Friday, June 29, 2007

Grace Church Bible Reading Challenge



This Sunday we will begin our new 3-week series called “iBook” which will answer the question, “Can I really trust my Bible?” It’s going to be an awesome series. However, we don’t just want to talk about making the Bible an important part of our lives as followers of Christ…we actually want to do it. As a result, we will be using the final Sunday in this series, July 15, to kick-off a “Grace Church Bible Reading Challenge”!

For a full month we are asking every member and regular attender of Grace Church to follow an announced Bible Reading plan (about 3 chapters or 15-20 minutes per day). It will begin in Psalm 119, which is the passage we will be looking at on the morning of July 15. Then we will go to Judges 13-16 which tells the story of the Old Testament character, Samson. This will prepare you for the kick-off to our new series starting July 22 that we care calling, “Summer Heat: The Samson Scandal”! From there it is on to the Gospel of John and then through many of the easier to read and understand books of the New Testament. If you will take the challenge and follow the plan, by the time August 15 rolls around you will have read:

18 Books of the New Testament in their entirety!
89 Chapters of the Bible
2,488 Verses of Scripture

And best of all, I know that God will use this month of becoming committed to daily intake of Scripture to change you as a person, your family, and our church as a whole.

And to make this even more fun and encouraging, we are going to be setting up a special website which will be announced later where as often as you want throughout this Bible Challenge you can post comments for our whole church family to read. Use this tool often to share what you are learning from your time in God’s Word and to read how the Lord is using this month long Bible Challenge in other’s lives. As you are doing your reading, if you come across something you don’t understand or which prompts a question, share it on this blog. We will be sure that one of our pastors gives an answer.

Folks, listen, this is going to be a blast. After all, reading the Bible should be. Think about it. We as a church are going to spend a full month together in Scripture, which is God’s door to adventure. You can read about Daniel when he was with the lions; Elijah in the desert and the ravens brought him bread. You can climb the mount with Moses to get the Ten Commandments and gather stones with David to knock Goliath dead.

We will not start this month long challenge until July 15. I hope you take it and run with it. I hope God does amazing things in your life as a result. If you want some practice before then read the books of Matthew, Mark and Luke. These are three books that we will not read during our month long “Grace Church Bible Reading Challenge”!

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