This is the info we'll be covering from (pgs 8-10 of the 2010 Yearbook) in the Service Meeting part: "Make Disciples, Teaching Them" this week.
DOING MORE TO OFFER BIBLE STUDIES
Beginning in January 2009, congregations were urged to designate one Saturday or Sunday each month to focus on offering Bible studies. The result? Many publishers have been experiencing surprise and great joy—surprise because offering a study is easier than they had expected and joy because of the variety of people who have accepted a study in the book What Does the Bible Really Teach? Traveling overseers report that congregations are enthusiastic about this new arrangement, and early results are very promising. For example, in the first five months, over 8,000 new Bible studies were started in Italy.
Publishers who have never conducted studies are now making return visits and starting studies. Carolina, in Peru, said: "Before this arrangement I did not conduct any Bible studies, but the suggestion of concentrating one day a month on this made me see the need to strive to start a Bible study. I have been able to show householders that a Bible study is simple and does not take much time. Thanks to Jehovah, by applying the suggestions we have been given, I have had good results; now I conduct two Bible studies."
Satya, a pioneer sister in Britain, was apprehensive about offering a Bible study on the first call. But on the day set aside for offering Bible studies, she determined not to return home without trying this method. She was delighted when a lady immediately accepted her offer. It was much easier than Satya had expected!
Luca, a young brother in Palermo, Sicily, regularly left our magazines with a widow who was afraid to let anyone into her house. One Saturday afternoon, on the day to offer Bible studies, Luca approached the widow with the Bible Teach book open, and he read an excerpt from the book. The lady was intrigued by the book and took some time to talk to Luca. He told her that he had in his hand the answers to her questions—including the one about whether she would ever see her husband again. Luca opened the book to page 72, which explains who will be resurrected. The lady was touched by this Bible hope and accepted a Bible study. She now has a regular study, inviting the Witnesses into her home without fear.
"From the start," reported a circuit overseer in Peru, "this arrangement has helped most congregations increase the number of Bible studies they conduct. One congregation in Chiclayo reported 25 new studies in one month, and in Chepén, 24 new studies were started."
Young publishers have also had success offering Bible studies. Eleven-year-old Giovanna in São Paulo, Brazil, relates: "One Saturday afternoon I was working door-to-door with my mother, offering Bible studies in the Bible Teach book. At the first door, I asked the householder, a well-known businessman, if he believed that the Bible is inspired by God. He said yes. Then I showed him 2 Timothy 3:16. He said that he was moved to see a young girl telling him such beautiful things, and he accepted the book.
"When I called back on the man, I took my grandfather because he is an acquaintance of the householder. The man asked us in, and I invited him to look at the table of contents in the Bible Teach book and choose the subject that interested him the most. He chose chapter 11, 'Why Does God Allow Suffering?' After reading the first two paragraphs, he and his wife asked many questions. They were so happy to find all the answers in the Bible, and they agreed to a regular study. How happy I was to start a study at the first door we called on!"
Of course, not everyone will accept a Bible study, and not all those who start will continue. But as God's fellow workers, we keep offering Bible studies to as many people as possible, knowing that Jehovah is drawing sheeplike ones into his organization before the destruction of Satan's system of things.—John 6:44, 1 Corinthians 3:9.
