Benilde-St. Margaret’s is integrating a Bible study group for students to learn from each other’s perspectives and strengthen their faith. The club was started by juniors Leah Smith, Leo Adrian, Eleanor Twigg, Toby McLean, and Mackenzie Gleason, who decided to form the club to allow students to share ideas in a supportive group and strengthen their faith.
Because BSM is a Catholic-practicing school, students were shocked to learn that there wasn’t already a bible study group. BSM offers classes on religion and scripture, but before this club, students had not taken it upon themselves to start a club solely based on scripture. “I was really surprised that, like, a Catholic school doesn’t have like a club revolving around scripture,” Smith said.
The primary purpose of the club is to give students a safe space to share their thoughts and journeys in their religion. Sometimes students can feel unsure sharing in big groups of students, and the Bible study group will give them the chance to express themselves and ideas that they have about religion and the Bible that they perhaps do not feel comfortable sharing in other settings. “I hope it impacts them in a way that they will be willing to share about their lives, and they can find a way to share with a new group of people,” Gleason said.
Many theology classes at BSM consist of traditional classroom structures that mostly consist of teachers talking about the subject and then assigning work. The classes do not necessarily allow students to share their thoughts, which can be difficult for students who want to learn more about themselves and their faith. “We all decided to start the club because we felt like there could be more opportunities to actually dive into our faith at school, because I feel like what we talk about in class is more of a lecture than actually being involved in open discussion,” Smith said.
Many students at BSM are looking for ways to strengthen their faith, in whatever religion it may be. Not all students at BSM are Catholic, and the club was founded in order to give people from other branches of Christianity a voice to share their perspectives and learn from each other. “It represents our community in finding ways to understand each other and finding ways to help each other, just bringing more community in and recognizing each other, not just for what you do, but for what you believe and what you want to believe in,” Gleason said.
If students are interested in joining the club, Smith and Gleason highly encourage them to participate. They meet once every other Friday and are looking for new members. “We don’t have a TikTok, but we do have an Instagram where we post when we’re meeting,” Smith said.