Home Bible Study Success
By Tim Massengale

Is the Home Bible Study (HBS) ministry still a viable evangelism method? Most would respond yes. It has been highly successful since its inception and continues to be a powerful method for winning souls. Why? Because a HBS is simply teaching the Word of God. So whether you use a chart or a printed study guide, sharing biblical truth in a clear and easily understood format works. If your church is not involved in HBS, it should be.

So how do you launch a HBS ministry within the local church? My recommendation would be to bring in someone that has had considerable success with winning souls with the HBS ministry and have them present this method to your church. Schedule them for your largest service. Don’t worry about guests. The principle is so powerful and the stories so moving, you will have a fantastic altar call – and you will also have a list of people who would like to be taught a study. If this special speaker is on fire about winning the lost via HBS, it will stir the saint and sinner alike and provide a platform to launch the ministry in your local church.

This service should be immediately followed up with a good three-to-four-hour HBS training seminar. Here you share the nuts and bolts of how to teach a HBS. Your guest speaker can teach this as well, or you may teach it yourself. But here is my key point: for HBS to be successful you need people willing, ready, and trained to teach. People need to know how to get a study, how to teach a study, and how to win their study to the Lord. This is what you teach – you teach them how to teach; don’t teach the study to them. If they feel they need to go through a study first, let them assist an experienced teacher, or pair them up and let them teach each other. But teaching a HBS is not difficult. It should be taught in a relaxed, informal way, conversational, and interactive with the student. I personally like Search for Truth or Exploring God’s Word. But if you like the one-lesson studies, fine. But regardless of the result of this one-lesson study, you should encourage the student to continue with the longer twelve-lesson study. It’s great for both evangelism and discipleship.

Churches should not have trouble getting studies. New converts, visitor follow-up, bus ministry, door-knocking, and more can provide you with more studies than you can teach. The challenge is getting teachers and the way to get teachers is to regularly promote the ministry and teach a HBS training seminar two-three times each year.