Tag: discipleship

Do You Struggle to Read the Bible? (Part 1)

4 Comments

I get it – the book itself is massive and it’s sometimes difficult to know where to start, but start you must. This book is no ordinary book. I often joke and say it should have a label saying “WARNING: This book will seriously wreck your life”. Of course I mean in a good way.

Before I read it, life was pretty comfortable and sweet and then this book opened up a whole other world of possibilities. Who knew that walking on water was a thing, that sickness being healed could happened and that the dead being raised was even an option?

In can often create an uncomfortable gap between what we read and what we experience – but the point of this post is that I want to inspire you to read it.

What’s below is conglomeration of notes and thoughts from a few books that would be worth reading at some point: How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, The Celebration of Discipline and Lead Like Jesus

Why even bother?

I have heard it said that the bible is like a manual, and I agree to a point. The problem with that – who actually reads a manual right? We prefer to try first and if all else fails then we go check the instructions. So thinking of it as a manual doesn’t appeal to me personally, but even if you only ever view it as manual for life, it will prove itself useful. God, the author of life has the beta on what it’s all about so His words about life will definitely help point you in the right direction.

I get more excited when I think of the bible as an invitation. The bible is an invitation into a conversation with God. Conversation is how all relationships are built and scripture is God’s side of conversation with you.

The Bible is an invitation into a conversation with God

This book is profitable (but only if you read it).

Ways That You Can Build the Habit of Studying the Bible..

(These headings are taken from Lead Like Jesus: Ken Blanchard & Phil Hodges and I found it super helpful.)

1. Listening

In early tradition, scripture was heard as opposed to read. Jesus talked a lot about hearing the word, and in the Parable of the Sower (Matt 13:1-23, Mark 4:1-20, Luke 8:4-15) He presents four different scenarios as to what happens when the word (the seed) is heard (sown). Hearing the word was how the early church engaged.

There is something different and unique about listening to scripture and often I hear it differently to when I simply read it. Listening to the Gospels and listening to the words of Jesus bring a new dynamic to his words.

So if you’ve never thought about listening to the bible, here’s some ideas to get you going.

  1. Sermons, Podcasts
    • (listen to good bible teachers who actually open and teach from the bible – who knew that preaching without it was a thing!)
  2. Audiobible
    • I love YouVersion for this. Pick a translation with an audio option, hit play and off you go. Reading as you listen helps maintain focus.
    • Tip – you can change the reading speed by selecting the sound icon (x1.5 is my preferred), their set normal speed seems a little slow.
  3. Visual listening
    • There are some fab dramas and movies out there that bring the bible to life.
    • A current TV series, that I just have to get in this post is The Chosen. Highly recommend that you watch this, it will make the bible come alive and genuinely get you excited about reading the New Testament.

With everything Bible related though, like the parable of the sower, it’s all about what you do having heard. This is a book that is supposed to be lived and that’s what makes it truly special.

Read Part 2 Here: Reading and Memory Work

Read Part 3 Here: Studying and Meditating

Fascinated

Leave a comment

Last week at our church youth programme for older teens, we had a look at this whole idea of being fascinated.  The whole purpose and big idea was to set a challenge, to begin to ask ourselves if we are really fascinated with God.

  • Fascinated: to be engrossed, captivated, strongly interested, fully engaged, transfixed on something

Fascination is a funny thing and as I prepped for youth, my mind was working overtime trying to understand why we become fascinated with anything,

I’ve been there, fascinated and captivated by the wrong thing, maybe wrong is too strong a word to use, but certainly I could have been fascinated with something better. You’ve been there too no doubt, the TV series that you can’t stop watching and the demon of  box sets that rob you of sleep as you keep saying “one more” before we go to bed, and awful cliff hanger moments that make it virtually impossible.  We become fascinated, obsessed, can’t switch off, because we want to know what happens next.

When it comes to our journey with God, are we fascinated enough?

God is not looking for people who are mildly interested in Him

Fascination is strongly linked to discovery.
We discover something, learn something new and seek to discover more. We want to know more, like what happens next. The incredible thing about God, is that His box set never really ends – there’s always more, and just when we think we have him figured out, we learn and discover even more and that’s were fascination is birthed.  And incredible adventure lies waiting.

This adventure has to start with an encounter.

There is that part of me that wants to shake the “mildly interested” crowd.  This following Jesus is more than an added extra, it’s the main thing.   I can’t stop thinking about how we transition from interested to obsessed through this whole idea of discovery.

I found my mind wandering today thinking about all of this.

Do we play it too safe?  Do we make God fit in a nice little box that we can control and present to the masses as something nice, polished and shiny? In doing so, have we made God predictable?

If anything I’ve learned over the years, it’s that predictable does not fascinate, in fact it often gets boring when we know what will happen right?

Are we as his church presenting our father in such a way that the world wants to know more, or are we boring the masses with our predictable programme?

At youth last week, we played it simple.

We stripped back on all the ‘stuff’ and activity and we worshipped, waited and watched….

It honestly was a beautiful sight. Young people  brave enough to share a word to encourage us, worshipping unashamed, some of them ‘feeling’ something different, but good.  We can attempt to create a lot of cool in youth ministry but the thing that captivates, is when our young people engage with God through the power of the Holy Spirit.  Without His presence we are just another random bunch of people hanging out.

As youth leaders we get to facilitate these beautiful moments – let’s not be afraid to leave space, wait and lean into these moments. It’s those encounter that’s fascinate a generation. They will never forget and will never be the same.

Let’s open the nice shiny box we’ve put God in and let the wild adventure begin.

It’s what’s in the box that counts anyway.