Bible study helps women become 'sisters'

By Kathy L. Gilbert
A UMNS Feature

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Sitting in a comfortable living room sipping coffee, five women are talking about a pregnant 13-year-old girl. It isn't someone they know; it's someone about whom they have read.

The living room is a TV production stage. The 13-year-old girl they are discussing is Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Amanda Bachus, Julie Glass, Faye Lions, Marj Pon and Rebecca Laird are being taped for a "Sisters Bible Study for Women."

"Being so young and pregnant by the Holy Spirit, that is really beyond my comprehension," Bachus says. "That is why I am here in this Bible study. I want some answers."

Unfailing Love: Growing Closer to Jesus Christ, written by Laird, is the second in a series of Bible studies being produced by the United Methodist Publishing House and United Methodist Communications. It will be available in March.

"Sisters" invites women to delve into the Bible, but it also offers them an opportunity to form deeper relationships with other women.

The first in the series, Knowing God: Making God the Main Thing in My Life by Kimberly Dunnam Reisman, was published in August. More than 5,000 women participated in the first study, Dean says.

Reisman is associate pastor of Trinity United Methodist Church in Lafayette, Ind. She also is author of The Christ-Centered Woman.

"Sisters" invites women to delve into the Bible, but it also offers them an opportunity to form deeper relationships with other women, says Lions, one of the four "sisters" in the group led by Laird, author of Leslie Weatherhead's The Will of God: A Workbook. She is a licensed minister in the Church of the Nazarene and is serving a Presbyterian church. She lives with her husband and two daughters in Madison, N.J.

For information on the series, go to www.Cokesbury.com.

Video clips available online at umns.umc.org/03/dec/586.htm.

Last updated on 01/14/2004

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