“…growing Christians are Reading Christians”
- Donald S. Whitney
In JOYFUL SORROW: BREAKING THROUGH THE DARKNESS OF MENTAL ILLNESS, author Julie Bussler invites readers into her journey, where a mental breakdown took her from being a missionary to a suicidal patient in a Turkish psychiatric hospital. With vulnerability and grace, Julie walks readers through how to find help and hope and demonstrates that even in the sorrow of mental illness, joy can coexist.
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HOW IT WORKS
Weekly on our Facebook & Instagram, we will release questions designed to foster group discussion. Once released on socials, we will post the completed question set here. So, grab whoever you're currently discipling, some friends, and get to reading! PS, we'd love to hear some of your comments! Tag us on social and let us know what conversations your group is having!
Why Should I Start a Bookclub
- Book Clubs give groups an opportunity for small groups to meet for short periods of time. Such groups can foster community, discipleship, and spiritual growth among its members.
- Book clubs give us spaces as intentional learners of Jesus to not only read more but also read better. Through group conversation, participants can examine the text through multiple angles, thereby helping us gain new perspective and deeper understanding than when we read on our own.
How to start A Book club
1. Determine What Type: In Person, Online, or Hybrid.
2. Determine who to Invite.
3. Determine Meeting Structure & Schedule.
4. Determine Ground Rules and Guidelines.
- An in-person book club gives the opportunity to socialize and often deepens relationships. Bonus: An in person book club often has the benefit of snacks.
- Online book clubs cater to flexible schedules and are lower in costs and maintenance (people can attend video calls from home). Your community is no longer restricted to geography. Platforms like Zoom, Google Meet, or Facebook can all be great resources for this type of club. Maybe you just make a private Facebook group and share our questions from social media and ask everyone to comment. The options are endless.
- A hybrid model incorporates both options above. If you have in-person club, you can still create a Facebook group so people can communicate between meetings. You can allow people who can’t physicallyt make it to skype, facetime, or zoom in.
2. Determine who to Invite.
- Invite friends/ co-workers/ church family personally. You can put up a social media post and encourage your followers to share. You can even put up a flyer at your church or favorite coffee shop (with permission).
3. Determine Meeting Structure & Schedule.
- Determine how long you want meetings to be making sure it works for everyone in your club. 1.5 hours works well for most small groups. Allow no more than 15 minutes at the front end for socialization & prayer requests then pray and begin discussion time. Encourage socialization afterwards to respect everyone’s schedules.
- Make sure to give your club time to obtain and read the book. Kentucky WMU has divided up chapters according top our question schedule. However, feel free to take more or less time based on your group’s needs. You can meet weekly or biweekly, but that may seem too much commitment to your group! That’s okay. It’s very common to host monthly book club meetings.
4. Determine Ground Rules and Guidelines.
- Expectations aren’t bad things. They let people know what is asked of them beforehand. In your book club, your first expectation is that the members do the reading assignment. Encourage them to come if they haven’t finished it, because they can still discuss the parts they got to read. (Don’t forget to encourage members listen to the audiobook version if they’re not strong readers).
- Remember, though it’s expected everyone reads the book, it’s more important that everyone and their ideas are treated with gentleness and respect. Because everyone has different life experiences, books are often a source of heated debate. These differing worldviews keep your group exciting! (Please note, we believe sound doctrine is integral to discipleship. We do not expect you to tolerate heresy, but instead find value in different perspectives on third tier and cultural issues. KentuckyWMU fully supports the statement of faith as upheld by the Kentucky Baptist Convention).
Frequently Asked Questions
When/ Where should a book club meet?
Should we serve refreshments?
How can I make it more fun?
- In person book clubs can meet wherever works best for its members! You can meet at the church, but you can meet in the homes of members, in cafes with a lot of seating, in restaurants, at the local library, etc. The options are endless!
- Remember to consider the time of day into your planning. Young professionals can’t meet during the workday and older retirees don’t like driving after dark. (We suggest a shuttle service with the younger members picking up the older ones as a workaround for the latter challenge.)
Should we serve refreshments?
- Let’s be honest… snacks are important. But the burden of the refreshments doesn’t always need to fall on the leader. You can have round robin snacks or ask everyone to bring something different every week. Sometimes meeting at a coffee shop or a restaurant can eliminate the need for snacks as they are provided at the venue.
How can I make it more fun?
- Plan activities that coordinate with the book. Does it incorporate another culture? Maybe serve that kind of food. Is there a book adaptation? Watch it together. Maybe there is a critical issue that you can address in your church/ community. Plan a project around that! It could even be as simple as planning a trivia night around topics discussed.
- PS we would love to hear what you come up with. Share your ideas with us and we’ll put them here for other groups to use!
OTHER BOOKS
UPCOMING BOOK
We live in a broken world. And the gospel is how God puts broken people back together again. Once we repent and believe in Jesus, God’s Spirit helps us recover and pursue His design. God is the one who created the world and every human being in it. Authors Jimmy Scroggins and Steve Wright outline a reproducible method of sharing the gospel that has been tested in the real world. Turning Everyday Conversations Into Gospel Conversations is a simple strategy to train new and seasoned believers to join God in His reconciliation work. Turning Everyday Conversations Into Gospel Conversations equips believers to use the innovative "3 Circles," a user-friendly evangelistic tool for a new generation. Scroggins and Wright train readers to incorporate the biblical metanarrative, as well as our own personal stories, to tell the good news that Jesus has made a way out of the broken places we find ourselves. It doesn’t matter if you have been a Christian for decades or days, you can learn to do what God asks us to do—to make His appeal to others through us (2 Cor. 5:20). This short training manual will empower and inspire millions of Christians to turn hundreds of millions of everyday conversations into gospel conversations.
Find it at
Amazon.com (Audiobooks also available) |
PREVIOUS BOOKS
Joyful SorrowJulie Busler
In JOYFUL SORROW: BREAKING THROUGH THE DARKNESS OF MENTAL ILLNESS, author Julie Bussler invites readers into her journey, where a mental breakdown took her from being a missionary to a suicidal patient in a Turkish psychiatric hospital. With vulnerability and grace, Julie walks readers through how to find help and hope and demonstrates that even in the sorrow of mental illness, joy can coexist.
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