Uncategorized
Resolved: Apply
Jan 1st
This week we’re doing a series of follow-up posts from Sunday’s sermon, which talked about the importance of reading and applying scripture. We’re also giving away five copies of Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, and you can register to win by commenting below. All five winners will be announced on Monday, January 4.
One of the greatest mistakes you can make in Bible study is never to apply what you’ve read. One author has famously stated, “Interpretation without application leads to devastation.” Simply put, we have to put feet to what we’ve read.
Application can be as easy as asking specific questions of the text as they apply to your own life. Again drawing on our friend Donald Whitney, he provides six questions we should ask of the text in his Spiritual Disciplines:
- Does this text reveal something I should believe about God?
- Does this text reveal something I should praise or thank or trust God for?
- Does this text reveal something I should pray about for myself or others?
- Does this text reveal something I should have a new attitude about?
- Does this text reveal something I should make a decision about?
- Does this text reveal something I should do for the sake of Christ, others, or myself?
Resolved: Meditate
Dec 31st
This week we’re doing a series of follow-up posts from Sunday’s sermon, which talked about the importance of reading and applying scripture. We’re also giving away five copies of Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, and you can register to win by commenting below. All five winners will be announced on Monday, January 4.
The word “meditation” conjures up images of an old gray guru sitting on a foggy mountaintop in a lotus position. But meditation has historically been a Christian practice. Meditating on scripture doesn’t involve emptying your mind, but filling your mind with scripture. As you read your Bible, ask God to show you one verse that would be beneficial for meditation. Then, break that verse apart. Pray over it. Think on it word-by-word. Saturate yourself with its truth and let it speak to you where you are.
In Whitney’s Spiritual Disciplines, he gives six aspects of meditating on scripture:
- Select an appropriate passage: if you struggle with your thought life, 1 Corinthians 10:13 or Philippians 4:8 is a good start. If you have an unsaved friend or family member, certain verses from John 4 might help.
- Repeat it in different ways: this is a word-for-word repetition of the text. Emphasize each word as you repeat the verse over and over.
- Rewrite it in your own words: sometimes paraphrasing a verse, or inserting your name into the verse, is a good way to draw additional meaning.
- Look for applications of the text: how does the verse specifically apply to your current life situation?
- Pray through the text: what is God trying to say? What additional meaning can he help you derive?
- Don’t rush!: as Whitney says, “It is better to read a small amount of scripture and meditate on it than to read an extensive section without meditation.”
Resolved: Memorize
Dec 30th
This week we’re doing a series of follow-up posts from Sunday’s sermon, which talked about the importance of reading and applying scripture. We’re also giving away five copies of Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, and you can register to win by commenting below. All five winners will be announced on Monday, January 4.
Memorizing scripture gives you the ability to have the Bible with you even when you can’t have the Bible with you. Memorization is a great weapon in the fight against sin. You can quote scripture to help you do battle against specific sins and struggles in your life. Psalm 119:11 says, “I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.”
Don’t buy the excuse that you can’t memorize. We memorize phone numbers, e-mail addresses, songs, birthdays, anniversaries, social security numbers, ATM passwords, and more all the time. You can memorize if you try to memorize. You’ll never memorize scripture if you don’t try.
Pastor Andrew Davis is the lead pastor of Durham’s First Baptist Church. He has memorized books (not just verses) of the Bible. You can find his memorization plan below in “Additional resources.”
Set a personal goal for 2010. Maybe you want to memorize one verse per week. Maybe you can memorize one of the shorter epistles by December (1 John, Jude, or even Ephesians). Whatever you memorize, just memorize! You’ll find God’s word stored up in your heart to be incredibly beneficial for comfort, encouragement, protection from temptation, and even in your witnessing and counseling encounters with people.
Additional resources:
Resolved: Study
Dec 29th
This week we’re doing a series of follow-up posts from Sunday’s sermon, which talked about the importance of reading and applying scripture. We’re also giving away five copies of Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, and you can register to win by commenting below. All five winners will be announced on Monday, January 4.
The difference between Bible reading and Bible study is a pen and piece of paper. Take time to interact with the text and write down questions that you have. Use a good study Bible (a great one is suggested below) to help you with difficult passages or important interpretations. Invest in a good set of commentaries (Matthew Henry is a good concise choice, MacArthur or Holman will take you deep into the pages of scripture).
Here are some potential questions to ask of the text. For application questions, tune in Friday.
- Who wrote this passage?
- Who was the audience?
- What unique setting / challenge / issue was the audience facing?
- What is the key word or theme of this passage?
- What action is the author trying to elicit?
Additional resources:
Resolved: Read
Dec 28th
This week we’re doing a series of follow-up posts from Sunday’s sermon, which talked about the importance of reading and applying scripture. We’re also giving away five copies of Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, and you can register to win by commenting below. All five winners will be announced on Monday, January 4.
So many times we satisfy ourselves by reading ABOUT the Bible, but never actually reading the Bible. In 2010, let me challenge you to put down the devotional magazines (nothing wrong with devo mags, some of them are very helpful!) and pick up a copy of scripture and read it directly.
Plan what it is you’re going to read – the Bible from front to back? An easy-win book like the Gospel of John or book or Romans? One Proverb a day for a month? In the “additional resources” guide below, I’ve given you a Bible In A Year Reading plan. This pdf download will walk you through the Old Testament, New Testament, and twice through Psalms and Proverbs over the course of a year. It’s a handy guide to keep in your Bible and a great way to read the entire book in about 15 minutes per day.
One warning: don’t use the Bible-in-a-Year plan as one more in a series of checklists. “Hunkering down” to get through the passage will do you little good. Plan not only the 15 minutes to read the passages, but additional time to interact with the passages. More on that tomorrow.
Additional resources:
CMO: A Church Planter’s Perspective
Nov 27th
Ben Tugwell is the lead pastor of Integrity Church in Greenville, NC, one of our church plants. Your gifts to this year’s Christmas Missions Offering goes to bless churches like Ben’s and further their ministry in their community.
For the last several months our church has been studying through 1 Peter. One of the themes of 1 Peter is suffering. Peter continually reminds us that our only hope in suffering is to cling to the Gospel.
As we walked through 1 Peter, we discovered that many of our people were suffering and could, on some level, identify with the people whom Peter was writing to. As a result, we were ALL challenged to cling to the Gospel. This, in turn, led to other challenges, one of which was to bless others… even our enemies (1 Pt. 3:8-17). Because Peter was calling his church to be generous even in the midst of difficult trails, we decided we should show generosity to each other and to our city bybeing generous people.
In our church there was a married couple who had just lost their 10 month old little girl to complications from before childbirth. The parents had frequently been in and out of the hospital caring for their child. They spent a lot of time, money, and energy keeping their child healthy. This became a huge financial strain on this family. When the child passed away, our young, fledgling church decided we wanted to bless this family. We decided to take up a special offering to cover their mortgage. Amazingly, because of the Gospel taking root in the hearts of our people, we were actually able to cover all of their mortgage in one offering. On top of that, our normal offering that day was even higher than usual.
We also started an initiative to show generosity to our community, which we called “bless the city”. One Sunday morning we hid money underneath everyone’s chair – 1, 5, 10, or 20 dollar bills. Attached to the money, everyone was given a card that read “bless the city”. We challenged them to use the money to bless an individual in some way and use that sign of generosity as an opportunity to share the gospel. The response was tremendous! Our people blessed co-workers, neighbors, family members, complete strangers, and even people they didn’t even like! A lot of our people enjoyed the challenge so much, they continued to use their OWN money to be a blessing.
Through these challenges I have seen us become a more generous church and, as a result, a church that has a deeper love for the Gospel! I am thankful that God calls us to generosity even in the midst of our difficult trials.
1 Peter 3:8-9 (ESV)
“Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing.”
Last But Not Least…
Nov 22nd
…Sara Harrel wins the fifth and final copy of A Praying Life by Paul Miller. Sara, you can pick that up at the Info Table on Sunday.
Thanks to all of you who commented this week, and keep it up! I’d love to hear your stories of prayer and God’s faithfulness from the 7-Day Prayer Challenge this week. E-mail me!
Meanwhile, if you’d like a copy of A Praying Life, you can order it here.
The Thursday Freebie Goes To…
Nov 20th
Mike & Mary Gifford. Continue commenting on today’s post for your final chance to win a copy of A Praying Life by Paul Miller.
Today’s winner will be announced in a post on Sunday, so stay tuned!
Prayer Week: Danny Franks
Nov 20th
This week we’re highlighting the process behind the prayer life of our campus staff. Today’s post is by Danny Franks, Brier Creek’s Campus Pastor. Whatever that is.
Don’t forget to comment below for a chance to win a copy of A Praying Life by Paul Miller. More info here.
During Sunday’s message, I mentioned that my prayer life hasn’t always been the most indicative of what a pastor’s prayer life should be. That’s a really nice, up-in-front-of-a-crowd way of saying that my prayer life stunk it up. It wasn’t even a prayer life, it was more of praying on life support. For years, I struggled with making the time to pray, getting focused when I prayed, and actually sticking to a prayer schedule. I would pray in my car, walking into the office, or just before my head hit the pillow (and nothing is wrong with any of those methods), but I never really made persistent prayer a priority.
How that attitude changed is a bit of a long story…perhaps too long for today’s post. Suffice it to say, there was a fairly powerful catalyst that opened my eyes to what persistent prayer can mean in a person’s life. So here it is: my very imperfect, yet very workable-for-me prayer strategy:
Early to bed, early to rise. I find that if I don’t wake up before the kids, I don’t pray. Well…I pray. But praying, “Lord, make the cereal fights stop!” probably isn’t all that effective.
Coffee. Lots of it. Call me unspiritual, but if I’m gonna get up, something’s gotta wake me up.
Bible / prayer matrix. I typically do a 50/50 split. Sometimes I’ll pray through the scripture, sometimes I’ll interact & take notes from scripture, sometimes I’ll use a book like My Utmost for His Highest or even A Praying Life to accent what I’m reading in scripture.
Prayer cards. When it comes to praying, I’m completely ADD. My typical prayers use to roll like this: “Lord thank you for this day bless the missionaries oh look a tree I really like vanilla.” My stack of 4×6 prayer cards have proven invaluable (Miller talks about this more in A Praying Life). I’ll put one person, item, or need on each card and pray through it. Now, since in addition to my ADD I’ve got a little OCD, I break my prayer card stacks up into the following categories:
- The “Me” Stack: this is my list of things I pray daily for myself…thanking God for who he is and what he’s done in my life, asking for wisdom, confessing and praying against sin, praying through that day’s schedule, etc.
- Family: usually one specific request for my wife and each of my kids, rotating once a day for a week.
- Extended family: I pray through all my side and all of Merriem’s side each week.
- Small group members: pray through ‘em in a week.
- Summit elders / campus pastors: each week.
- BC AM Campus needs: rotating list of needs that I pray through each week.
- Church planters & local pastors that I know: I’ll usually make it through this list and pray for each of them in depth once per month (hey, I know a lot of those folks. Don’t hate.).
- “Rotating needs” stack: that’s where prayer requests go from people having surgery, sickness, out of a job, getting married, having babies, etc. I’ll usually hit the needs in this stack every couple of days.
- Answered prayer stack: that’s where I go to see what God has done.
Now, that’s my stack. And for now, it works. It has changed, and it will change. But having those cards gives me the opportunity to record specific needs, repeatedly and persistently pray for specific people, and record specific answers.
My stack and my process may not work for you. Again, I’m OCD. I don’t color code things, but I do have my Monday prayer list, Tuesday prayer list, 4th day of the month prayer list, etc. If that doesn’t work for you, by all means, don’t do it. All I can tell you is that my system – as imperfect as it may be – has revolutionized things for me. If you don’t have a system, start working on one today. And remember to comment below, because for the bazillionth time, Paul Miller’s book will rock your prayer life.
Prayer Week: Craig Eggleton
Nov 19th
This week we’re highlighting the process behind the prayer life of our campus staff. Today’s post is by Craig Eggleton, a member of our small groups staff.
Don’t forget to comment below for a chance to win a copy of The Praying Life by Paul Miller. More info here.
I don’t know about the rest of you but I lead a pretty sporadic life. I love to fly by the seat of my pants and make decisions on a whim. The way I see it – if I don’t make plans for next week, when something better comes up I won’t have to think of creative ways out of my previous commitment. Because I have a tendency to live sporadically, it has become a necessary discipline for me to both schedule and structure my Bible Study and prayer time.
Each morning I block off an hour, between 6:30-7:30 am, for studying Scripture and prayer. If I did not block off a specific time, I would literally forget to make time for reading and prayer. I chose this time for two reasons:: 1) I function best in the mornings and 2) there is usually nothing going on at this time of day that would cause a conflict of scheduling. Here it normally goes down.
At 6:30, I start the morning reading a small portion of Acts with my wife. We read a few verses, discuss it devotionally and pray that God would conform our lives to the truth revealed in His Word that day. This brief prayer time is always one of the highlights of my day. I then go to my study area and begin reading the Scriptures devotionally. I slowly read through the selected passages for the day. When I am done reading, I begin my prayer time by reflecting back on what I just read. Beginning my prayer time praying through the Scriptures has been monumental for setting my focus on God’s kingdom rather than my own.
Second, I begin praying in the area of sanctification and holiness. I have a list of phrases that I use each morning to trigger my prayer in certain directions. I will not mention all of them, but I will expound on a couple that I have noticed to have a significant impact on my life. One of the things that I pray every morning is that I would Model and Proclaim Christ. This short phrase for me encapsulates both living out the Gospel in everyday life situations as well as being proactive to proclaim the Gospel whenever I have the opportunity. I want to live the Gospel and I want it to flow out of me. Praying for opportunities to tell others about the Gospel, I have noticed, reminds me to look for opportunities to witness to others as I go about my day. Another phrase that I pray through each morning is that I would Work Hard and Smart. This phrase I ripped off of JD who also prays this each morning (he probably ripped this off someone else). I have a tendency to waste time so doing unproductive activities so I begin the day praying that I would be proficient with my time.
The third part of my prayer time consists of praying for others. During this time I pray for family, friends, small group members, church planters, etc. A specific prayer I pray during this time is for the leadership of the Summit, specifically JD. I do not want to neglect the opportunity to pray for our pastor, so I make it a point to do so by writing it down on the list I go through every morning. I finish this time by praying specifically for the people in my life who need Jesus. Praying this not only reminds me that God is the one who brings about salvation in someone’s life, but proves to be a constant reminder to make every opportunity count for the sake of the Gospel when I am around them.