Weekly Kaio: Growing Together
Weekly Kaio is helping young people grow through Bible study, shared work, friendship, and a community shaped around faith.
Read Time: 4 minutes
The Thousand Oaks Ecclesia had its first ecclesial Kaio weekend in early 2018. Bro. Tim and Sis. Sarah Osborn from Okanagan Central in British Columbia came down for the weekend to participate and help things run smoothly, since they had helped start the Kaio movement. We rented a retreat center, and a good portion of our ecclesia came out to participate.
Initially, it felt like a pretty foreign concept: how do you come together as a group to do personal Bible study? But after experiencing the excitement, conversations, and fellowship that grew out of that personal study, we were hooked.
Shortly after we returned from the weekend, many members of our ecclesia began asking how we could do this more often. Sis. Kristen and I thought we could easily have a weekly Kaio at our home. At the time, we had two young daughters, so selfishly, this worked really well for us. We could stay home, get the kids settled for bed, and still have everyone over to study together.
We also wanted to keep things pretty informal. We would provide some snacks (which always seems to bring more Christadelphians around!), and then everyone would settle down for about an hour to do their own personal studies. Once we were done, I would let everyone know that the “official” Kaio session was over and that people could feel free to keep talking or keep studying if they wanted a little more time.
What was especially powerful was what happened after that hour of personal study. People would start talking about what they had been looking into. Someone would ask a question about something they were stuck on, or share an exciting point they had just discovered. Often, those discussions would last another hour as we shared our studies with one another. It was incredibly fulfilling.
Over time, we began developing the relationships with our brothers and sisters that are really difficult to develop on a Sunday morning or at a normal Bible class. The evenings often lasted two or three hours, sometimes turning into games or just continued fellowship as we talked about other parts of our lives.
One of the biggest things Kaio has done for our ecclesia is to make talking about our spiritual lives feel normal. Felicity, a regular attendee of our weekly Kaios, described this as one of the best things about the weekly meetings: “My favorite thing about Kaio is how normal it has become to talk about our spiritual lives—what we’re studying, what we’re learning, and even what we’re struggling with.”
I think that has been a huge part of our experience. Kaio gives us a reason to talk about what really matters. Because everyone is doing the same thing, it feels like we are all in it together. We aren’t just listening to someone talk about the Bible; we are actually studying it and then sharing what we are finding with each other.
We also talked about how Kaio has changed the kind of friendships we want to cultivate. Felicity specifically mentioned to me that watching our ecclesia grow together over God’s Word has been inspiring, and that her friendships have become deeper and more meaningful because of it. I think we have seen that repeatedly. Kaio has helped break through some of those surface-level relationships that can naturally happen in an ecclesia. We know each other better because we have spent time together talking about God’s Word, and those conversations have also opened the door to talking about the rest of our lives.
Another thing that has happened over the years is that Kaio has become less of an “event” and more of a normal part of our ecclesial life. Seth, another regular attendee of the weekly sessions, described one of the benefits this way: “Another key benefit is that it normalizes the study of God’s Word. It is now normal for us to be at various ecclesial events or activities and have Kaio sessions included in the schedule.”
I think that is really important. Personal Bible study can sometimes feel like something we are supposed to do on our own, while ecclesial fellowship can sometimes become primarily social. Kaio has helped bring those two things together. Seth described it this way: “Kaio is amazing because it combines two incredibly important aspects of life in the Truth: engrossing yourself in God’s Word, and then fellowshipping with brothers and sisters in a way that is focused on those studies.”
That is really what we have experienced. We aren’t getting together just to have another social night, and we aren’t getting together just to sit quietly in a room and study by ourselves. We are doing both. We spend time in God’s Word, and then we have the opportunity to encourage each other and talk about what we are learning.
I think that has also impacted our kids. They have grown up seeing Bible study and spiritual conversations as a normal part of life. Felicity mentioned how her kids will ask, “Can we go to Kaio?” or “I want to Kaio!” That is something I am really grateful for.
I love that our kids are seeing people get excited about studying the Bible. They see adults and young people coming together, bringing their Bibles, talking about what they have found, asking questions, and genuinely enjoying it. Hopefully, they will grow up seeing that as a normal and enjoyable part of being a believer.
And I think that is one of the most encouraging things we have seen in Thousand Oaks. What started in 2018 as a somewhat foreign concept has become something people genuinely look forward to. We have seen that spirit spread throughout the ecclesia, and we have seen people get excited not only about Kaio nights, but about the Kaio camp, Bible study, and spending time together around God’s Word.
That really sums up what has been so encouraging to us.
Kaio has given us a regular opportunity to put aside the anxieties, stresses, conflicts, and competition that can sometimes come with everyday life and simply focus on God’s Word together. For that hour, everyone is doing the same thing. And we leave feeling encouraged, inspired, and usually a little lighter than when we came.
Ultimately, I think that is what we want our ecclesial life to look like. As Seth said, it is about “filling our minds with God’s Word so that it might change us, and encouraging our brothers and sisters to do the same.”
For us, that has been Kaio’s real value.
James Styles,
Thousand Oaks Ecclesia, CA