

The company I work for ran a hilarious spoof advert for a new product - the pre-thumbed Bible here.

Well worth reading the reviews that people independently created - shows that we all recognise the subtle "point scoring" that can take place in Christian circles. Here's my favourite:

 I was so excited about this having been embarrassed in group Bible studies for years. Having bought this Bible though I was disappointed. Major passages of Leviticus had been highlighted and annotated, it wasn't long before everyone in my home group realised it must be a fake. No-one ever reads Leviticus. 

Hoping that the joke is not a reality in any Home groups that you might lead. Be interested to know if it is...