New Around the Mission
Serendipitous Discipleship
May 13, 2011
When Laura Hucks, a school teacher in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, was invited by a friend to attend the Call to Discipleship bible study at All Saints Church in Pawleys Island, she was resistant. “I was already attending Bible Study Fellowship in my community, my life was in crisis and frankly I didn’t want to drive 35 minutes away to attend a bible study with women I didn’t know,” admits Laura. Laura accepted that invitation in 1998 with reluctance, but the teachings by Erilynne Barnum, wife of Bishop Thad Barnum, would not only change her life, but the lives of countless students as well.
Laura Hucks, bottom left, with students from
Waccamaw High School.
“It was a tool God used to transform my life,” explains Laura. “I gained an understanding about authentic discipleship that I never had before. I began to see how he wanted me to use what I learned to disciple students.”
Over the next five years, Laura would pioneer a non-profit inter-denominational ministry that offers released-time Bible Education to public school students in her community under the umbrella of School Ministries Inc., using Call to Discipleship material as curriculum. Recently, the program has been replicated with new teachers and funding in a neighboring county where two Anglican Mission congregations are host sites for two separate high schools.
Released-time is set aside during the school day when students, with parental permission, may leave the school to attend off-campus Bible classes. The ministry transports students to a host facility (usually a church) and provides a qualified teacher with a firm command of the Bible to teach students five days a week throughout the school year. Funding comes from outside the public school budget.
Christ Church in Murrells Inlet and All Saints Church in Pawleys Island are host facilities for Students in the Word: the name used to identify the released-time program specifically for students in Georgetown County.
Laura Hucks teaches Call to Discipleship to
high school students in Pawleys Island, SC
“This is an unprecedented opportunity to spend 90 minutes a day, five days a week sharing spiritual truths with teenagers,” says the Rev. David Bryan, Rector of Christ Church. “No other ministry has that kind of time to speak into the student’s lives. We are thrilled to be hosting it.”
Students learn about: Who God is, who they are in Christ, discover the power of the Holy Spirit and are equipped to serve.
Laura describes the rewards of her time with the students by sharing about a chaotic moment when a wasp found his way into the classroom. As students scurried around the room, waving their arms and ducking under desks, she discovered a group of girls in an adjacent room with their heads bowed in prayer. When the wasp was gone, they came back into the classroom and declared that one of the girls prayed to receive Christ as Savior.
Recently, when Waccamaw High School in Pawleys Island began to experience several untimely deaths among students, Students in the Word was instituted as a way to offer hope - with Laura Hucks as their teacher. She has come full circle from a student of the Word, to a teacher of the Word in the place where she reluctantly accepted an invitation that transformed her life.
Posted By: Cynthia P. Brust
Categories: Discipleship
