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

Friday, March 22 - 40 Days Luke

Friday, March 22, 2019

Radical Hospitality

For about twenty years now, my wife Loida and I have been involved in some type of small home community (small group) wherever we live. One of the practices that I have always insisted on in every one of these groups has been the eating together of meals as part of our community ritual. Often times people don’t understand why we have to eat together to be part of a “small group” but I know that the meals are in actuality the heart of the group. For it is in the serving and the receiving of the meal that we get to practice, at a very basic level, our Christian call to hospitality. It is also around the table that people begin to open themselves to move deeper than the normal superficiality in which we usually keep with people in our day-to-day activities. Today as you read the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 plus people think about how hospitality is lived out through his actions and his words. Hope you enjoy!!

Read: Luke 9:1-27

Questions to Consider:

1. Can you remember a time when you felt unconditionally welcome into a community? How did it feel?
2. Henry Nouwen, writing about the behaviors of the Church, said, “If there is any concept worth restoring to its original depth an evocative potential, it is the concept of hospitality.” Why do you think he would write this about the Church? Do you find Christian communities to be hospitable? Why or Why not?
3. How can we move to living out the nature of hospitality at a new level both within our community as well as personally?

Activity for the Day: Since Lent is a time for giving up things and taking on new things; today you are invited to cancel something you were going to do for yourself and plan something for someone else. Then actually follow through on your plan. If you are journaling make sure to write down what

happens.

Blessings,

Jim

Thursday, March 21 - 40 Days Luke

Thursday, March 21, 2019 

Never in a Hurry

Usually when I get in a hurry things start going wrong.  When I am in a hurry all the lights seem to be red. When I am in a hurry I can never find the keys to my car.  When I am in a hurry someone always needs something from me.  When I am in a hurry there is always someone in front of me who is not in a hurry.  We live in a world that is fully of hurry.  From the moment we wake up to the moment we go to sleep we are often looking at the time and moving from one activity to another.  Sometimes we get into such a hurry in our lives that we hurry past God and our opportunities to sit and talk with God.  The activity for today is challenging, but will be rewarding if you participate.  I hope you enjoy your reading, the video, the questions and especially the activity for the day.    

Read: Luke 8:40-56

Questions to Consider:

1.     Why do you think Jesus was never in a hurry? 

2.    Have you ever felt like God what not in hurry to help you?  

3.    How can you develop a deeper faith to help you in times when God’s timing and your timing seem out of sync?  

Activity for the Day:  Slow down today.  Turn off devices that distract.  See who will “touch” you when you are not distracted. 

Blessings, 

Kristyne 

March 20 - 40 Days Luke

Wednesday, March 20, 2019 

Why Were They Afraid? 

If you are reading this today, CONGRATULATIONS! You are now nearly 1/3 the way through Lent. I don’t know about you, but I have found this Lent season to be an especially engaging time with God. Over the past couple of weeks, God has been speaking to me about some areas of my life where I still struggle with fear. Our focus today is related to fear and I invite you to think about those places in your life where you, like me, still experience fear. It may be in the area of finances, of health, or you may be someone who fears the changing world. Take a few minutes before you begin and if you are journaling write down those areas where fear is present in your life. Then I encourage you to read the Scripture for today and watch the video before answering the questions below. 

Read: Luke 8:26-39

Questions to Consider:

1.     In the story the man, at first, feared Jesus. Or more rightly, the demons who possessed the man feared Jesus. Often times, when we are experiencing fear, our fear is coming out of some deep place within our soul that we find hard to explain. I’ve often heard people express these as our inner demons. When you experience fear what is your typical response?

2.    Jesus addresses the issues in the man’s life and cast out the demons that haunt him. When we come into the light of Christ and begin to live within his truth our fears are often exposed as something that has arisen from past hurts or struggles. What are some ways that God is calling you to come under the light of Christ’s truth, so that the cause of your fears may be exposed? 

3.    Reflect for a minute on the video and the passage. What do these teach you about walking under the means of Grace?

Activity for the Day:  Hopefully God has led you to do the hard task of examining some of your fears. As you look at those fears, what is the Holy Spirit calling you to do to come into a place of freedom and deliverance? What is something the Holy Spirit is calling you to do, but you are afraid to try? Write about this in your journal and create and action plan.

Blessings, 

Jim