How to start a Seeker Bible Study: Answers to 3 common questions

Does this situation seem familiar? You have a non-Christian friend—and you’d love for them to hear the good news of Jesus. You’ve had some spiritual conversations. Maybe you’ve outlined the basics of the gospel. They sounded interested. But what now? What’s the next step?

Most unbelievers are not ready to receive Christ after hearing the gospel only once, nor are they usually ready to come with us to church. Yet even those who are turned off by the church are still curious about the person of Jesus. Jesus is so different from what skeptics assume he will be like. He is so radical, beautiful, unpredictable and irresistible. So the next step is inviting our friends to take a look at the real Jesus—straight from the pages of Scripture. The greatest shortcut in evangelism is allowing our friends to see the real Jesus!

I remember the first time I heard of running a Bible study that was geared for seekers and skeptics. Although I still had questions, I was hooked on the idea. It made sense to me—and I have been doing Seeker Bible Studies ever since! In our global evangelism ministry I have seen Seeker Studies started on all six continents with extraordinary fruit. And they are something that you can do too. One place you could start is with Uncovering the Life of Jesus—six Bible studies in Luke’s Gospel, which are geared toward seekers and skeptics, to introduce them to who Jesus is.

Maybe the idea of getting a group of your non-Christian friends together to read a Gospel sounds great—but how on earth do you start? Perhaps you have some of the same questions that I had back then when I started:

Will my friends come?
I was surprised to discover that people were interested when they realized the group was a “safe place,” where they could come with their questions and wouldn’t be made to feel embarrassed by their lack of Bible knowledge. For many it also helped if they realized that other seekers were coming as well. But we can also offer a one-to-one study if that would be more comfortable for the seeker. If it is a small group of unbelievers, then remember not to flood the group with Christians! Not everyone I’ve invited to a Seeker Bible Study has accepted, but I’ve learned that “no” doesn’t mean “never.”

But they don’t accept the Bible is God’s word, nor do they believe it’s true!
We aren’t asking them to! We aren’t asking them to believe anything—rather, we are inviting them to look at the primary source material of the Christian faith and come to their own conclusions about who Jesus is. The aim, we tell them, is to be informed enough to make an intelligent decision.

So how do you invite someone to come?
I often say after I’ve had a spiritual discussion with someone: “Your questions are so good. But may I ask you something? Have you ever actually read the Bible as an adult? How can you make an intelligent decision about Christianity if you’ve never looked at what Jesus says? I think it’d be fascinating to look at one story about Jesus so you can see what you think. Think of it like a book club, only the book is the Bible. If you like it, then we can look at other stories too.” Depending on the seeker, I may invite other seekers to come too—or do a one-to-one study.

Our prayer is that, through the power of God's word and his Spirit, seekers will be drawn to the beauty, power and truth of who Jesus is. And one day, we trust, some will put their trust in Christ as their Lord and Savior.

Uncovering the Life of Jesus by Rebecca Manley Pippert is out now.