Hello church family, it's such a joy to write to you again. After finishing our Reading the Bible in a Year journey many of you remarked you miss having something to spiritually engage you each day. Therefore, we're going to continue on with daily devotionals covering a wide range of topics over the next year. Starting next week through the end of the year we're going to follow the theme of the previous Sunday diving deeper than we could cover in a single sermon by looking at adjacent and similar scripture. However, you can also expect to see varying topics as well. If there is something you are particularly interested in learning more about I would love for you to leave that as a comment or shoot me an email and I'll add it to the calendar.
Yay! So..uh...what exactly is a devotional?
Great question! A devotional anything that helps align our hearts and souls in "devotion" (admiration, love, loyalty) towards God and God's blessing in our lives. In other words, a devotional is a prompt for you to consider how God is moving in your life and how you can give God thanks and praise in the midst of your busy day.
What to expect?
Similar to the reading the Bible journey we did together you can expect some opening words from me introducing the devotional for the day, scripture to read, some questions to consider, and a hymn that goes with the theme, or, maybe we'll just keep marching on forward starting at 359 since there are number of great hymns we just didn't get to cover last year! :)
How much time will this require?
My goal is to keep the devotional itself to less than a 5 minute read, but depending on the length of the scripture and any advised activities to go with it they might require as much as 15 minutes of your day.
When will they be sent?
They will be sent out each morning at 6am by way of our app and by email. Additionally you can find the devotionals on our blog at www.chagrinfallsumc.org/blog
Alright mr last question - you can be a little ... controversial. Will there be an agenda attached to this?
Haha, fair question! While my heart will always align closer to the prophet rather than the pastor I'm being intentional this year to be more composed. With that said, I do believe God is moving even in the controversies we struggle with today and as such I'll certainly bring those up for consideration here and there. However, they will brought up for consideration but they will not be addressed. I think the distinction is important here. Rather than giving you my opinion or declaring what is the authoritative Christian response to something I'll lift it up through the lens of our familiar question of "Would Jesus say amen to this?" No answer will be given - but I will invite you to answer that for yourself, privately. I'm writing this as an invitation for you to keep me accountable. If I start to go too far I hope you can feel comfortable with telling me to simmer down. I promise you, no fault or damage will happen with our relationship. My goal in these devotionals is to "help you grow your faith, strengthen your capacity for love, to deepen your hope, and to water within you the desire to be God's faithful friend, forever." (my prayer during sermons.) My goal is not to make you "mini-me's".
Cool! Now I'm excited. What's first?!
From November 1st to 6th we're going to look at the Fruits of the Spirit from Galatians. (Not all of them as the first 3 will be addressed in deeper detail for advent.) We're starting here as I think they provide a fantastic foundation to build our devotional journey off of.
So, tomorrow morning we'll gather again to consider "Fruits of the Spirit: Patience." See you tomorrow, friends. It's good to be back. <3
Awesime❤️