I am so excited to share with you all Our Salvation and Song: A School Year Reading Schedule of the Gospels and Psalms. Over the course of 170 days this reading schedule covers all of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts and Psalms in 6 minutes a day. Designed to be read five days a week, your family will read one chapter of the Gospels each day for three weeks, followed by a week of readings from the Book of Psalms.
Our family would like to invite yours to join us in participating in Our Salvation and Song this school year. The key verse for Our Salvation and Song is Psalm 27:8,
My heart has heard you say, "Come and talk with me,"
And my heart responds "Lord I am coming."
This beautiful scripture reminds us that God is waiting for us to come and talk with Him. I pray that this reading schedule can be a tool to help your family to respond, "Lord, we are coming." I will be posting monthly information on the readings and encouragement from other families, so please join us.
I hear all the "what ifs." What if school already started for us? What if we miss days? What if the kids won't listen? What if I've never read the bible to my kids and I'm not sure how to do this?
On average American kids go to school 175 -180 per school year. There are around 250 days calendar days between Labor Day and Memorial Day. So while this is a challenging reading schedule, that will guide your family through a significant portion of scripture, it has grace poured all over it. The truth of the matter is, no family is going to actually do their reading every day of the school year. (If you do, e-mail me, I'll send you a prize!) Our kids are going to get sick, plans will go astray... things will happen, so don't let the "what ifs" overwhelm your family so much that you don't try. With just 170 readings of 6 minutes each, it will be easy to catch up or read two at dinner one night. Before summer starts again, you'll have had plenty of days to complete the reading schedule.
If this will be your first time regularly reading scripture to your kids, don't feel overwhelmed. You have probably read 100's of other books out loud to them during their life. The bible is no different. The Gospels are full of miracles, friendships and the best hero of all. It may take time to get into the story and language, but your kids will love it!
At the following link: Our Salvation and Song, you can download a beautiful PDF file to print out. I suggest printing it as a booklet (in your printer settings). It can then be folded and stuck in the front of your bible so you have it handy each day. A giant thank you to my friend Manya Glavach who worked so hard to create these beautiful charts. The chart lists which chapter or Psalms to read each day and will provide a visual marker for you as you move through the school year.
If you are a fellow blogger and will reading through Our Salvation and Song with your family, I would like to invite you to join a monthly link up I am forming. Please send me an e-mail and I will send you all of the information.
Our Salvation and Song: A School Year Reading Schedule of the Gospels and Psalms
A Crazy Idea for Perky Morning People (and ordinary folk like us)
Six years ago, within a matter of one week, two women told
me that they had daily family devotions and prayer before school. I remember thinking that was clearly a crazy idea reserved for perky morning people. But the comments planted themselves in my
heart, making a nice and cozy home with no intention of leaving. At the time I had an insomniac baby, a husband
who regularly worked until 3 in the morning, and an extremely inconsistent prayer
life of my own.
That same year my heart started to change. One of those same friends, Joanne, convicted
me of the importance of a daily morning devotion time. Over the course of a year, it became as
important to me as my morning 4 cups of coffee (yes, at least 4). My morning devotions became such a blessing
to me that I wanted to find a way to share this blessing with my family. The answer was not really what I was looking for... but this is how it happened...
This spring our life was turned upside down with a cross
country move to North Carolina. Pete’s
new position promised to keep him in town and on normal 8-6 hours. The girls made the change from homeschool to
a private school. As we sorted out the
new pieces of our family puzzle, the idea of daily morning devotions surfaced
again. Pete and I decided it was the
time to try. With some intentional
morning routine plans put into place, we were able to squeeze in 10 minutes a
day for devotions. Amazingly that’s all it took,
10 minutes. All of a sudden we were those perky morning people making a seemingly crazy idea work. While we only had a few months of this new
routine, the time together was amazing.
Pete and I are both looking forward to school starting again and getting
back into our morning devotions.
With a new school year just beginning, I want to encourage
you to consider structuring your mornings to allow 10 minutes together as a
family to read the bible and pray together. Just 10 minutes, that’s all you need. Now I know many of you might be where I was a
few years ago, thinking there is no way your family can do it, but I want to
encourage you to at least pray about the possibility.
Next week I am going to post 10 ways to save 10 minutes on a
school morning. I hope these practical
ideas will help you streamline your morning routine to find the needed 10
minutes together as a family.
And what are you going to do in those 10 minutes? Six minutes of bible reading, four minutes of
prayer. Next week I will also be posting a 175 day reading plan of the Gospels
and Psalms. In six minutes of reading a
day your family can read through these books together this school year. I hope you’ll pray about joining our family
on this reading plan.
If God is nudging you to take this step with your family and
you would like a partner to pray with you, please send me a message or post a
comment, it would be my privilege to pray for your family.
Book Review: Building Family Ties with Faith, Love, and Laughter by Dave Stone
I have never tweeted before.
But if I had a twitter account I could have just as easily wrote my
review of Building Family Ties with Faith, Love and Laughter by Dave Sone on Twitter as on this blog. One hundred and forty characters,
no problem, I could go with one of
these:- Before school madness starts, read this book.
- Family/Youth/Children’s ministry folk, read this book.
- Grandparents/Godparent/Aunts/Uncles give this book this Christmas.
It’s that simple.
This is a great book. Building Family Ties with Faith, Love, and
Laughter is Pastor Dave Stone’s second book in the Faithful Family series
published by Thomas Nelson. Stone mixes
straight forward advice, family stories and a good measure of humor into a very
satisfying and inspiring read. He does
not come off preachy, although he is a preacher, and parents will leave the book
feeling inspired instead of like complete failures. ( you know the type of book I am referring too!)
Stone had me in the first few pages of Chapter 1, titled
Endangered Species.
As
someone once said, “If Satan can’t make you bad, he’ll keep you busy” –and he
has.
So
many pressures compete for our time and energy these days. Technology that should free us, instead,
seems to absorb our attention like a black hole. Stuff that used to be
entertaining, like sports, music and other extracurricular activities, has
turned into duties drained of excitement and spirit. We’re so exhausted that we drag ourselves
through our days, fall into bed, and then get up the next morning and do it all
over again.
We
don’t have fun anymore. Delight has been
deleted. Joy and fulfillment have been
replaced by worry and hurry.
It’s
no wonder that the joyful Christian family has become all but extinct.
Oh that makes me want to stand up and shout AMEN!
Amen Pastor Dave, AMEN!! I am
actually not even an Amen kind of gal – but AMEN!
Building Family Ties
with Faith, Love and Laughter is a great read not because it is full of
ideas I have never heard of, but because it highlights the things I
know as a mom I want, but need some inspiration to reclaim. Looking at topics such as contentment, gratitude,
spontaneity, and communication Pastor Dave does an excellent job making this
book read more like a conversation than a “how-to” parenting book.
Before your family rushes into the school year and fills the
calendar up with little color-coded boxes of who is where when, I hope you will
take some time to read this book and find a way to build faith, love and
laughter into your family’s Fall calendar.
** I am a BookSneeze reviewer. In exchange for a copy of this book, I have shared my honest review of this book.**
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