Our prayer for this bible study is that God reveals His heart to us so that we can cling to Him and His promises during the hard times. I know that I desperately need this message right now and trust that others have struggled with this “new normal” as well. It is so very, very easy to get angry at God when things are not going the way that we expected. On the other hand, it is almost criminally easy to start doubting that we are actually walking in God’s plan for our lives when struggles and trials are all that we can see. There is hope, there is life, there is a way to persevere through the struggle with the faith that seems so faint.
In the next two days, you will receive a text message or email from Pastor Nicole, inviting you to our Zoom meeting on Wednesday. (Wait, Wednesday!?) We are so nervousited!!
It will look a lot like this:
Nicole Doak is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Women’s Bible Study
Time: Jun 3, 2020 07:00 PM
Please download and import the following iCalendar (.ics) files to your calendar system. Weekly: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/
Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/
Meeting ID: ### #### ###
Password: (Whatever it is)
To join with no video, only phone:
One tap mobile for Smart Phones
#########
OR
Dial by your location
+1 ### ### #### US (Tacoma)
Nicole Doak
Olympic View Baptist Church
If you are going to use your smart phone, you can click “Join Zoom Meeting” link above and be automatically added to the meeting. If you are going to be using your computer or tablet, please open up Zoom. When you do, the first screen looks like the picture below.
If you chose to not open an account with Zoom, please select “Join a Meeting”. The next screen will look like this:
Here, you will type in the meeting number that Pastor Nicole has sent you. You will notice that the bottom line will start with the first part of your email address. Please change this line to your name if it is not obvious. After you join the meeting, it will ask you for the password and then you will move into a virtual waiting room. From there, Pastor Nicole and/or I will be approving people to join the bible study and seeing your name will make this process go much faster. This keeps strangers from randomly popping in to create chaos, which is a goofy game that is going around right now. This is also why I did not include the full information about our meeting above. 🙂
When in a Zoom, there are a couple of things to know. 1.) When on a computer, tablet, or smart phone with a webcam, the default is to have the video and microphone on. If you want to enter the meeting without the group being able to hear you, check the box above that says “Do Not Connect to Audio” before joining the meeting. If you want to join without video, check that box. While in the meeting, we may ask you to mute your audio. You can do that by clicking the icon at the bottom left of your screen. You can also turn off your audio feed. Turning both off will let you have complete privacy for as long as you need.
2.) During the meeting, we will be breaking into small group discussions. Having groups that are 3 to 4 people really allows for the best conversations to happen. Having groups that are larger makes it much harder to talk because Zoom starts to only let one person talk at a time and seems to make that decision randomly. One person could be sharing something important and then be cut off by someone else sneezing. Anyway. The transition to and from the small groups can take a minute or two to complete. Please do not think you have been dropped from the meeting!
3.) These groups will each have a leader (Pastor Nicole, Ms. Donna, Nicole Heisler, and Mariah Ellis) but will otherwise be computer generated. We are hoping that making the groups randomly will enable more people to get to know each other on a weekly basis. At this point, we will not need additional small group leaders but that may change if more people join the bible study down the road.
4.) At the bottom right of the screen, there will be a red button that says “Leave”. If you click on that button accidentally, you will be removing yourself from the group. Please log back in and we will make sure you are added back into the group. 🙂
5.) Lastly, we are going to try to honor the time that you have to the best of our ability. We intend on meeting from seven to eight. This means that timing will be a bit tight during the official bible study time.
On the other hand, we would like to honor the opening of hearts and are aware that this book can create deep conversations that may not wrap up in the 20 to 30 minutes we have available. If we are having a deep discussion that needs to continue with everyone involved, we will follow God’s leading and make sure that happens.If, however, you would like to continue a discussion, spend time socializing with the group, or want to speak one-on-one with someone after the meeting, there are a couple of ways to make that happen.
If you would like to continue talking with whomever would like to also stay, you can chat with either Pastor Nicole or myself and we can make sure to keep the meeting open until the last person leaves. However, we cannot break people into small groups again.
If you would prefer to meet privately with either your entire small group or just one person, you can start a chat individually with that person (or people) and invite them to a separate meeting with you after our bible study concludes. To be able to host a meeting, you will need to have a Zoom account. Please be aware that all free Zoom accounts are either limited to three people or are limited to 45 minutes long.
We are so excited to walk on this journey with you as we remember there is still hope and life when our hearts are screaming “IT’S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE THIS WAY”!
Dandelion Lives 