Help! No One Came to My Bible Study

My phone started pinging at 9 p.m. One message after another—an ear infection, sick kids, a trip away. Steadily, the members of my Bible study group who were supposed to meet the next day dropped out, until there were only three people who could come. I felt so discouraged. I was prepared to lead the study, and now hardly anyone would be there.

I’ve been in some Bible study groups that have been blessed with a stable membership, but I’ve been in many groups where each week the group teeters on the brink of cancellation because no one can come. Especially in the long dark months of winter when sickness abounds, it can be hard to build momentum and keep a sense of purpose and focus. Whether you’re the leader of the group or the one person who shows up every time, it’s easy to be disappointed and wonder if it’s all worth it.

God gives growth. Sometimes we equate high attendance numbers with a successful ministry. We think that if people are showing up then we must be doing something worthwhile, and when they don’t come we just aren’t any good. However, that’s not a picture the Bible paints. In his first letter to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul talks about the role he and fellow gospel preacher Apollos had in bringing the Corinthians to faith, writing,

I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. (1 Cor. 3:6–7)

Paul wants to convince the Corinthians that the important thing is the growth brought by God, rather than the perceived impressiveness of either himself or Apollos. He can go so far as to say that “neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything.” As we teach the Bible to each other we need to recognize that we are called to our various tasks of planting and watering, but that it’s God who brings about change in hearts. This is amazing news, freeing us to be faithful when not many come, and helping us avoid pride when we are blessed with numerical growth.

Jesus is still with us. A friend mentioned to me recently that her church was having trouble finding a space for their daytime women’s group to meet because in their church hall it was too easy to overhear another group. I asked why they didn’t split between the two spaces that were available, only to find out that they were actually trying to find space for six small groups that ran at the same time! I have to confess: my heart felt a pang of envy as I imagined having a women’s ministry with six whole groups. Wouldn’t that be amazing?

And I’m sure it is amazing and a blessing to their church. But that ministry and that church family are not the ones to which I’ve been called. I belong to a particular local church, and my particular local church happens to have three people in its women’s Bible Study this week.

When we’re tempted to be jealous of what someone else has in ministry, Scripture encourages us that Jesus is not waiting until we “make it” to show up. We read in Matthew 18:20 that “where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” We are assured that we don’t have a quota to meet before Jesus promises to be at work.

We are called to faithfulness. At the church where I grew up, there is a huge, old Bible that sits on the communion table. In the front cover are written the names of each minister who has served there. For more than a hundred years, people have gathered as part of that local congregation to worship and pray and hear the reading and teaching of the Bible. There’s nothing particularly famous about that local church. Nothing particularly remarkable about its history. And yet, I and so many others have been formed into people more like Christ by its ministry.

Very few have a ministry that reaches many; most of us are called to be faithful with the small number of people around us. Church life isn’t about the glitz and glamour of a full auditorium—it’s about preaching the Word “in season and out of season” (2 Tim. 4:2). The Apostle Paul wrote those words to Timothy near the end of his life, when he took the time to write down the most essential things he could pass on to his son in the faith.

There will always be seasons when attendance is good and the ministry is growing, and seasons when your small group feels just a bit too small. Your charge is the same: preach the Word.

Empty seats are an opportunity. A few years ago, I heard about a Bible Study group with a “spare seat” member. Because there was a limited number of chairs in the house where this group met, this person only came to Bible Study if someone else couldn’t make it and there was a “spare seat.” I thought this was terribly sad. We want everyone to know that they are an essential part of the gathered church, and no one to feel like there isn’t enough space.

We should see it as a blessing when we need to find more seats, and we can also see it as a blessing when we already have empty chairs. We can see, clearly and visibly, that we have space for people. Whether it’s people already belonging to our local church who aren’t part of a group yet, or our friends and family who don’t know Jesus, there’s always room for more.

When you gather together and have empty chairs, make a conscious effort to pray for them to be filled. Ask that you would have wisdom about who to invite. Ask God that he would be at work in hearts and minds and grow a desire to read his Word. And give thanks that, should God bring more people into your ministry, you have somewhere to sit them.

God’s Word is at work. God often uses our moments of perceived weakness—like a tiny Bible Study group—for his glory. Sometimes, smaller studies mean opportunities for quieter people to ask questions. Sometimes, people are more prepared to share a deeply personal prayer request. Often, nothing observably extraordinary happens, but we can trust God that his Word will do the work of growing and changing our hearts to be more like Christ. Isaiah 55:11 says:

so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
    It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
    and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

This passage in Isaiah compares God’s Word to rain and snow that comes from heaven and waters the earth, yielding “bread for the eater” (Isa. 55:10). It says that like this rain, God’s Word accomplishes something tangible and beneficial. It does not return empty without filling and changing our hearts.

When everyone bails from our Bible study and we wonder what the point of all our preparation was, remember that sometimes the heart that is grown and changed in that time is simply our own! God’s Word will achieve the purpose for which God sends it—no matter how many people are in the room.