Break free from dieting and compulsive exercise! God never intended for food to torment us or for us to spend two hours on the elliptical making up for what we ate earlier in the day. Instead, he longs for us to experience his peace, joy, and rest in the presence of food. He longs for us to move our bodies out of expressions of joy and worship…because it feels good to do so! God invites us to shake off the shackles of fear that keep us a slave to exercise to make up for what we eat.
What IS Thin Within? How can you start right now, with no money invested, to shed extra weight and to walk in the freedom that is yours?
A free online class will begin January 6th, 2014. Please join us! The only thing you will need for it is a Thin Within workbook, but even if you don’t have one of those, please join us anyhow! (You can get a free sample of one week’s worth of material at this link.) The webinars will encourage you and there will be new videos posted here to the blog each week as well.
This post outlines the details for how you can get involved in the class that starts January 6th and runs through April 7th.
If you want to see the emails that have been sent to the class list already, the first one, sent on December 3, is here. The second, sent on December 16, is here.
What do you have to lose other than obsession with counting and exercise? With Thin Within, we eat what we enjoy in moderation. We become mindful of what our bodies need to operate at their best. We exercise because we enjoy doing so and relish the health benefits. We no longer live in fear! Sound good to you? Come on along!
How About You?
Want to join us for the workbook study? Subscribe to the email list by clicking here.
What questions would you like answered in our Orientation Webinar? Use the comments section here to respond. I look forward to hearing from you. 🙂
Hi, folks. What questions do you have that I can respond to here at the blog or in the Orientation class on January 6th? Please post them here and I will try to address them here and/or during our webinar in a couple of weeks.
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”
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.
There are so many exciting changes ahead relative to God is Doing a New Thing and the Thin Within ministries! I am so excited to roll out each one by one. But let me just tease you a bit with that for now and get to the point of this post!
We may just be beginning the 2013 holiday season, but it isn’t too early to think ahead to January and that time when so many of us want to start fresh (though, truly we can start fresh EACH day—we don’t need to wait!).
In January 2014, I will be leading an online Thin Within group studying the Thin Within workbook material. The first orientation meeting will be Monday, January 6th. The class will wrap up Monday, April 7th, 2014. Posts will be accessible here at the blog for discussion, but we will also have a “live” online meeting each week on Mondays, from 4:30-5:30pm Pacific Time. The web url will be made available each week to those who sign up and who provide their email addresses to me for that purpose.
Here are some details about the Rebuilding God’s Temple Workbook Kit #1. If you have done this workbook before, you can still join the weekly chats January 6 – April 7 and work through *any* of the Thin Within workbooks as they are all designed so that they all have the same lesson topics each week.
The first kit is the most comprehensive and comes with three pieces:
Workbook #1
The Temple Toolkit
The Memory Challenge Cards (click on the image to see a large version and some images you can click again to see it magnified further):
The contents of Kit #1
First, the workbook itself, is a spiral bound volume that has material for 12 weeks of study. To download a sample of the material, visit this link. The download is an Adobe Reader (.pdf) file of Week One – “Hope.” After you download it, print it and take a week to try it out! 🙂
Each week’s unit consists of the following:
Lesson material – This is dense written material that you will read to glean the concepts that we are teaching or reviewing during the week. I usually recommend about an hour spent with this, highlighting, asterisking, and looking up the verses in my own bible. I may even write comments in the margin or, if I am leading a group, questions to be sure to ask participants.
Each of the reading portions of the lesson are divided into these segments:
Introduction – A brief overview of the week’s focus
Spiritual Information – The relationship this material has to the Scriptures
Physiological Information – The “mechanics” — what you can actually doto make additional changes in your eating to honor the Lord
Integration – How it all works together
Exercises – Don’t worry! These aren’t calisthenics! LOL! They are basically guided daily quiet times. 🙂 Each week includes “exercises” for each day of the week. Days six and seven are optional and a bit “lighter.” Days one through five include the following sections:
Going Deeper – This relates some aspect of the lesson you have read to your life
Bible Study – This shows how Scripture illustrates or illuminates the principles taught in the lesson
Knowing God By Heart – One of the best parts, this is a study of the attributes of God. We have found that the way a participant views God impacts how she will view food, herself, her body, as well as her willingness (or not) to surrender this aspect of her life to the Lord for His purposes.
Getting Practical – These are suggestions for putting some of the mechanics of the program into practice
Memory Challenge – Hiding God’s Word in our hearts will enable us to be reminded of our commitment to him when we are weak! Memorizing scripture is extremely helpful for renewing our mind and changing our thinking!
Review of the Week – This provides a space where you can summarize what God has shown you or questions and thoughts you have had. This section is especially helpful when you meet with others in a group setting. 🙂
In addition to these resources in the workbook, there is an extensive Introduction at the beginning and Appendices in the back, providing a great deal of material that will support you on your journey.
But wait! There’s more! 🙂 (Couldn’t resist saying that!) Not only do you get the Workbook, but when you purchase the first kit, you also get the Temple Toolkit. This is a resource that offers a place for you to log your own journey throughout each day during the full twelve weeks. As you progress through the material, the pages change to match what you have learned in the workbook. Let me show you what I mean.
The first image below shows Days 25-28. Click on the image to see a larger version and then click again to see FULL size what these pages look like in the temple toolkit:
Days 25, 26, 27, 28 in the Temple Toolkit
As you progress through the workbook and new material is introduced, the Temple Toolkit changes, too:
Days 49, 50, 51, and 52 in Temple Toolkit
Again, click on the image above and then click again on the bigger image to see it full size. You will see new tools have been added.
Of course all of the tools are optionalas you go through the 12-week workbook. If you have come out of a background of excessive charting and graphing, you may only want to use the journaling pages. Or, as time goes on, you may experience freedom with one tool and not another. The Lord will lead each of us individually. Some have freedom to use all the tools, charts and graphs. Some have the freedom not to.
By the time you are closer to the end of the first twelve weeks, you will have been introduced to all of the tools. Note how the material in the toolkit has evolved:
Days 77, 78, 79 and 80 in Temple Toolkit
Again, “Wait! There’s more!” 🙂 When you order the first kit, you get not only the Workbook, the Temple Toolkit that changes as you go through the material, but you also get the Memory Challenge and Temptation Buster Cards:
Memory Challenge and Temptation Buster Cards
Again, click on the image above and the larger image, to get a full size view of what these include. You cut them up and can carry them with you so that Thin Within isn’t just a bible study that you begin in the morning and leave behind the rest of the day. These resources are very supportive in helping you to keep the principles that God is leading you to embrace and apply with you throughout the day.
Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves.
Do what it says.
Anyone who listens to the word
but does not do what it says
is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and,
after looking at himself,
goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.
~ James 1:22-24
We don’t want to just accumulate head knowledge, but then leave it behind for the rest of the day! We want to ACT on what we learn in our times of study and in God’s Word!
$40 includes three months of workbook material and exercises, as well as the Temple Toolkit and a set of Scripture Memory Cards, one verse for each week. There is no additional cost to participate in the class at this time.
Did you knowthat there are 3 additional workbooks, each covering 12 weeks? The material is designed so that people who have gone through workbook #1 before, can do workbook #2 or #3 or #4, even while most in the group use workbook #1. Each of the workbooks are presented in 12 weekly themes that parallel each other. These are the themes for all four of the workbooks:
Hope
My Body–God’s Temple
Identity in Christ
Celebration of God’s Grace, Part One
Restoration
Counting the Cost
The Fight of Faith
Celebration of God’s Grace, Part Two
Building Godly Boundaries
Forgiveness
Prayer
Celebration of God’s Grace, Part Three
When the group is on week five, everyone will be studying, reviewing, learning about the theme of Restoration. This helps prevent the material from becoming stale! It is a great system that allows people of all experience levels to enjoy a group together, studying and reviewing together.
Workbooks #2, 3 and 4 cost about $25 each.
To order materials, call Thin Within 1-877-729-8932 (9:00am-5:00pm Eastern) or visit this link at Amazon.
To sign up for the class starting in January 2014, visit this link and fill out the form. This email list will only be for the class information.
The group I will be leading starting January 6, 2014 is an “open” group. You can join the chat at any time. There will be more details to come—but if you want to get the information sent directly to you, please sign up to be on the class email list. Hope you can join us!
How About You?
Do you need and want support? Now is your chance. I will probably not be leading another class through the workbook in 2014. Sign up today and purchase your materials! 🙂
Want to lead a group? If you want to live dangerously :-), you can lead a Thin Within group. The best way to do this is to plan to use the material here at the blog and the videos will be created along the way. Plan to join us for the discussions here, the videos, and the class sessions on Monday. Then, following the Monday classes, you can meet with your own group of people live and in person to lead them through the material using the resources provided to you by your own participation in the online class! By the time class time rolls around for us online each Monday, you will have all the material under your belt and be ready to teach it yourself! I would love to know if this interests you! 🙂
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