As we are shaking off that summer feeling of late nights and lazy days away (or hectic ones depending on your lifestyle and preferences), getting ready to go back to work and/or school, we want to solidify the themes we left off from before the summer holidays, to help keep ourselves and each other accountable on our discipleship journey.

From February to July this year, we looked at the foundation of what church looks like for us: Habits, Hubs & Hands. If you missed this, you can catch up by reading our previous blogs, or watch/listen to some of the talks from our previous Sunday Celebrations.

This term, we want to build on the foundations we laid out earlier on in the year, with some practical tools to implement them in our daily lives. For the first half of this term we will be focusing on Habits. Specifically getting closer to the Jesus through the Bible. If this has been something you personally want to get better at, (you know I’m on a similar journey, though very slowly…) we are encouraging everyone in our church family to use the We Are Church Reading daily Bible plan. Throughout September and October this plan focuses on the Gospel of Mark, so if you are interested please follow along with us daily.

To supplement this, we will use the A Ransom For Many devotional which also focuses on Mark’s Gospel, to structure our Sunday Celebrations and Family Hubs until the end of October. Following reading each week’s passage, we will discuss it together using the below prompts:

1. What does this story tell you about God?
2. What does this story tell you about people?
3. If you think this is good or true, what are you going to do about it?
4. Who are you going to tell?

This should help everyone get to the heart of the text, understand and digest it, and feel more comfortable and confident reading the Bible in their own time.

If reading a whole book in the Bible every day seems a bit daunting, don’t worry! Here’s a really useful video that breaks down the Gospel of Mark for you – The Bible Project have great bite-sized videos that break down literally everything in the Bible, they’ve been a lifesaver for me!:

So your mission, should you wish to accept it, is to follow the We Are Church Reading plan moving forward.

And if keeping up with a daily plan is a bit much for you, then start smaller and follow the scriptures we’ll be using in Hubs and Celebrations from the A Ransom For Many plan. This week we will be starting with Mark 1:1-15. Why not try and read the passage ahead of our Celebration this Sunday to kick start you off?

In the meantime, if you have any questions on Habits or Bible Study in general, or anything church related, Get In Touch.