Six months ago, my husband Dave and I changed our morning routine. Previously, we had tried various strategies for daily prayer and Bible reading, fitting them around work and children into the cracks and crevices of the day. For me, this meant doing it when the children were resting, or otherwise occupied, or asleep. Some of these strategies worked better than others. Finally, when none of these cleverer approaches delivered the consistency and quality of time that we needed, we decided to bite the bullet and go back to the old-fashioned, unoriginal approach: we would simply get up early enough to take turns to look after the kids while the other parent shut the bedroom door and spent some decent time alone in Bible reading and prayer. (more…)
Tag Archives: Bible reading
The slow death of Bible reading?
Up front
It’s official: it’s appeared in the secular media, so it must be so. Australian Christians are struggling to read their Bibles. Here are some of the less than encouraging statistics reported in a recent article in The Sydney Morning Herald:
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One-to-one ministry
It is probably fair to say that most modern Christians would regard the small group and the large public church meeting as the two key activities in their Christian lives. The Sunday church meeting is the public rallying point—the front door of the congregational life—in which newcomers can be welcomed, the word of God preached, the sacraments duly administered, and so on. The small group is the power-house of mutual encouragement and Christian nurture where relationships are formed, where the Word is applied to each person’s life, and where prayer can focus on the particular needs of individuals.
The opposite problem
Couldn't Help Noticing
Hits and missives
Interchange, Sola Panel
The end of quiet times
Life
To be an evangelical Christian is to be a Bible reader. Our piety insists on personal, family and public Bible reading, even if the statistics suggest that our commitment to reading Scripture may be a part of evangelical mythology.1 Anyone who has the gall to ask “Do we really need to read the Bible?” deserves to be ex-communicated as a heretic and infidel and is certainly not a fit person to hold a publican’s license!
Published Abroad: Do we need hermeneutics?
Lead balloon: I Want the Best for My Kids
Life
Inspired by an article in Briefing #51 called ‘Starving our Children’, one of our readers sent in this Lead Balloon.
Lead balloons: ideas only slightly too outrageous to be taken seriously.