The Catbird Seat

So Sunday night we had Simply Soul at our church.

In case you’re not a fellow church member/attender, or an IRL friend, or if you live in Australia or Southern California or anywhere other than East Orlando, Simply Soul is a Bible study that the Women’s Ministry Team (of which I’m a part) of UPC has created in response to the great comments we’ve gotten about the content of our past 2 Women’s Retreats.

At last year’s retreat, Mary Beauvais spoke on the Old Testament book of Ruth. Her lesson was titled, “Naomi and Ruth: God’s Path to Restoration.” The response to her talk(s) was incredible; the conclusion the Women’s ministry team drew from those responses is undeniable: women need to hear what the Bible says about real life.

We don’t need fluff.

We don’t need sugary sweet simple answers to the hard questions like, “God, why did my husband die of a heart attack? Why now? Why am I having to deal with hurricane damage and broken real estate contracts? Are you with me or not?!”

We don’t need anyone to pretend that we aren’t suffering (often in silence) from broken marriages, rebellious children, family dysfunction, infertility, illness, and deaths of family members, to name a few.

We don’t need another crafts project, even if it does benefit missionaries in Mexico.

We don’t need more coffee or desserts.

We don’t really need more time to get together and chat. We always seem to manage to find time for that, don’t we?

We need the Word of God.

And we need it bad. I need it bad.

Thus, Simply Soul was born.

Simply Soul: A gathering of women around the Word. That’s the tagline. I love it.

It’s a no-frills, no-fuss, non-”girly” Bible study that is, well, Bible study.

It’s very casual. And by that I mean I’ve come in paint-spattered cutoffs and flip-flops, wearing NO makeup and carrying a half-eaten McDonald’s cheeseburger which I finished while the speaker was talking. I love that.

It’s also very low on the commitment scale. One Sunday night a month from 6:00 to 7:30pm, with no homework or preparation required. In fact, not only is it “not required”, it’s not possible because there’s nothing to prepare for. You just show up and get your doors blown off. The third Sunday of each month. That’s it.

It’s also attended by a wide age range of women. From 20 year-old college students to 60 year-old grandmothers. And everything in between. That never matters to me much (being the youngest, or the oldest, or the only 30-something, or whatever), but for some people that’s big hang-up. I’d say we run the gamut.

More than anything, though, it’s women who desire to hear and learn the Truth as it applies to worry, fear about the future, bitterness, gossip, envy, jealousy, pride, and every other struggle that we have as women living in the world. To find comfort in God’s love and be challenged by His truth. To be transparent with other women and have them be transparent with us, for the sake of encouraging one another to keep the faith.

And, let me tell you, it does.

We’ve been taught by some truly Godly (yet still imperfect!) women like Mary Beauvais, Ruthie Delk, Eve Walden, and this week, Sheri Penman. These women have struggled in the Faith. They would probably say they still are struggling to continually live out the lessons they’ve already “learned.”

And that’s the beauty, to me, of Simply Soul.

It’s not about Mary or Ruthie or Eve or Sheri. It’s not about them having it all together any more than it’s about me having it all together (I don’t, by the way). It’s not about us.

It’s about God. It’s about his revealing Himself through Scripture.

It’s about finding God’s answers, not mine, to those hard questions.

It’s about time you checked it out.

Simply Soul. It simply rocks!

Filed under: General, Catbird, Like a fire on June 21st, 2006