Okay Girls! Lindsee here and I have chosen our 11 winners at random! If you would all email me ([email protected]) as soon as possible, that would be so helpful so we can get your books to you SOON!
Drum roll please…
Our first 10 winners of a Gideon Workbook are: (Make sure that if you are a winner, it is the correct comment number that I have posted!)
Comment #634: Amy A.
Comment #33: Beverly
Comment #111: Amy Hanson
Comment #88: Michele
Comment #777: Sharon Seagle
Comment #56: Rina
Comment #555: Lisa Ode
Comment #1: Rebecca
Comment #245: Brandi
Comment #372: Melody
Lastly, our winner of the Gideon Leader Kit is…
Comment #475: Stephanie
We are so excited for you, girls! Can’t wait to hear from you!
Hey Girls! Comments are now closed. Be looking for the names of our 11 winners within the hour! Thanks for your enthusiastic and honest replies! We’re so excited!
Greetings, Sisters! Siesta Summer Bible Study starts one week from today! We are fired up around here! I know your questions are abounding, so this post is to fill you in on all the details to get us good and ready for next Tuesday.
First off, let’s make sure that you know what you’ll need to participate: 1 LifeWay workbook by Priscilla Shirer entitled Gideon: Your Weakness. God’s Strength.That’s all there is to it!
We’ve been getting lots of questions about whether or not Priscilla’s video portions are required in our summer Bible study. The answer is no but only because we try our hardest to keep our summer experience at the lowest possible cost. By all means, if you have access through a group or have the financial resources to get the session DVDs or downloads, do it! To experience the whole thing is optimum! If you’re in a small group, consider all pitching in and purchasing a set then watching them together week to week. You’ll be incredibly blessed by that investment. Priscilla’s gift of teaching is saturated with the Holy Spirit and beautifully infectious. I could sit under her instruction for hours. So, get the sessions if you can but they will not be required to participate in our summer study. All of our discussion will springboard from the workbook.
With that said, I do have one really FUN thing to do before we move further into the details. We have 10 Gideon workbooks and 1 leader kit to give away! All you need to do to qualify is leave a comment on this post and let us know how the subtitle hits you: “Your weakness. God’s strength.” We’ll keep comments open for 24 hours then do a random drawing of 11 people with those specific entries. Watch for a post Wednesday afternoon naming our winners!
Are y’all still with me?
OK, then, let me fill you in on some remaining details through a simple Q&A. If you’ve been in summer Bible study with us before, our approach will be very similar.
Who’s invited? YOU! (If you’re a girl over – let’s say – 16) And you can go solo or participate in a small group! As in past years, our highest hope is to facilitate fellowship and accountability into our Bible study experiences. If you can assemble a group of friends, co-workers, family members, acquaintances, fellow church members, Siestas in your town, a tennis team or a handful of neighbors, you’re likely to get the most out of the process. (If you’ve already participated in this study, think of leading a group through it this round.) If you can’t rally a face-to-face group, Skyping and Face Time can still provide a pretty legit way to experience community in different locations. We’re not looking to be legalistic. We just want FULL benefits. If you go solo, do your best to connect with a couple of girls on line. Scripture tells us to stir one another up in the faith and to call one another to love and good works and to bear one another’s burdens and pray for one another and remind one another of God’s faithfulness. Translation: we need each other!
What’s the Goal? Spending the summer together in the Word! A summer of authentic Bible study is the surest way to a summer of victory.
When do we meet? We will launch our Siesta Summer Bible Study on Tuesday, June 11, and “meet” 4 official times: Every OTHER Tuesday from June 11th until July 23rd. Yes, by all means, meet EACH week if your small group is able but we only ask that you check in here on the LPM blog every TWO weeks to participate in our format for discussion. As much as we’re able, we want to be big on help and small on demands. Summer schedules can make weekly gatherings much harder than usual but certainly keep it up if you can. You can also choose another day of the week besides Tuesday if necessary. We’ve found that it’s the most fun and carries the most momentum when we all do it on the same day but that’s not always possible for everyone. Be free!
Here’s the summer schedule:
Tuesday, June 11, 2013 Launch – I’ll post our 1st Mini-Session which I will either have written or videoed. In it you will receive instructions for discussion.
In the 2 weeks that follow our first Mini-Session, you will DO WEEKS ONE AND TWO OF THE HOMEWORK ON YOUR OWN. If you’re participating in Priscilla’s weekly DVD teachings, incorporate those weekly and in addition (or instead of!!) to what we’re doing here on the blog. We will let you guys work those details out on your own.
Tuesday, June 25, 2013 (2nd Mini-Session/Group Instructions)
In the two weeks that follow, DO WEEKS THREE AND FOUR OF THE HOMEWORK ON YOUR OWN.
Tuesday, July 9, 2013 (3rd Mini-Session/Group Instructions)
In the two weeks that follow, DO WEEKS FIVE AND SIX OF THE HOMEWORK ON YOUR OWN.
Tuesday, July 23, 2013 (4th Mini-Session/Conclusion) – We’ll wrap it up and it will have flown by in a whirlwind.
If a graph is easier to understand than all my compulsive wordiness, here you go:
Where should you meet if you’re participating in a small group? Wherever you are most comfortable. Do what works for your group. You might meet in a different house each week so no one has to keep her house clean all summer. We’ve had some siesta groups meet in restaurants and coffee shops. Find your groove and stick to it!
So, here’s what you do:
1. Get your workbooks! Our good friends at LifeWay have promised to have plenty of them for us, but you won’t want to wait until the last minute. You can find them online on LifeWay’s web site. Here is a link where you can order the member book. And, if you’re going for the optional DVD sessions week to week, here’s where you can download the videos taught by Priscilla. They’ll be fabulous.
2. Sign up on the blog on our official Launch Day- Tuesday, June 11. For the first time, we’re going to ask that everyone participating sign up individually rather than a leader chiming in on behalf of the whole group. We think this will be less confusing and will give us a better idea of how many are participating each week just by the number of comments. We will ask a few warm-up questions that day to begin cracking open that door of community.
3. I will facilitate the study by posting a blog the 4 mornings of our meeting days. I will give you instructions on these posts for your discussion times and maybe some activities. All will connect to the previous weeks of study.
4. After your gathering, you’ll check back in by telling us something about your meeting via a comment on that same post. Don’t worry if your group can’t meet on Tuesdays. You’ll still be able to find the post and comment throughout the week.
What if…
-I want to use the discussion questions in the back of the workbook instead of the ones on Beth’s posts. Go for it!
-I really, really want to do the study but it’s not in the budget. Email us.
-I’ve already committed to doing another Bible study this summer? That’s great! Stick with it.
-I don’t want to participate but still want to be a part of the blog. We totally understand and want to see you around Siestaville this summer. Know that the Bible Study will only take up one post every other week.
We can’t wait to study the Word with you this summer!
Lord Jesus, take us somewhere we couldn’t have anticipated! Somewhere we desperately needed to go. Raise up an army of mighty warriors right here in this community!
Okay, Sisters, let’s hear your comments for the giveaway! Remember we’ll only leave it open for 24 hours!
The subtitle “Your Weakness, God’s Strength” has been a life-long lesson that I have learned the hard way. I am a very independent person and because of circumstances in my life I have had to learn to do things myself. Needless to say, that became an issue when God decided it was time to show me He was boss and everything I had been doing “myself” was really Him. Now, I am learning to rely on Him more and more and I love Him so much. I can’t imagine living without knowing my Jesus! I strive and desire to know Jesus as much as I possibly can on this side of heaven. I just yearn for Him. And, the ladies in the ladies Bible study I facilitate are as excited as I am to begin this Siesta Summer Bible study. Thank you and God’s peace and blessings! In Christ’s love, Sheila Johnson
I am so excited for the Gideon Bible study. Love love love Priscilla’s studies!! It’s been a while since my last Bible study. It’s so easy to get weak, so now is the perfect time for God’s strength to lift me up.
My sinful mouth: God’s sovereignty
My weakness- God’s strength.
To be honest this phrase has not always been completely clear to me in it’s practical application. Translation? It sounds good sitting in the pew on Sunday, but gets decidedly cloudy when trying to apply it on Tuesday afternoon. My limited understanding leans to the idea that God isn’t about capitalizing on my strengths. Doesn’t really need them, not terribly impressed by them.
But serve up my clumsy areas, things that I don’t “handle” well and the equation has changed. Now I’m not asking God to “bless my efforts,” but to “Hurry, quick, Help!” And lo and behold He does.
God has such a sense of humor! My bible study gathering this morning talked about how important it is to remember “I can’t but God can!” Exactly the same theme!
When I am weak, He is strong! Oh what a relief that is!
Your Weakness. God’s Strength
As a fresh college graduate looking to enter into the education field I feel like these 4 little words are about to rock my world. The world of academia is most definitely my strength. All my friends were there and never have I stressed about school, or succeeding in that arena. But now that I have graduated, I am like a fish out of water. My friends are literally scattering around the world and the idea of having to go to an interview absolutely terrifies me. Why can’t they just look at my test scores and see I’ll be a good teacher ? =)
I know that’s not how it works, but it would be a whole lot easier. I am praying that this time of transition is a time where God’s strength really makes itself evident in my life, and that I am humble enough to let it do so.
In need of HIM… Struggling with unbelief.
I believe, please Lord, help me overcome my unbelief!
I am weak. I NEED His strength!
My Weakness, God’s strength. How fitting for me right now. I recently was assigned a new role at work and am constantly feeling like I’m being asked to do things that I just don’t feel I have the skills to do and it is just wearing me down. I feel like I’m saying this daily: My weakness, God’s strength.
My weaknesses are so many. I feel like His strength is all that has carried me in the past year and I am so grateful for his grace and strength and mercy that have covered me.
I would love to win the book or leader kit. I am feeling very weak now and I am in need of God’s strength. Thank you so much for your blog.
What a comfort to know that I don’t have to have it all together and that God can still use me in my weaknesses!!
Well, I just can’t believe I missed this giveaway! Blessings to the winners! I already have the book. I look forward to facilitating a group for this study in my hometown. Thank God for Prisicilla’s “Yes” to His call, and Beth, it is such a testament to your true heart that you are so loving and supportive of your sisters who are also called to teach.
I still want to say what “Your Weakness, God’s Strength” means to me, because I’m just in a mood to share. I have been through some STUFF, as most of us have! My most recent situation was not as demanding as some, more demanding than others, but horribly destructive to my heart. It was so great that it came to a point where my very faith was tested. There were days when I found myself face-down on the floor in my robe praying for strength to get dressed…because Beth, I just couldn’t. Sometimes life so overtakes us that we can’t function at all in our own strength. I have seen God’s strength so graciously pull me up when I felt like I couldn’t move an inch.
While I much prefer the times when I feel strong and I get to minister to others, it was not until I felt the absolute depths of my own despair that I realized how desperate the need for ministry is…that ministry is not just about helping people live a better life or get closer to God, or even get through a struggle. Sometimes ministry is about helping people LIVE…at all. THAT is the kind of strength that goes so far beyond human strength; that is the Holy Spirit at work in us and through us, breathing life again into things that feel dead and lost.
God’s strength helped me to minister for many years…and then, when life nearly killed me, God helped me to get up again. I know how immensely important it is that I follow Him even in my weakness (for I am still getting back up!) and allow Him to use me to grab some women and bring them along with me into the place of God’s strength.
Thank you for offering this study!
HE is Who HE says HE is. HE can do what HE says HE can do. I am who HE says I am. I can do all things through Christ. HIS Word is alive and active in me. HE continues to proved these statements to me.
Your Weakness. God’s Strength.
This speaks straight to my <3 right now! In the season I am currently in, I find myself facing more than one very difficult trial. At times, I am overwhelmed by my weakness and wholeheartedly want to see God’s Strength through it!
Thank you for the chance to win and may the Lord make His face shine upon you!
Michelle Thomas
Sometimes I get weary and tired of being so needy and weak. It is ONLY by God’s great love and strength that I can even make it through some days.
My weakness, Gods strength.
When I am willing to lay down my pride and see my weakness, even confess it, then God can show His strength. I am very excited for this study!
My weakness…envy. I struggle with it often, praying to overcome it.
Hooray! Hooray! I love a good Bible study and I love, love Priscilla Shirer!! What a beautiful, awesome combination!!! =)
Your Weakness. God’s strength means to me that when I’m weakest and beyond what I could possibly, humanly do is when God is able to really show HIS strength through that situation, circumstance, etc…
My life verse is 2 Corinthians 12:9 – “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”
I’m so looking forward to studying Gideon because he is an OT example of this NT teaching.
God can use my weaknesses (need to control, learning to wait on Him, bitterness, just to name a few) to bring change in me for His glory by revealing his power, strength and majesty over me.
He wants to use me! I just have to offer my weakness to Him so He can work through it.
A song comes to mind that expresses how I feel. ” You must think I’m strong to give me what I’m going through. But forgive me if I’m wrong but I’m about at the point of given in…on my own.”
How great is our God that He through His Divine love my witness of weaknesses can be seen by others as His strength!!!
Lord Jesus I need you, Lord I neeeeeeed You….
Do I ever feel inadequate at this point in my life, in a number of areas. Praise God that when I am weak He is strong!
Wow! My WEAKness! GOD’S STRENGTH!!! Some of us know our strengths. Most of us REALLY know our weaknesses. I cannot imagine how God will move when we discover how we can take those things we think are negatives and allow God to turn them into positives — My mind runs in so many different directions… those areas where I know ONLY GOD could have done this — it certainly isn’t ME — to knowing the weaknesses I allow to lead me to sin and overcoming THOSE weaknesses for His glory!!! What an honor and a blessing to study Gideon — who would have thought it!! I have been surfing through Lifeway today planning my Bible studies for the next year. I have ordered Deuteronomy and was hoping to talk my pastor hubby into adding Gideon to my list — oh he’d be so happy if I won this. Regardless, we’re doin it!!!
Love this ministry — love you ladies ever so much!
(I don’t need to be entered in the giveaway as I’m not leading a group, just going solo) I do want to say though.. I am so excited! Got my book and a fresh journal. Can’t wait to see what God has for me through this. 🙂
It isn’t my “strengths” that bring God the most glory, but my weaknesses. That is where He shines the brightest!
I would love to participate in this Bible Study. This will be my first one with Living proof Ministries blog. What the title means to me is this…learning my weakness and exploring God’s strength in my weakness and learning how to do it through his word consistantly. Thanks. I look forward to this study for the summer
Thanks God that I don’t have to depend on myself! You ROCK!
It helps me relax and know that God is in control. It inspires me to be more courageous because God is the One working. It makes me want to join His work and not worry as much.
My Weakness: Staying closely tethered to God to hear all that He has to say to me and know what decisions are best. God’s Strength: He knows the plans He has for me and the work He has prepared and in His grace and mercy, He draws me near to His side to reveal those things.
My weakness, God’s strength!
I am a home schooling mother of 5 children. Each and every day is an example of how I am weak and cannot possible teach my children. But then God shows up, and His strength enables me to continue in the calling He has given me.
This subtitle reminds me of 2 Corinthians 12:9
His grace is sufficient for me, for His power is made perfect in weakness.
This summer, God is calling me to prayer and to follow His path for our home school next year. May my weakness ever drive me to the LORD!
I need daily reminders that God has the power to give the victory. He is in control of the battle when I begin the day by acknowledging His strength and my weakness. He will provide the courage and the encouragement when I keep my eyes fixed on Him and stay in the Word. I need this study as I face this season of my life.
Your Weakness. God’s Strength.
Makes me think, how often do I really rely on God and allow Him to be strong in my weakness? Maybe I too have been too complacent lately.
My weakness in God’s care! What could be better?
it hits me square between the eyes. b/c i’m a strong woman. I am capable. I’m a can-do chick. but in my weaknesses…some I share and others i keep secret…i need God’s strength. I need Him. Even in my strength; I am weak. I am only strong through Christ Jesus.
My weakness is being impulsive and over committing before I pray about commitments or tasks. I am so looking forward to this study!
Your weakness, God’s strength..to me this means wherever and whenever I feel like I just can’t move forward in anything–like life, marriage, kids, housework, home schooling….the Lord is going to take over and reveal Himself mightily on my behalf and come through for me when I thought I never could. Kind of being at the end of my rope=)
Selina.
This subtitle hits home with me as my husband pastors the church God has so graciously placed us in. I am weak when troubles arise and it seems that when looking for someone to blame for how they feel at that moment, some of the congregation tends to blame the pastor. There’s a fine line in there. He is the pastor but he is my husband and I very much seek the Fathers strength in this matter.
I can’t think of a more relevant topic! I would say most people struggle with allowing the devil to capitalize on their weaknesses, including myself! I know, however that God says, “Let the weak say I am strong! He specializes in using my weaknesses for His glory! This is a topic that I need my mind to be renewed in, on an ongoing basis! I can’t wait to dive in and and be filled with a fresh word for victory over my weaknesses!
As I find with most everything, this study is timely for me. I’m in a later season of life and wondering what is still in store for me as I run this next lap. I know He has something waiting for me… if I have ears to hear and the courage to obey.
I find comfort in the fact that in my weakness, God is strong. In 2 Corinthians 12:9 when Paul was talking about the thorn in his side, and after he pleaded with the Lord 3 times, the Lord said to him….“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Not only is God strong in my weakness, His power is perfect in my weakness. I find rest and peace and comfort in that truth! AMEN!
I have certain weaknesses, such as self doubt, but through God, all things are possible. I have never participated in one of the summer bible studies, but I am excited about this one and feel it fits me at this particular time in my life.
I have so many weakness and I need to rely on Gods strength. I’m so thankful for Him! Nothing’s to big for him!
In June 2011 my husband was diagnosed with lung cancer. He underwent a complicated surgery in July. Over the 2 months of his hospital stay he was in ICU 3 times. He came home on 18 medications, was on a feeding tube, and oxygen. He worked to regain strength, learned to eat again, and reduced his need for oxygen. Our lives were a roller coaster and I was his main caregiver. Often I asked, “God what is it you’re wanting to learn through all of this?” What I did learn was that I had very had little control over the future. I learned to trust completely in God’s wisdom and plan. God never let me down. George died peacefully in November 2012.
It tells me that it doesn’t matter what my weaknesses are, but that Gods strength is what gets me through anything and everything I have done and will do in my life!! I am basically nothing without him and I have learned to rely in him through the darkest times. He’s faithful and always here for us!!!!
I have often heard how a strength overexercised can become a weakness. I look back at my life and see evidence of this all over it. And the reason – because I took matters in my own hands not letting go and letting GOD. I find it great JOY to know that God uses all of me – strengths and weaknesses – for his glory and kingdom. When I am weak, He is strong. Praise and glory to the King of Kings. I love Priscilla Shirer’s writings and am looking forward to doing this study. My normal bible study group – the Bad Girls – are not meeting this summer and I know I need to meet and be with sisters so this is an answered prayer. Thank you SO much for the opportunity to come alongside and grow in faith, love and the WORD. Blessings, Deb
Gideon is the Old Testament character that I so often relate to the most!
Our weakness makes us realize our place in God’s world – total dependence upon Him and His strength! One of my favorite verses is II Corinthians 12:9 “And He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’ Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me!”
WHAT a great title for this study – “Your Weakness – God’s Strength!” I so often feel like I go from weakness to weakness inviting God’s strength to take over and perfect and mature me through His power! AMAZING that God chooses our weakness through which to manifest HIS power! May I learn to EMBRACE/Boast about my weaknesses so that HIS power may dwell in me! WHEW – that is HUGE!
Learning to embrace/boast in my weaknesses with you all,
Leslie