Why a New Study Series?

A few years ago, the PVCC leadership, like many other churches, sat down and worked on a new study series to be used in helping others become Christians.  Our series was named the ‘Good News Study Series.'  It was, and is, a great study series with which we believe someone could sit down and study with someone to help them become a Christian.

We have found, however, that for a variety of reasons, many in our church still use the original study series with which many of us became Christians.  Perhaps it is because we used it for so long, or because we reviewed it and were tested on it so often.  Or perhaps it was built in a fashion that made it easy to remember.  

Regardless, our goal as a church is (1) to teach people accurately how to become a Christian, and (2) to teach as many as possible.  In one sense, as long as we teach accurately, it doesn't matter what study series is used.  Many study series have been created and used throughout our family of churches; we believe they are all great studies and can be used effectively.  The PVCC staff reviewed several of these studies in our process of revising our study series.

In the end, we decided that the most effective approach would be to take the original study series and try to address and correct what we perceived as concerns, changing as little as possible to maintain familiarity with the series.  

What Changed?

The primary changes are:

(1) We replaced ‘The Kingdom' study with a ‘God's Love' study.  In our opinion, the most significant shortcoming of the original study series was a lack of attention given to God's grace and love for us.  It also failed to reference ‘the greatest commandment'.  We felt these needed to be addressed.  In order to keep the series to 6 studies, we chose to replace the Kingdom study, which we felt was a good study but not essential prior to baptism, with this study.

(2) We modified the Cross study to include passages about the resurrection and its impact on our new life in Christ.  We can't just reply on Jesus' death to motivate people to come to God; his victory was not complete until he rose from the dead.     

(3) The Church study has also been reworked to be more relationship-focused, rather than focused on showing that there is only one church biblically.  The concept of having close relationships in the spiritual family of God is much more motivating than simply a doctrinal point about the one Body.

(4) We have also included a Lordship/Cost Counting study.

Outside of this, the other changes are adding or subtracting a verse here and there.  

Again, our goal was to leave as much in place as we felt we could while addressing our primary concerns.
Please feel free to read through our series and use it if you wish.  If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to email us.

 Download Study Series Here