Cross City women reach community with Bible study

CROSS CITY (FBW)-When the ladies of First Baptist Church, Cross City, decided to begin a community-wide weekly Bible study, they agreed to make it a team-effort, according to study leader Angie Land.

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“Our ladies let God use their gifts,” Land said. “Whatever they do best, they do to make the study a success.”

The Friday noon gatherings at the church, after only one ten-week study, involve almost 100 women of several denominations-including eight pastors’ wives-who share lunch, prayer requests and biblical insights.

Courtesy photo

Angie Land (r), a member of First Baptist Church, Cross City, and a part-time secretary at the LaFayette Baptist Association, with Katrina Van Aernam(l), who leads worship for the women’s interdenominational Bible studies.

Volunteer Joyce Grubbs provides bag lunches for those on their lunch hours, while others may stay to pray specifically for community needs. Katrina Van Aernam leads the prayer times and music. Others care for the children in the church nursery. Land’s husband, Alton, runs sound for the sessions, and has made 30 sets of audio tapes of the studies for those unable to attend.

“God’s Word is important and our time is valuable,” Land said. “We have made every effort to make it easy to be involved.”

The centerpieces of the assemblies are the Bible studies led by Land. She and her husband teach a young couples’ Sunday School class at Cross City, and she serves Lafayette Baptist Association as part-time secretary and Discipleship Training director. Churches began asking for her help in teaching women’s discipleship studies. She has taught studies in almost all of the 26 churches of the rural association.

She also has written some of the Bible studies, including the recently completed 10-week study of the Samaritan woman who met Jesus at a well, “A Woman’s Place.”

“It’s amazing how many studies can come from John 4,” she said.

Land grew up in Old Town, a part of Cross City, and attended the United Methodist Church of Old Town. Claiming she “married into Baptist life,” Land attributes her training as a Bible teacher to retired Baptist pastor Everett Hicks, who taught the young couple at New Prospect Baptist Church in 1991. When the Land Family, including their three children, joined First Baptist Church in 2000, she brought Hicks’ Bible study techniques and teaching methods with her.

Cross City pastor Jake Cravey told Florida Baptist Witness the women’s Friday studies have “spiritually elevated” the congregation and have made the church a more active part of the community. He also compares Land’s studies to those written and taught by Beth Moore.

“Angie has a God-given ability to supply a need for women’s Bible study,” he said.

On evaluation forms completed after the first Bible study series, the organizing team read pleas to continue the studies.

The forms also included reports of life-changing insights, including “if I turn to God He is always there for me.”

The ladies plan a second Bible study series May 7-June 18.

Angie Land will teach “The Seven Pillars of a Kingdom Family,” a series of lessons she originally wrote for the young couples’ Sunday School class and will adapt for the Cross Creek women.