My SPARK benefits have been:

• More time in prayer. I spend anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour or more in my prayer closet every day.
• Deepening quality of prayer.  I listen more and a intercede more for others.
• Growing desire to pray.  Pray isn’t an obligation I need to squeeze in.  I want to pray more.  I loving my prayer time.
• Living out the Word more fully.  Each week a verse of the week and action focus guide my daily living.  These guides have prompted me to actively set goals for living faithfully to God’s Word and I am doing it!  Yay!
• Intimacy with God. I am so much more alive to what God is doing. My SPARK is burning brighter everyday.  It’s like I am headed toward a bonfire of faith rather than struggling to keep a flickering flame  alive.
• Life Lessons/Wisdom. God has granted me insights for living and growing.  Through studying proverbs I am beginning to understand what is important and what is not important for me to invest my time in daily.
• Strength for the journey.  Life is demanding right now. Yet every day in my prayer closet God grants me the strength, words, wisdom, or whatever else I need to make it through the day with out being overwhelmed.  God is good!

 
Most of these benefits have come from Study, Prayer and Action via my prayer closet discipline. My attention to Rest has been great up until the last week or so, when I got a bit sloppy in guarding my sleep pattern.  My prayer closet time in general has been one big piece of Kindling that is perpetually feeding my faith fire.  Nevertheless, I have started to feel God tugging me to expose myself to knew things that can enhance my faith.
 

My verse for the week is…

“Do you see a man skillful in his work?  He will stand before kings; he will not stand before obscure men.”  Proverbs   22:28-29

When I read these verses this morning, I wrote in the margin of my bible, “work on your craft.” Part of being wise is becoming excellent in the vocation God has given you. Great disciples honor God in their work. God has given us His absolute best in his son, Jesus Christ.  Our thankful response should always be to give God our very best.  That said, I realized today that if you want to to give God your best then you should always strive to improve the skills of your work.
 
So, on the way to work I stopped at a bookstore and bought three things:  this  month’s copy of Bible Study Magazine and Success Magazine, and the book The Daily Writer.  Each of them will feed, inspire and educate me.  Consider them professional kindling for my God-given craft.  Bible Study Magazine will kindle my ability to read the Bible.  I am hoping to glean from it fresh perspectives, discipling tips and study tools. The Daily Writer, subtitled, “366 meditations to cultivate a productive and meaningful writing life”, will help me grow in the skill of writing.  So much of my work is writing:  newsletter articles, Sunday school lessons, sermons, blog posts, letters, etc.  Lastly, I always find Success Magazine inspiring and informative.
 

Consider these question to help you give God your very best.

• What could you do to offer God your very best as a parent, busyness owner, student, or employee?
• What could you learn today that would help you perfect your skills in one of those areas?
• What new knowledge would make you better?
• What practice would help you perfect the work God has called you to do?
• What would the ideal skillful worker look like in your field?
• How can you take a concrete action step (no matter how small) to move toward being that ideal?

Blessings in your quest to give God your best,
 
 

John Arnold,

ThePracticalDisciple
 
 
p.s. Pictured below is my desktop for the week. Right click here to download a full size version.

I have four bible study resources that I reach for regularly: The New Westminster Dictionary of the Bible, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, the New Inductive Study Bible and the ESV Study Bible. If you are not familiar with these resource, then I highly recommend you watch this short video for a quick tour of each. Then I recommend you get at least one of these resources to begin adding depth and breadth to your reading.
 
Note: For those of you who are taking my freeThrough The Bible in a Year online course and want a more thorough companion than just the quick notes I provide, you will want to get How to Read the Bible Book by Book: A Guided Tour by Gordon D. fee and Douglas Stuart. It is an awesome readable resource that will give you specific advice for how to get the most out of each book of the Bible. It is my favorite resource for a book by book study.
 
If after watching the video you are interested in learning more about these great resources or purchasing one, then here are links for your convenience:
 

New Westminster Dictionary of the Bible

How to Read the Bible Book by Book: A Guided Tour

The New Inductive Study Bible

The ESV Study Bible

 
Blessings upon your reading of the Word,
John
 
p.s. If you are unfamiliar with my Through The Bible in a Year Reading program, I have created a program specifically designed to help people read the entire bible in one year. In the program you get tips and training regularly to help you succeed. Even though it began January 1st, the reformatted schedule allows you to start at any time. I would love for you to join us. Interested? Learn more by clicking here.
 
Email subscribers goto this link to view the video:

http://thepracticaldisciple.com/2011/08/my-favorite-bible-study-resources.html

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Much thanks to PD reader, Lyn Woods, for an absolutely awesome link and suggestion that is a huge help for busy people wanting more time in the Word. Lyn listens to an ESV Bible online at this link, http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/browse/. It’s so easy to do. Just follow the link, pick a book and press listen.
 
Until Lyn sent me this link I had forgotten how helpful it was to listen to the Word. When I was in college, back in the good ol’ days of walkman cassette players, I spent many hours with the bible streaming through my head as I bopped across campus between classes. Absorbing the Word through my ears significantly shaped me.
 

AUDIO ADVANTAGES

MULTI-TASKING

The great thing about audio is you can listen to it while you do mundane chores, exercise, drive, etc. It’s a nice way to multi-task or squeeze in extra exposure beyond your normal reading time.
 

IDEAL FOR AUDIO LEARNERS

If you are an audio learner, listening will actually be the most advantageous encounter of the Word for you. Our culture has become visually dominated. We often forget that much of the Bible was likely passed along orally before being recorded. Even the Epistles (letters) were read aloud in communities. Many early Christians would have never seen a written Word, but they would have heard it repeatedly.
 

ELIMINATES AWKWARD GIBBERISH

Lastly, Lyn pointed out in her email to me that listening has been really great for the names and places that “read” as gibberish. Many people have shared the discomfort, if not discouragement, they feel when trying to plod through lengthy geneologies. May be those our times when you might want to consider listening rather reading. You won’t feel the same frustration and may even learn how to pronounce some of those names of places and people.
 
Lastly, you could easily miss the ‘listen’ link if you weren’t looking for it on the audio bible pages. The ‘listen’ link is in a small font just to the right of the chapter name. See the sample picture above. I have circled it in read.
 
Blessings on your reading AND hearing of the Word.
 
p.s. It’s not too late for you to read the Bible in a year. Sign up below, today. Don’t procrastinate another minute.

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SAMPLE LESSON
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Background

The earliest and most reliable information we have about the origin of the Gospel of Mark comes from Papias ca. A.D. 125. According to Papias, this gospel was written by John Mark a companion of Paul and later Peter. It was written around A.D. 65 shortly following the deaths of Paul and Peter. According to Papias it was intended to be read by the church in Rome. So as you are reading it keep in mind that this Gospel was most likely written for a Gentile, that is to say, a non-Jewish audience. Also, it would have been an extremely persecuted audience.
 

Themes and Features:

• Mark moves quickly. You are going to see the word “immediately” over and over again.
• This Gospel relates Jesus ministry from his Baptism up through his resurrection a full one-quarter of the book is spent on the details of the last week of his life. There is a strong sense of Jesus as a servant willing to suffer if necessary. A message that would have been inspiring for Mark’s roman audience who was being harshly persecuted.
• Lots of Stories in Mark reveal Jesus authority.  Watch for what Jesus has authority over.
• Secrecy.  Jesus frequently tells people not to spread the word about him after he performs a miracle.  There is a lot of speculation as to why Jesus did this.  Watch for this recurring theme.  Why do you think Jesus wants people to not talk about him?
• Mark begins his Gospel by announcing Jesus coming as the fulfillment of a prophecy from Isaiah.  As you read Mark consider how Jesus is the fulfillment of what God sought to do in the life of Israel through the law.

 
I hope you enjoy the video and have a great read of the Gospel of Mark.
 
Blessings,
 
John Arnold
The Practical Disciple
 

I try to enter every day with what I call my ‘Big Five’ list.  I use to sit down and write out a bottomless list of meetings, commitments, tasks, and sundry chores that needed attention.  The list was never realistic.  So, it was demoralizing when I never finished.  Far too many items got carried over than I care to admit.  One day, I realized that what I was doing was idiotic.  I decided to limit my list to five things.  I called it, ‘My Big Five.’  I would only work on those five things until they were done and then I would move onto a new big five list.  It was very liberating and helped me focus and kept first things first.
 
Some days I would write on my big five list, ‘Bible reading and TRAF.’  TRAF stands for toss, refer, act and file.  It’s something I picked up out of a productivity newsletter years ago.  The idea was that I would get my Bible reading done near the front of the day when I was fresh and I would take ten minutes to purge miscellaneous crud out of my office.  It’s a great practice.  One day though as I finished my Bible reading, I closed my bible, set it to the side and leaned over to check it off of my list.  As I checked it off, I realized  I had not taken any time to reflect on what I read.  I hadn’t really paid attention as I was reading either.  I had just crammed through reading four chapters so it could get checked off my list.  My Bible reading had just been relegated to nothing more than a chore to be done like feeding the dog or watering the plants.  What was I thinking?  I wasn’t.
 
I turned back to my Bible and re-opened it.  I skimmed back over the passage.  I gravitated to a few verses and allowed my attention to tarry there.  I thought about what God might be saying to me as I went into the day.  I wrote some thoughts in my journal.  The Word wove its way into my thoughts and actions.  It influenced a devotional I offered the next morning.  This is the way it ought to be.
 
If you are trying to get in a habit of daily bible reading, putting it on your list or in your day timer can be a great strategy.  Just make sure that you are giving God the attention God deserves when you do it.  I find I don’t  have that attention when I get so busy that I become a human doing and stop being a human being.  Slow down and tarry with the Word.  Try not to treat your reading as a chore that you are getting out of the way.  Bible reading is an opportunity to: commune with God, bathe in His mercy and His presence, encounter His Son, be guided by his Holy Spirit, be fed and nurtured, encounter the truth and a host of other grand holy adventures.  I hope you never loose sight as I did.  May God bless your reading.
 
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In a prior post I had recommended an inductive bible study method by the campus ministry Stumo and I had links to there handouts.  I recently revisited my post and discovered that the links in the post and on my  resource page were broken.  Seems Stumo decided to rework their site which left my links dangling with nothing on the other end.  Well, the links are fixed and I have copies of the method stored on my server so this won’t be a problem again.  I am sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused anyone.  Here are the new links.

Stumo Inductive Bible Study, page 1

Stumo Inductive Bible Study, page 2

If you are unfamiliar with inductive bible study, essentially you study by first making observations.  Then, from your observations you try to understand the meaning of the text.  Lastly, you seek to apply what you have learned.   The Stumo outline is a rather thorough template for studying a passage.   I highly recommend you take the time to look it over and give it a try.  Working your way through this method with a group can be a great bible study exercise.

Identifying a principle, task or change is just the beginning. Once identified you need to set concrete measurable goals for how you will pursue the calling. Some callings can be accomplished via a goal and some callings require an ongoing discipline. Particularly, I find that life changes requiring repentance often times necessitate the adoption of some form of ongoing spiritual discipline.
 
Lastly, I need to add that not every sermon or bible lesson is going to necessarily leave you with something to do. Sometimes you simply get exposed to a truth that you need to know or understand. For example, a sermon may teach you about the divinity of Christ. That is a truth you need to understand but there may not be a particular calling in it. So, don’t beat yourself up if you don’t walk away from every scripture passage with a mission. Similarly, I found that sometimes God gives me comfort or assurance. In those instances, where I do not sense any immediate calling I simply  thank God for the truth revealed or the comfort given.
 
Next time you read try looking for one of these specific ways God speaks to us through his living word.
 
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PRACTICE RECALL

Seriously, how much of the sermon can you recall?  I mentioned in my prior post taking a moment to recall the sermon during worship.  Do it again the next day.  If you took notes, you can check your recall against the notes.  The key is to work as hard as you can at recalling as much of it as you possibly can first.  Don’t just review the notes.  Use the notes to spot check your recall.   Let me repeat that.  Don’t just review the notes.  Use the notes to spot check your recall.  This will greatly enhance your memory.
 
Research has shown that you need reviews repeatedly and at strategic intervals to shift knowledge from your short term memory to long term memory.  Ideally, you would review within 10 minutes and then within repeated expanding intervals such as, one day later, one week later, one month later and four months later.  For your average sermon or Sunday School lesson I would suggest that you review as follows:

• Within 10 minutes
• At the end of the day
• The next day
• At the end of the week

 
You may feel like you don’t have time to review. Reviews need to be no more than 5 minutes and the later reviews may only be 2 or 3 minutes.  A weekly investment of 15 to 20 minutes of review will radically transform what you take away from Sunday morning.  Just think what a wasted opportunity it is to listen to the Word unpacked and then not actively attempt to recall and apply it.  Yet, that is the average experience.  Why be average?  Why not be exceptional, when exceptional is only 15 or 20 minutes away from you?
 

BE SELECTIVE

Okay, in the suggestion above I asked you to work at recalling everything you possibly can from a sermon.  I would recommend you do that for 6 sermons in order to build your ability to recall.  After six sermons, discard trying to remember a whole sermon and start practicing some selectivity.  As soon as you have heard a sermon make some choices about what you are going to remember and act upon.  Actively let go of everything else.  You don’t need it all every Sunday.  Then during your reviews, only review the selected items.   I highly recommend though that you really work at recalling six whole sermons before shifting to that sort of selectivity.  The investment on practicing the skill of recall will pay big dividends.
 

TAKE ACTION

Did you apply something from the sermon? Do you have a plan for applying it? At the end of the sermon on the mount Jesus shared the following parable:
 

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” (Matthew 7:24-27, ESV)
 

In the prior post I recommended setting goals.  Goals without action are irrelevant. Furthermore, you truly don’t understand the Word of God until you live it out and experience it.  Be transformed by the word of God, don’t just catalog it in your head.  Settle for nothing less.  If you have never been taught how to set goals, you may want to read my prior post, Resolutions need Goals. Be sure to include review you goals as part of your review of the sermon.

It’s not too late to respond to Sunday’s sermon. Right now why not try to remember, set a goal, and then review those things tonight and tomorrow. Blessings to you and may the Word of God dwell in you more richly every day.
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1. BYOB. Bring your own Bible. Follow the readings and when appropriate underline, mark or otherwise annotate the text. If you read the Bible with a pencil in hand you will pay more attention to the text.
2. Take Note.  Bring a pad or scribble on your bulletin the thought flow of the sermon. This past Sunday when I was in worship I made a mind map of the sermon on the back of my bulletin. Mind mapping is a graphical method for taking notes.
3. Rehearse your notes.  I study my notes in down moments in the service. Specifically, I repeatedly try to recall the order of the sermon, until I can reconstruct it completely without looking at my notes. This usually takes just a few minutes. At first it may be difficult for you, but with practice you can learn to reconstruct sermons, lectures, and conversations with an amazing degree of accuracy. It’s a skill set and just takes practice.
4. Set Goals.  Determine how you are going to apply the sermon before you leave worship. For example, Sunday’s sermon was about the Good Samaritan story. The preacher mentioned three reasons the priest may have passed by the man who was beaten and robbed. He mentioned, 1) feeling the situation was too far gone. 2) pressure to do other things and not having time 3) fear of being harmed. I took time before leaving worship to identify ways I am failing to do the right thing because hopelessness, pressure and fear. I set goals for addressing them before I left worship.
5. Review it in the evening.  I took time afterwards to review and journal on what I had learned and how I intended to respond in the evning before I went to bed.
6. Discuss it with others.  I often ask my kids about sermons after worship.  I do this for two reasons.  One, to process itmore myself.  Two to train them to be actively engaged with the sermon.

 
In short, when you are in worship don’t be passive about the Word.  Your pastor has diligently prayed, studied and prepared.  God is very likely speaking through that pastor.  You should do everything  you can do to capture what is being said.  Apply it and live into it.
 
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