For the last six weeks our 20 and 30s class has been working through Andy Stanley’s Breakaway Curriculum. I have to say that many of those in our class really connect with Andy. He comes across as genuine and knowledgable. You can tell he knows his material very well and makes so many concrete applications of points that many preachers and teachers would leave as abstract comments that you walk away feeling like what he is talking about really can happen.
In this series Stanley is talking about how to live a life that is different from the world. He lays out our the steps that we take in our lives as a process of beliefs that inform our decisions that ultimately lead to various outcomes, whether good or bad, in our lives. He goes from there to lay out several principles that contribute to understanding why we believe what we believe and to give us some foundational beliefs from scripture that help us ground our decision making on a solid belief system.
I have been shocked at how well this has connected with our class. I would even go so far as to say that this has connected with our group in particular even better than the Nooma videos did for us six months ago. Bell comes across like the guy you would go to and find out the answers to some particular spiritual questions in life or about some obscure portion of scripture that has always puzzled you. Stanley comes across like an every day guy who has a knack for taking abstract principles and making them seem concrete and simple. They both achieve their intended purposes very effectively and I didn’t write this post to compare and contrast Bell. I think they both have something different to bring to the table in teaching a class of 20 or 30 somethings. For links to purchase Andy Stanley’s material see the Northpoint website at this link. For Bell’s material see the Nooma website.
