At Heritage we desire to be a church ruled by God’s Word as supreme. God’s Word organizes our theology; it dictates everything we teach and every word we use as a church to encourage, rebuke, and exhort one another. It also dictates our practice. How we worship, when we worship, what we do in our worship are all informed directly by God’s Word. It is therefore good for us to continue to examine everything we do, and how we do it. In a short series of articles, I will be putting several the aspects of our worship under the biblical microscope to show why we do them. Our hope in these articles is to encourage your participation in these different aspects of the life of the church and to help us all participate in an informed manner.

Why do Morning Bible Class?

The controlling text for why we as a church have Morning Bible Class is Ephesians 4:11ff,

¹¹ And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds^[c] and teachers,^[d] 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, ¹³ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood,^[e] to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, ¹⁴ so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.

Notice above that the Lord Jesus gave the teaching offices to the church for the purpose that all members might be equipped for ministry. In a fundamental way, a pastor’s task is to ensure that church members have all the understanding they need in order to minister to other members and to engage the world with the Gospel. The purpose is both positive and negative; it is for equipping of the work of ministry, and it is to prevent the saints from being shaken and thrown asunder by different teachings.

There are two specific ways that a pastor does this; the regular teaching diet of the church and private issue-based discussion. The regular teaching diet of the church includes primarily the Sunday sermons as well as oversight of the different teaching ministries (Young Adults, Ladies Ministry, Iron Men, Growth Groups, etc). It is under this rubric that Bible Class fits. It affords the elders an opportunity to tackle a number of issues that are good for the church to consider and think through in a class format.  

With a curriculum, Bible class allows exploration of necessary theological and culture issues with discussion and depth that a sermon does not afford. Done excellently, it could provide God’s people with a refreshing time discussing God’s world through God’s Word before they gather for worship. The aim is to engage our minds and hearts and prepare us to engage the world.

At Heritage, we work through a class for three consecutive weeks, take a week for all church prayer, and then cycle through another class for three weeks. Check out the church calendar to see what's currently being studied at Bible Class.

What about Sunday School for the kids?

We also have Sunday School for kids of different ages at the same time where they will be taught Scriptural truths in a way that engages their minds and exhorts them to love and honour Christ.

With that sain, join us at 8:30 on Sunday mornings!