The Story - Week 0

(In my best Jim Nantz voice)

Hello friends, and welcome to our journey together through The Story!

I wanted to share a quick overview of what we as a church plan to do together over these next nine months:

• Starting September 8th, your clergy will be preaching on an aspect of one chapter of The Story each week.
  • We will pause with the story starting in December for Advent, picking back up in January 2025, finishing our journey through the bible written in narrative format on May 26th.

We don’t expect everyone to do everything that was listed, but this is your opportunity to do a couple of things:

1. Commit to reading the entirety of the bible with others in a supportive atmosphere, and
2. Connecting deeper with your church.

First: committing to reading the entirety of the bible with others. I know for some, you have read the bible cover-to-cover multiple times. For some of you this is your first attempt to read the entire bible. But I imagine for many of us we’ve tried and failed, started and stopped, countless times to read the entire bible. If this is you: take heart! All we’re asking you - and everyone else in the church! - to do is read one chapter a week. And I counted: the longest chapter is 20 pages, most are 13-17 pages in length, with some in the single digits!
Three suggestions for reading:

• While you can read a page or three each day for six days, I would suggest reading each chapter in one to two settings so you get the thrust of the chapter.
• While reading, have a writing utensil handy to underline verses that strike you (for whatever reason), take notes in the margins, and to write down names/situations that come to mind when reading. Allow the Holy Spirit to guide your thoughts as you read, and jot things down so you don’t forget them! 
• Take a day or two to answer -  to the best of your ability - the Discussion Questions on the chapter you read (the Discussion Questions start on page 473 in the back of the book). Your answers don’t have to be full paragraphs or complete sentences, just a few thoughts that will help you remember what you read, and will allow you to live into the next opportunity…

Second: utilize this opportunity to connect in a deeper way with your church. I don’t have to tell you what happened to our society during Covid; the reality is that we’re relearning how to live together in our families, schools, places of work, and yes - our churches. The Story is not a fix-all, but is an opportunity for us to come together, study God’s word together, and figure out yet again what it means to be the Church in the heart of Saline County. I want all of us - emphasis on all - to commit to finding one additional way to connect with others at the church:

• If that means joining (or rejoining) a Sunday School class, great!
• If that means coming to Wednesday night fellowship meal and bible study, great! 
• If that means watching Bro. Keith’s facebook Live or reading this blog and chatting with others in the “Comments” section, great!
• If that means committing to not missing a Sunday worship service in-person or online, great!

My invitation over the next week is for all of us to pray to God to prepare our church, our leaders, and ourselves as we enter into this journey together. Pray for people by name. Pray for yourself. Pray for your pastors. And pray for our church that we see the Holy Spirit leading us forward into a place already prepared for us!