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We designed a curriculum that aimed at learning rather than teaching. We'd spend eleven weeks, for instance, in Ephesians. Besides the daily Bible readings, we would offer a weekly personal Bible study section and a group experience.

The personal study was a series of inductive questions. Each person would observe (what does it say?), interpret (what does it mean?), and apply (what does it mean to me?). The notes we provided gave a minimum of information—only what was needed to make sense of the text.

The group study each week took the same passage and applied it to corporate life. Discussion questions helped the groups make fresh discoveries as needs, gifts, and concerns surfaced from exposure to the Word. An optional group relational exercise attempted to apply the Scripture to relationships within the group. Relationships, we found, are not only an area of application but of illumination.

For example, one group genuinely experienced the truth that "parts of the body which seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those … we think less honorable we invest with the greater honor." They spent an entire evening focusing on one person at a time and answering the question, "How has this person been used by God to minister to this group or to individuals?" They were amazed to find out how many ways seemingly awkward personalities had been essential to the health of the group.

The small groups became examples of faith on display, living demonstrations of biblical truth.

What a privilege on Sunday to teach people who had read the passage, discussed it among themselves, and encountered it corporately. Not once in 20 years has anyone complained of repetition of the same text. The most common criticism has been that we were moving too quickly through the Scripture.

Often the Sunday sermon was based on something that surfaced in our Tuesday small group. No longer the lonely prophet descending from the mountain to deliver the Sunday message, I was now a fellow learner in the camp, sharing what God was teaching us all. We learned the meaning of, "You do not need anyone to teach you." It doesn't mean teaching elders are unnecessary. Far from threatening my position, it actually enhanced it through a corporate anointing of the Spirit.

Thus at West Point Grey, I learned the principle of discovery learning: People will integrate into their lives what they've discovered for themselves.

Now here at Marineview Chapel in Vancouver, I've divested myself of an additional clerical prerogative: I no longer write the curriculum myself. A group of eight or nine, selected by the elders, meet to discuss the upcoming texts, identifying the major themes we need to confront, and then divide up the writing assignments. They meet again to critique one another's work before one of the elders edits and takes the material to the printer. Thus, our curricula are fully homegrown, uniquely aimed, and rarely suitable for other congregations without radical editing.

Each year the elders select the learning plan, which includes at least one Old Testament book, one New Testament book, and a contemporary topic such as economic lifestyle, spiritual formation, public discipleship, or something current in the pilgrimage of our church.

We plan one- or two- week gaps between series to give people a break from the daily readings, give the groups a chance to do something other than Bible study, and allow the elders to preach in response to some immediate need. This helps us avoid over programming and allows us to scratch where people are itching.