New Word Order

Amy Boyd and Tricia Russell were leading a stagnant Sunday night bible study class at Mt. Carmel Baptist Church. Some women attended class. Others attended sporadically. A study lesson mapped out by some unknown Christian author accompanied the Bible. Most women never completed the week’s study until five minutes after class started.“I would stand at the front of the room, having prepared the night before, and see some of the ladies trying to answer the questions in the study companion,” Amy said. “A few didn’t care that their pages were blank. I began to realize our class needed to grow and we might need to make a change.”Amy and Tricia found themselves standing at a fork in the road. They realized their class didn’t have any fervor, and both Tricia and Amy felt God wanted more from them.Amy stepped out of her comfort zone five years ago when she began teaching the women’s Sunday night bible study class at her church. “I had been teaching a children’s Sunday School class when I felt God wanted more from me,” Amy reflects. “I remember asking Tricia if she ever needed help with the Sunday night class that maybe I could help. For me to help her teach the ladies was a God thing.”Tricia had been leading the women’s class since 2006 when Amy began helping her teach. Even though Tricia was the teacher, she believed she still needed to be taught. For the next couple of years, the fill-in-the-blank women’s class carried on as usual on most Sunday nights.Then God slowly began to weave change in the two women’s lives.“Finding ways of teaching better and reaching the women in our class was both of our goals,” Tricia said.“After I began helping Tricia teach on Sunday night, I felt God nudging me to begin sharing my testimony. I struggled with doing that for a while; opening your past up and not knowing how it would be viewed by others is hard,” said Amy.So the pair bravely ascended the stage and spoke during a women’s conference at their church in 2009. It was that day that they felt confirmation from God that they were heading toward the right path.Then July 2010 they left for a “She Speaks” conference in North Carolina to seek inspiration. “My focus for attending was to learn the techniques of speaking,” Amy said, “because I had no idea how to formulate a biblical message.”As they drove to North Carolina, Tricia said she and Amy were uncertain of how the women’s conference would help them. “We weren’t sure what we were going to find out of state, but we were hoping to find something.”Then God’s big plan began to unfold more clearly, and all of the women in the bible study would soon feel His touch.“Our discipleship class had spent years learning through various fill-in-the-blank type bible studies,” Amy recalled, “but after this trip, Tricia and I wanted more. We wanted more for us and more for others. And more came in the form of change.”It started with a Book. No longer would these ladies teach from the traditional New King James or New International Version of the Bible. They were going to teach from the Chronological Bible.But Tricia and Amy were apprehensive about how this might be received by the class, so they kept it a secret for six months. “We knew this would require more study time, prayer, and faith to step out of our comfort zone, but we were both willing to take the risk,” Tricia said. “If you are using a book, then teaching by the book just makes sense. And, now our class discussion is a study of the Bible. The only difference in this Book is that the scripture is arranged verse by verse in chronological order of how the events occurred.”For instance, the book of Job is found in a more chronological location after Genesis, while verses within the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles fall in line with each other instead of within separate books.“Our Chronological Bible has become known as our ‘Sunday Night Bible’ since we use it in our Sunday night discipleship class,” Amy added. “A few months ago I went to speak at another church and mentioned my Sunday Night Bible and of course got a funny look. I had to explain that it was The Bible except in Chronological order. Once that was understood, there was some interest in how the study worked, what we learned from it, and where could they get one.”Changing Bibles has taught their class to learn on a deeper level.“I see the Bible in a whole new way since we changed the way we study,” Tricia said. “The Bible isn’t just a book with stories about people written a long time ago. It is a love story of how much God was willing to sacrifice for a right relationship with His people. I discovered these people were ordinary people just like me who were empowered through God’s Holy Spirit to do extraordinary things to bring glory to God. I have a new desire to read and study. I want to know more and more about God, his character, his provisions, and his promises.”For Amy, the change was not easy. “I had a lot of concerns,” she said. “Mainly I worried if the ladies would be willing to change the norm of the class structure that had been done since way before I even attended Mt. Carmel. I also worried if I could really teach what I perceived as a much more in-depth study. In the past if my work week had been crazy I was able to spend a few extra hours on Sat and be okay teaching, but with teaching from only the chronological Bible, I was going to have to make studying a priority.”Tricia and Amy began teaching through the Bible in January 2010 and are still going through it today. Their Sunday school class has not only completed the entire Bible twice, but has more than doubled in attendance. In 2013, the class decided to spend more time combing through the Book’s verses, and one year later these ladies have almost completed Genesis.“I have witnessed many ladies growing in their faith as well as in their knowledge of the Bible,” Tricia said. “This type of study has truly been a blessing because we are all excited about studying God’s word. Others have seen our enthusiasm and seem to be interested as well. Another class in our church has even started using the chronological bible during their Sunday school class.”Each year Amy and Tricia have asked the class if they want to continue their in-depth chronological study of the Bible or take a break and go back to another type of study. Unanimously the ladies agree to continue.If Amy and Tricia had allowed their fear to conquer their feelings, they believe they would have missed many great blessings. Stepping out in faith to suggest a change in their traditional study was difficult but led by God’s power.“That’s why it has been so successful – because God’s power is the only one we need. I hope others do not allow anxiety and fear to hinder the message God has for them,” Tricia said. “Even when the path He shows you seems difficult, step onto it with faith.” 78