How do you go about choosing a good Bible study? Check out Amazon, and you’ll find there are 11,665 under the topic, “Bible Study for women.” That’s a lot of options! Too many for me to wade through. Here’s a great way to choose the best Bible study – attend this year’s Bible Study Expo. I’ve even provided a free cheat sheet for you to download and fill out.
What is Bible Study Expo?
Bible Study Expo is the dream of Marnie Swedberg, International Leadership Mentor. Marnie is a well- known speaker, coach, author of 13 books, webhost, radio talk show host and owner of a restaurant and retail store. Whew! Just listing those credentials makes me want to take a nap!
Bible Study Expo began in 2009. It’s an online, free event that showcases the most current Bible studies. The authors of the studies are each given 15 minutes to describe the purpose behind their studies and provide tips on the best target audience.
Running concurrently with the Expo, there are Facebook and Twitter parties where listeners can interact with authors and Bible study leaders about what they are hearing.
“The fact that you can attend this expo from the comfort of home, without investing even one penny for registration fees or travel expenses, makes it accessible to everyone,” says Swedberg.
This year’s Bible Study Expo is Thursday, March 17, 2016 from 2-4 pm CT.
Registration is free by clicking Bible Study Expo. Registrants will be eligible for book giveaways, which have already started.
The past Bible Study Expo’s are archived and accessible any time as well. So even if you can’t attend live, you can always go back and dig through them to find the perfect Bible study for your group.
Every year I listen to the Expo as well as host at the Facebook and Twitter party. It seems I’m always scrambling to take notes so I can remember later on what was said. So this year, I’ve prepared a free downloadable cheat sheet for you. It contains 8 sections, one for each author, along with her name, website, facebook, and twitter links. Please download the cheat sheet at Bible Study Expo Cheat Sheet.
The balance of this post lists each author and a short synopsis of her study.
If you haven’t followed me on Facebook and Twitter, please do so. We can chat at the online parties! Hope to “see” you all there!
Sarah Young
Sarah’s health doesn’t allow her to have interviews at this time, but she has graciously donated 3 books to give away at the Expo.
Logan Wolfram: Curious Faith
Logan starts off the Expo with the story behind her recent release, “Curious Faith: Rediscovering Hope in the God of Possibility.” Logan has a trailer for her study, Curious Faith.
We are born with an innate curiosity to explore, marvel, and believe there is more to life. But, laundry piles up. Bills pile up. Ultimately, life piles up. We can doubt God’s goodness and the everyday becomes marked by restraint, limits, and settling for the routine. Hardship extinguishes our hope and we exchange curiosity for control.
Curious Faith is about rescuing the now.
It’s about exploring possibility with a God who is unlimited, unpredictable, and ever-loving. In these pages, Logan Wolfram invites you to overcome feelings and outside circumstances that inhibit growth and rob you of hope. Pursue curiosity to enjoy the wonder of an open-handed life.
Raechel Myers: Open Your Bible
Are you longing to hear from God, aching to know who He really is? The beautiful truth is this—we can encounter the living God today and every day in the pages of His Word. Whether you are a seasoned Bible reader or struggle to keep up with studying Scripture, Open Your Bible will leave you with a greater appreciation for the Word of God, a deeper understanding of its authority, and a stronger desire to know the Bible inside and out. Using powerful storytelling, real-life examples, and scripture itself, Open Your Bible will quench a thirst you might not even know you have—one that can only be satisfied by God’s Word.
[Tweet “The Bible is sufficient and true. God’s Word is for you and for now. http://BibleStudyExpo.com”]
Barb Roose: Beautiful Already
“I’m so fat.” “I don’t like my nose.” “I wish I was taller.”
Our dissatisfaction with what we see in the mirror is what Barb Roose calls our ugly struggle with beauty. It’s a struggle that negatively affects not only our self-image and self-esteem but also our relationships with God and others. What is the answer? We desperately need to regain God’s perspective on beauty.
During this six-week Bible study, women will unpack the beliefs or experiences that are holding them hostage. Together they will explore God’s truth about beauty throughout the Scriptures, digging into passages in both the Old and New Testaments and applying the truths in their lives. They will move away from over-focusing on unrealistic expectations and perceived flaws toward God’s viewpoint of their hearts, minds, bodies and souls.
Download Bible Study Expo Cheat Sheet
Sherry Poundstone: Becoming a Woman of Character
Who are you in the dark? Character is much more than what others see on the outside. It has been said that character is who we are when no one is looking, or when there is no one around to judge us or give us a pat on the back. This 12 week Bible study will guide you through the process of developing your character.
Kathy Willis: Grin with Grace
Have you ever felt the need to bite your tongue or grit your teeth? Grin with Grace explores ways to genuinely smile in the face of adversity and challenging circumstances. Sometimes, we just need to grin with grace! God blesses us with His grace, and it impacts our relationship with Him and with others.
Jeanne Brooks – Washed Clean and Walking by Faith
Brooks invites us to seek God and experience a life fueled by faith. This study guide will challenge everyone to step up their walk of faith and lead them to a path towards eternal life.
The Holy Bible does not lack examples of men whose faith catapulted them into its very pages to inspire and encourage the believers of today. From Noah to Abraham, Moses and the apostle Paul (among many others) readers can see how their faith has carried them to live a fulfilled life.
Sherri Burgess – Bronner: A Journey to Understand
Author and Bible teacher Sherri Burgess leads readers on her journey to understanding the purpose behind pain through the powerful story of her son Bronner’s earthly death. Using her rich, marvelous experiences of God’s works since her son’s heaven going, she provides comforting assurance that God truly is everything we need in this life. With a reader’s guide in the back of the book, this makes an empowering resource for small-group discussion or book clubs. Bronner is much more than an inspiring story of faith in the worst kind of pain. It is a call to action and a beckoning to know our Holy God.
Download Bible Study Expo Cheat Sheet
Gwen Smith – I Want It All
Gwen Smith knows how easy it is to dismiss God’s plans with the thoughts, I can’t make a big difference for God because I’m just an ordinary woman with an ordinary life. Yet God created us to join Him in doing amazing work in the world. He created us to live with abundant joy, courage, and influence. But not the joy, courage, and influence of the world. He offers His grace for each failure, His love that shatters hate, His peace that soothes the turmoil, His comfort, guidance, wisdom, rest, power, and significance. Every blessing He has for us is ours for the taking.
I Want It All will ignite a fire in your heart to experience more faith, more power, and more impact. More of Jesus. All of Jesus. Everything that God has for you.
How to Choose the Best Bible Study
Using the free downloadable Bible Study Expo Cheat Sheet, keep track of those authors whose messages resonated with you. Listen to them describe their target audience, and the issues addressed in their study. In two hours you will have a wealth of information from Bible Study Expo that it would take a lot of money and time to discover on your own.
I love that we get to hear from the authors themselves and the circumstances in their lives that prompted them to write these studies.
Don’t forget to register for the Bible Study Expo and possibly win a drawing in the free book giveaway.
…because U count, deb