The Great Canadian Bible Study
The Study
Every year, Baptist women across Canada meet in small groups to do a pre-set Bible study that focuses on women from the Bible. Participants bring a small offering to support a joint project for a number of years. Great things happen! We hope you’ll gather some women together and try this study for yourself. Many groups choose a date in January but it’s not required.
2024’s study is The Women at the Cross, written by Rev. Sandy Sutherland, retired pastor with Canadian Baptists of Atlantic Canada, with editing, design and additional content from Renee James, communications director with CBWOQ.
The Project
We will support Health and Mentorship for Girls and Boys in Kenya with the funds we raise through Great Canadian Bible Study. This project is overseen by Canadian Baptist Ministries, working alongside their ministry partner, Africa Christian Church & Schools (ACC&S), in Kenya.
Did You Know?
Since 2007, thousands of Baptist women across Canada who’ve participated in the Great Canadian Bible Study have raised tens of thousands of dollars to assist women and girls at risk in India and Africa. Your offerings have been used for literacy programs, school repairs, equipment purchases, school supplies, medical assistance, trauma counselling, workshops to reduce discrimination of victims and their children, and to support microcredit programs.
And now, your donations in 2024 will support girls and boys in Kenya.
So, get the women in your church organized; book off one night and do the study. And remember to make your cheque out to Canadian Baptist Women of Ontario and Quebec, with GCBS written on the memo line.
“Several months ago, I saw a painting of three woman who could have been among the women who watched Jesus die on the cross. The painting made me think about the Gospel accounts of the women at the foot of the cross and how little I knew about them.
When we read about Jesus’ death on the cross, we understandably focus on Jesus, not on the onlookers in the crowd. Furthermore, other than Jesus’ instructions to John about his mother, references in the texts to the women at the foot of the cross are marginal and their presence diminished by the fact that they “watched at a distance.” The women at the foot of the cross don’t really come into their own until the resurrection. But when I saw the painting of these women huddled together and braced against unbelievable heartache, I began to wonder how God wanted to speak to me through them.”