Strategic Christian

Here’s an entirely different Bible-in-one-year plan, designed to give you the same amount of reading every day. It’s based on page numbers, not chapters and verses, and it’s customizable to your Bible. It works best with straight-text Bibles; study Bibles have varying amounts of text on each page so this system will not give you an equal amount of reading each day.

It’s my own “invention” using Microsoft Excel. It’s not fancy, and it’s not elegant programming, but it works! You need to know how to enter a very few, very simple data points in Excel, based on your calendar and your Bible.

We’re coming up on the first of the year, when many readers begin a Bible-in-a-year plan. This plan can start on any day of the year, though. There are 12 catch-up days in the plan, when you can make up for reading you have missed.

Following this plan, you will read in both the Old Testament and the New Testament every day, as well as in the Psalms. Some of the longer Psalms have been divided into more than one day’s reading. You have two options for the Proverbs, you can read the chapter whose number is the same as the current day of the month, or you can read them as they come in their sequence in the Old Testament.
Just download the Excel file (110 KB), and begin!

(Cross-posted at Thinking Christian)

Technorati Tags: Bible

Posted by Tom Gilson under Growth | No Comments »

The List: MissionsWatch | Liveblog | Christianity Today:

A list of recommended websites on missions, courtesy of the editor of Evangelical Missions Quarterly, by way of twoorthree.net.

Posted by Tom Gilson under Missions | No Comments »

World On the Web  » World New Media Archive  » College students grow more spiritual:

A new study finds that college students get more interested in spirituality between their freshman and junior years, but their interest seems to be the vague and hazy kind.

Posted by Tom Gilson under Uncategorized | No Comments »

So the next time you hear an earth-shattering announcement about Jesus from the media, don’t get angry. Rather, take three deep breaths, sit down with your Starbucks coffee, and watch how the announcement is treated on blogs and other media. Above all, prepare yourself for the opportunities it presents.

That was how Darrell Bock closed his article in Christianity Today on popular media challenges to Christianity. He’s right on the money. Last night I completed the second of two book discussions based on The Golden Compass. The turnout was small, but I believe there was groundwork laid for growth. The people who came–especially library directors–are people who can encourage others to come.

At any rate, it showed me how these challenges can really be opportunities. Do you desire to share your faith? Do you want others to know more about Jesus Christ? What’s the hardest part about that, usually? It’s getting started, raising the topic. They’re raising the topic for us!

Thank God for that, and take advantage of the opportunities.

Keith Plummer has further insight on this.

Technorati Tags: Books, Message, Darrell Bock, Media

Posted by Tom Gilson under Church & Strategy | No Comments »

2 Shootings in Colorado at Christian Sites - New York Times:

A gunman killed two people at a training center dormitory for young Christian missionaries early Sunday after being told he couldn’t spend the night, and hours later four people were shot outside a church in Colorado Springs.

It was not immediately known whether the shootings, about 65 miles apart, were related.

Technorati Tags: Persecution

Posted by Tom Gilson under Church | No Comments »

Gunman Kills 2 at Missionary Center Near Denver - New York Times:

Two missionaries-in-training were killed early today and two more were wounded when a gunman burst into a residence hall at the Youth With a Mission center in the Denver suburb of Arvada, the police said.

Police officials said they did not know whether the shooting was at random of if individuals were targeted. The gunman is still being sought.

Technorati Tags: missions, Persecution

Posted by Tom Gilson under Missions | No Comments »

Historic split for U.S. Episcopals - Yahoo! News:

An entire California diocese of the U.S. Episcopal Church voted to secede on Saturday in a historic split following years of disagreement over the church’s expanding support for gay and women’s rights.

This group actually switched affiliations to the conservative Anglican Church of the Southern Cone, based in South America. They didn’t go off on their own. Still this disunifying of the U.S. Episcopal Church is tragic, but it’s hard to see how these splits can be avoided while the main decision-makers of the church continue to move in unbiblical directions.

Posted by Tom Gilson under Church | No Comments »

How Short-Term Missions is Becoming a Two-Way Street

If you define “mission” as crossing cultural boundaries for the sake of the gospel, the global church is engaged in mission on a scale that would have been unimaginable to previous Christian generations.

Yet…

Perhaps this is one thing we need to learn, and unlearn: Even the shortest cross-cultural mission trip is fraught with opportunities for God to make himself known—and with the real potential that we will unwittingly misrepresent him.

Technorati Tags: church growth, missions

Posted by Tom Gilson under Church & Missions & Progress | No Comments »

Barna: Four Mega-Themes in Recent Research:

Technorati Tags: America, Barna, Research

Continue Reading »

Posted by Tom Gilson under Church & Culture | No Comments »