Kerry Blount
On a beautiful sunny Tuesday, March 10, 61 men from the Community Church in SaddleBrooke got together for the second annual Men’s Rally. The rally was held at the Wycliffe Center in Catalina which provided the perfect venue for the event.
The Wycliffe Center hosts people from all around the world and they volunteer their time to help translate the Bible into native languages. There are over 7,000 languages in the world and 2,000 of those don’t yet have a Bible in their own language. That works out to over 200 million people that don’t know what the Bible says. Wycliffe is out to change that. The Wycliffe Center in Catalina provided the perfect location for the men to gather.
The Rally took place from 9:30 a.m. until 1:30 p.m. and was a jam packed schedule teaching men how to not just read the passages, but how to “de-code” them.
Kerry Blount hosted the event as Pastor Ron Gannett showed the men how to apply some simple formulas to make the Bible easier to understand. By applying the formula, the message becomes clearer and has more meaning to the reader.
The formula of the Six W questions can be applied by anyone to help develop a bigger picture of what is happening in any particular Bible verse.
The Six W’s are the following:
Who? Who is the author of this verse and who are the people present?
When? What is the time period this is being written?
Where? Where is the author physically located as he is writing the verse?
What? What actions are taking place and what is the relationship of the author to the participants?
Why? What is the purpose of the verse and what is the cause and effect?
Wherefore? Basically, “so what?” What are the implications and what are the results.
The Six W formula was only a small part of the information presented to the participants over the four hour rally. Lunch was included and consisted of some great man food; namely grilled brats, baked beans and coleslaw followed by a chewy brownie.
New to the event this year was a drawing for a New International Study Bible and the lucky winner was Dale Williamson. Dale went home with a beautiful leather bound study Bible and a smile on his face.
In addition to helping the men to read, the main theme throughout the presentation was Finishing Well. Pastor Gannett stressed that the Bible teaches us once we become believers, we leave the past behind and enter a new phase of life. In this phase, we need to focus on what kind of legacy we want to leave behind. It doesn’t matter what each of us did in the past; what matters is how we live the remainder of our lives.
Judging from the comments by the men, the event was a resounding success and may lead to future sessions.