When our Sunday School class first started meeting a couple of decades ago, Rob Bell’s Velvet Elvis was the initial book we chose. Over the years, we’ve returned to his books and videos several times. The most recent series was on his 2011 book Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived.
This was a fairly controversial book when Bell released it, causing many to brand Bell as a “universalist” who believed everyone would go to Heaven when they died. Personally, I believe this sentiment did Bell a great disservice as it really wasn’t the message he was trying to convey. But by all means, read the book and discuss it with your group members to draw your own conclusions.
This one took us eight sessions. I strongly recommend at least the group leader, if not every group member, get the e-book as opposed to the hard copy. The e-book includes short introductory videos for each chapter as well as additional content and discussion questions at the end of the book. As you’ll see in Lesson 8, a great companion to this series is the documentary film on Bell’s ministry The Heretic. We watched this in class over a couple of sessions and then discussed it, along with Chapter 8, in the final lesson.
Bell’s style is quite “Socratic” – asking a ton of thought-provoking questions along the way, and even answering a few of them. 🙂 In a way, this makes for easier small group facilitation as many example questions are right there in the text!
Let me know what you think of this series in the comments.