Saturday, March 30 - 40 Days

Saturday, March 30, 2019 

Be Prepared

I am a planner and an organizer.  I like to always be prepared.  Part of the passage for today is about being prepared for Jesus to come. I think an important part of being prepared is actively being involved in the Means of Grace.  Today after you read and watch the video you will get a chance to consider fasting.  I hope that you decide to give it a try.  

Read: Luke 12:35-13:9

Questions to Consider:

1.     Have you ever tried fasting?  If yes, how did it go?  

2.    What controls your life?  Do you think you could give something up to allow something else to surface?  What could you give up?  

Activity for the Day:  Try out some type of fasting this week.  Write about the experience in the Facebook Group.  

Blessings, 

Kristyne

Friday, March 29 - 40 Days Luke

Friday, March 29, 2019 

Earn, Save, Give

After almost 29 years in ministry I have learned that one of the most sensitive topics that a pastor ever has to deal with is money. During my time in ministry I have witnessed Stewardship Sunday’s where the average attendance was cut in half, I have seen people leave a church over money, I have pastored a congregation where we discovered that our former Financial chair had taken thousands of dollars of the churches money! I have also seen an impoverished grandmother write a huge check to a missionary who was visiting because the Lord put it on her heart and I have witnessed a new Christian, who was in church for only their second week give an offering of $5,000 (and in that one offering become one of our top ten givers) because she had read that Christians are supposed to tithe and she had just received a payment for work completed. What I have really learned in all this time is that money reveals the condition of our heart. To Whom do we belong and what does that mean for our lives and our money are questions that have to be asked by serious followers of Christ. I hope that today this little parable of the man and his barns will help you reflect on these important questions. 

Read: Luke 12:1-34

Questions to Consider:

1.     In the parable of the rich farmer does Jesus give any critique of his good harvest?   

2.    What do we do with our financial resources today that is comparable with the man’s building of the new barns? What is the outcome of his work?

3.    Luke 12:15 sums up the lesson before the parable ever begins. How can we apply this parable to today’s world? 

4.   What does it mean to have a rich relationship with God and what does that mean for our wealth? How can we faithfully save for our retirement and save and work for eternity? 

Activity for the Day:  The founder of the Methodist movement, John Wesley, called for disciples to be diligent in their labor (to work hard) thus earning a good income. In that diligence then he called disciples to be frugal and to save, but he also called disciples to give generously and to serve the world in love. Examine your habits of spending. Ask for the Lord to guide you in being faithful to work towards using your resources as a reflection of our walk with Christ and then create a plan to earn, save and give in your journal.  

Blessings, 

Jim 

Thursday, March 28 - 40 Days

Thursday, March 28, 2019 

Inside Out 

Last year at Annual Conference I was up early to go to the Clergy Women’s Breakfast.  I dressed in blue jeans and a nice shirt and got in my car.  When I arrived at the location of the breakfast I met my clergy women friends and noticed they were all wearing dresses or nice pants.  I was a little worried, but thought, surly there will be other women dressed in blue jeans.  When I walked into the room where the breakfast was being held I looked around the room and no one and I mean no one was wearing blue jeans.  Every single woman had on a dress or dress pants.  I couldn’t believe it.  I was so concerned with how I looked on the outside that I forgot that I was in the room full of clergy women.   The breakfast was not about what we looked like on the outside, it was about who we were on the inside and about our relationship with God and with each other.  

Read: Luke 11:14-54

Questions to Consider:

1.     Do you every get caught up in outward when the inward should be the focus?    

2.    Have you ever had someone exclude you because of what you looked like or how you were dressed?  If yes, how did you feel.  If no, how do you think you would have felt?  

3.    How can you work to look past the outward and to work more on your own inward?  

Activity for the Day:  The Means of Grace are important (click hereto see a list).  Share in the Facebook Grouphow you have practiced the Means of Grace.  

Blessings, 

Kristyne

Tuesday and Wednesday - March 26 and 27 - 40 Days

Tuesday, March 26, 2019 

Love Your Neighbor 

Read: Luke 10:25-42

There is a danger when we try to put people into “boxes” and this is exactly what the legal expert is trying to do in today’s passage.  By asking Jesus who his neighbor is he is trying to put people into boxes.  He is asking, is there a group of people who I can put in a box and not love.  It is hard to love people who are different from us, but Jesus calls us to do this hard thing.  Today, I have two videos for you to watch.  One is my video and the other video is an advertisement for Heineken beer.  I hope you enjoy both videos and that they encourage you to take people out of boxes you might have put them in.   

Click hereto watch the Heineken video.  

Questions to Consider:

1.     What are your thoughts about the second video?  Do you struggle with drawing your circle wider? 

2.    It is easy to put people into boxes.  Have you done this?  What can you do to take people out of boxes?  

Activity for the Day:  Do something today to love a stranger.  Write about what you did in your journal or in the Facebook group.  

Blessings, 

Kristyne

Wednesday, March 27, 2019 

How Do We Pray? 

Today we are going to talk about prayer.  I sometimes think that people feel like they should naturally be able to pray.  However, it has been my experience that we have to develop a practice of prayer, just like any Means of Grace.  A robust prayer practice does not happen on its own.  Elaine Heath in her book, Five Means of Gracesays “fundamentally prayer is a practice of being present to God, who is always present to us”.  So, the key is learning how to be present and then practicing that presence. For now, let’s dig into the reading, video and questions to see what we can learn about the practice of prayer.         

Read: Luke 11:1-13

Questions to Consider:

1.     Describe you current prayer practice.  

2.    What is keeping you from moving into a more disciplined practice of prayer?  

3.    What can we learn from the other examples of Jesus praying in Luke?  What was happening right before or right after Jesus prayed? See 3:21, 5:15, 6:12, 9:18, 9:29, 11:1 and 22:32

Activity for the Day:  I find it helpful in my daily routine to have an established prayer time and place that I use each day.  This helps me to keep to this discipline.  I do pray at many other times during the day, but my established prayer time is always the same time, in the same place and usually with the same routine.  In your journal work out what an established prayer place and plan would look like in your daily life.  Then start practicing being present with God.   

Blessings, 

Kristyne

It's all Smoke!

It’s all Smoke!

Luke 12:13-21

The main scripture for this weekend is Luke 12:13-21, the Parable of the Rich Fool.  However there is a secondary scripture as well from the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 1.  Check out this link for a great overview of Ecclesiastes.

Before discussing the questions with your group I recommend re-reading the scriptures, just click on the links and watching the video about the book of Ecclesiastes.

What kind of "barns" have you built in your life or are you building in your life?  

Have you ever had a time in your life when you have focussed all of your time on "filling your barn"?  What does this have to do with our scripture passages?  

Dr. Matthew Sleeth in his book, 24/6: A Prescription for a Healthier, Happier Life writes this of God…“God doesn’t need to rest after creating the universe because he’s tired.  He rests because he is holy, and everything that God does is holy.  God rests…Rest shows us who God is.  He has restraint.  Restraint is refraining for doing everything that one has the power to do.”  What does this quote mean to you?  

What kind of rest practices do you participate in?  In other words, when you are stressed what do you do to unwind?  Do these practices bring you closer to God or into good relation with others?  

Saturday, March 23 - 40 Days Luke

Saturday, March 23, 2019 

Fighting

Have you ever been pulled over twice in the same spot?  I hope I am not the only one who has; please let there be someone else out there in the world who is as stubborn as me.  On a road close to my home the speed limit drops to 30mph, but for whatever reason I feel like it should be at least 45mph. I must admit, I still sometimes speed on this road and am in danger of getting a third speeding ticket in the same spot.  Sometimes I am stubborn and it takes a while for me to learn a lesson.  I think this is part of being human.  

Read: Luke 9:28-62

Questions to Consider:

1.     Are you every stubborn and have a hard time learning a lesson? 

2.    Every human being is important, no one is the greatest. Have you ever been guilty of promoting yourself when you should have been lifting up a fellow brother or sister? 

3.    How can you work to empower other people to walk alongside you in ministry?  

Activity for the Day:  Thin about a time when you should have learned a lesson but you did not.  What was the lesson you were to learn?  What got in the way?  Write about all of this in your journal and then share this story with someone you love.  

Blessings, 

Kristyne