Reflections of 2010 -- Part 1

My Christmas break is busy. I like it that way. I am trying to hang around and serve my wife as her arm/wrist heals from a nasty break that required surgery. But, while I am doing that, opportunities abound. I am meeting today with some leadership from a large church in Southwest Missouri that is seeking some direction in becoming Gospel-centered and missional. That is exciting! But, I have also spent hours wading through the initial draft of a book called MOVE by Greg Hawkins and Cally Parkinson (Willow Creek). They have asked me to read and make comments before the book's next editing. This is fun, but also very time consuming. Good to see the process because I know that there is a book to author someday about God's blessings on The Bridge.

This morning though, I was starkly reminded of a neat fact as I read through the book's content. I know it sounds ridiculously simple, but the more time that we spend in private with the Word of God, meditating and praying over the living and active Word of Truth, the closer we will get to the Risen Christ! Their surveying of over 250,000 church goers proved that out again. The reminder though came very personal though because I made a commitment last January to read through the Bible in a year with the folks from The Journey in St. Louis and it was one of the best things I did in 2010. There is a stat out there somewhere that about 82% of the Bible reading and meditating that most pastors do is in sermon prep. That is a huge mistake and it causes us to neglect the personal development time with Jesus. The reality of this is that people will rarely outgrow their influencers, so it is essential that I (and our other elders, staff, parents, and cell leaders) be in the Word of God and growing with Jesus.

I want to thank The Journey for putting a lot of time into the program that I did because I think it has been a big influence in a great year of Bible focus at The Bridge. If nothing else, I am closer to Jesus because of it. Reading through the Bible in a year should not replace closely meditating on a few verses for God to speak to us, but man has it been great.

I challenge you to consider this for 2011. It took me an average of about 25 minutes a day. Here is the program if you would like to consider it. http://journeyon.net/engage/scripture/reading

How can we make disciples if we are not disciplined ourselves?