Image courtesy of digitalart at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of digitalart at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Are you looking for an opportunity to dive in deep into the Thin Within workbook material, but value the freedom and flexibility of an online group? If so, you can join us for the launch of our Winter/Spring 2014 Thin Within workbook study starting January 6th.

To Do:

First and foremost, you will need the Thin Within Rebuilding God’s Temple Workbook Kit, available here.  If you have previously completed workbook #1, then purchasing and using workbooks 2, 3, or 4 will work just fine as the workbooks are all synchronous. This post describes the workbook #1 kit in some detail. (NOTE: Many have asked if they *have* to have a workbook or can use the trade Thin Within book published in 2002 or 2005. You can use the book, but except in a few instances, there won’t be a good “fit” to match up synchronously with the workbook. For instance, the first lesson in the workbook is on “Hope.” There is no perfect fit in the Thin Within book for that–while it is true that the topic of “hope” saturates all the pages of both books, there is no chapter on “hope” in the book. Just keep plugging away in the book and I am sure it will be an encouragement to you, though!)

Secondly, please sign up to be on the online class email list. You can do this even if you are interested only and not yet committed to the study. This will be informational and you can unsubscribe at any time. I sent out an email to this list already. If you didn’t get that email and wish to view it, see it here in your browser.

If you are on Facebook and want an additional way to connect with class members, please visit this page and ask to be added.

I would love to tell you definitively that I know precisely how this class will run, but honestly? It will be an experiment! There are about 165 people currently on the mailing list. That is wonderful! I know not everyone will really be in the class and we typically end with a fraction of those we start with (life gets busy). Regardless, we have never done a class this size, so we may shift and adjust as the class unfolds. Here is how I think it will run:

Schedule:

Monday, January 6th, 2014, we will host a webinar-style meeting online at this link (it will also be sent to those on the class email list). Each Monday, we will have a LIVE online webinar-style class from 4:30-5:30pm Pacific Time (please check a timezone converter to be sure you know what time this is in your timezone!). As of this writing, we plan to use AnyMeeting for this. It currently is free, because it is ad supported (so please expect ads that Thin Within doesn’t necessarily endorse!). I will use the Class Facebook Group page, the regular Thin Within Facebook page, and the email list to share the link, agenda, and class assignments for the meeting each week. Assignments will also be posted to the blog.

You can join in the class at any time. You can leave at any time.

There is no charge for the class, though if you would like to donate to the Thin Within ministry, I am sure that can be arranged! No one in Thin Within gets a salary of any kind. We all donate our time. Any money that comes in to the ministry is used to run things. Please let me know if you are interested in donating. 🙂

On Tuesday of each week, I will post the assignment for the week here, at the blog. The assignment made on Tuesday will be the “loose” focus for the following Monday’s class. See the tentative schedule below for an idea of what we will be studying during January:

Monday, January 6, 2014 ~ 4:30-5:30pm Pacific Time  ~ Online Class LIVE Presentation: Orientation

Tuesday, January 7, 2014 ~ Blog Post with Lesson 1 Assignment for the week – “Hope”

Monday, January 13, 2014 ~ 4:30-5:30pm PT ~ Online Class LIVE Presentation: Lesson 1 – “Hope”

Tuesday, January 14, 2014 ~ Blog Post with Lesson 2 Assignment for the week – “My Body, God’s Temple”

Monday, January 20, 2014 ~ 4:30-5:30pm PT ~ Online Class LIVE Presentation: Lesson 2 – “My Body, God’s Temple”

Tuesday, January 21, 2014 ~ Blog Post with Lesson 3 Assignment for the week – “Identity in Christ”

Monday, January 27, 2014 ~ 4:30-5:30pm PT ~ Online Class LIVE Presentation: Lesson 3 – “Identity in Christ”

Tuesday, January 28, 2014 ~ Blog Post with Lesson 4 Assignment for the week – “Celebration of God’s Grace, Part 1”

Additional Support:

In addition to the Thin Within workbook, I strongly recommend that you have a copy of Barb Raveling’s I Deserve a Donut and Other Lies That Make You Eat found at Amazon here and/or her I Deserve a Donut app for the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. These are optional for this study, but you will not regret having them!

Other resources that you might want to make use of include the official Thin Within audio files for the workbook. These are professionally recorded audios that are available at the Sound Cloud website. You can download these files and put them on the device you use to play audio files as an additional means of supporting you on your journey. There is no charge for this. There are a lot of other audio files available there as well…they aren’t professionally done, but crafted from my heart. 🙂

At the YouTube site, we also have the professionally recorded Thin Within files (in addition to a lot of “homegrown” instructional and supportive videos). Here is a playlist of some of the professionally filmed Thin Within videos and here is another similar playlist (though this one is older).

Our final online class meeting will be April 7th (I think).

If everything goes as I hope, I will be able to share a link for the recorded online classes each week. But that one I can’t guarantee as yet. The class email list will be the best source of news throughout the duration of the class.

Would You Like To Lead?

Now is a great time to lead your own live Thin Within group. You could use the material that we generate in our online class and lead your live group a week or two behind us so that you already have familiarity with the material as you present it to your group. What this means is that any videos that I create for our class (something I plan to do each week as part of the weekly assignment made here at the blog), the recordings of our online class (if all works as I hope), support blog posts, and assignments could be used to support you as you support others. If you are interested in this option, I would love to know about it. 🙂

If you have any additional questions, please post them here.

I hope you will join us!