with a song in my heart: August 2022

Friday 19 August 2022

Books - Red Moon Rising and Dirty Glory, both by Pete Grieg

You can find out more about Pete Grieg here

The two books, both about the 24/7 world-wide prayer movement, can be found if you look on the 'books' tab.

(I haven't read either book yet, but they have been recommended)

'Red Mood Rising';

At the turn of the millennium, students in Chichester, England established a night-and-day prayer vigil in a warehouse which was to spark the modern-day 24-7 prayer movement.

Red Moon Rising is their honest, gritty story of how 24-7 began and how each of us can join in with the wonderful things God is doing in this new generation in answer to persevering prayer.

'Dirty Glory'

"A powerful, personal and honest story about life's greatest adventure from the heart and hand of a prayer warrior I love and admire." ~ Bear Grylls

Paul's Missionary Journeys

This is the site where I found this map.

It is worth following the link to read the text on the page as well.

The other pages on the website have photographs of various places associated with St Paul's life.

Friday 12 August 2022

12th July - Ephesus (1)

The previous posts were by way of catching up on what we have looked at so far.

Now we are returning to the New Testament, and Acts chapters 19 and 20 when Paul was in Ephesus.

Over the next weeks, the plan is to watch the Bible Society Bible Trek videos.

For the next three weeks we will use the first set of videos on Ephesus - videos 1,2 and 3. If you are using a phone or tablet, use this link to click on 'show more' under the video for all the extra information! I am not sure if this comes up if you use the links below;

The videos are just a couple of minutes long, and are of the places in Ephesus that Paul might have seen, with a commentary by Dr Andrew Ollerton. At the same time, we can read through (or listen to!) Acts Chapter 19 a couple of times.

Make sure you click on 'show more' under the video for all the extra information!

There's also Paul's letter to the Ephesians which we we could read at the same time - it's up to each one of us to do as little or as much as we want.

We can decide next week how slowly or quickly we plan to do this.

Poem - Footsteps

Footprints in the Sand

One night I dreamed a dream.
As I was walking along the beach with my Lord.
Across the dark sky flashed scenes from my life.
For each scene, I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand,
One belonging to me and one to my Lord.

After the last scene of my life flashed before me,
I looked back at the footprints in the sand.
I noticed that at many times along the path of my life,
especially at the very lowest and saddest times,
there was only one set of footprints.

This really troubled me, so I asked the Lord about it.
"Lord, you said once I decided to follow you,
You'd walk with me all the way.
But I noticed that during the saddest and most troublesome times of my life,
there was only one set of footprints.
I don't understand why, when I needed You the most, You would leave me."

He whispered, "My precious child, I love you and will never leave you
Never, ever, during your trials and testings.
When you saw only one set of footprints,
It was then that I carried you."

Poems - One Solitary Life - Jame Allan Francis

https://www.teachingoftheword.com/show_poem.php?poem_id=37

Old Testament Ruth, Jonah, Daniel

Still sticking to the shorter books, but looking for a change from the Epistles. The coincided with a sermon on tracing the presence of Christ through the Old Testament, and also looking for stories in the Bible as opposed to lists of instructions, or bloodthirsty battles, or instructions for building the temple and so forth.

When it came to reading Jonah, we were very tempted to share 'fish' recipes...

It is well worth having a good look at the map below to see exactly how far Jonah was running away from Ninevah;

We only looked at the first Chapter of Daniel, before the 'visions' section (opportunity for vegetarian recipes...)

It also game an opportunity to share the Children's Cantata 'Jonah Man Jazz'

https://www.poetrynook.com/poem/daniel-0

Here is the poem by Vachel Lindsay - well worth reading!

Short Books in the New Testament

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Manuscript_Leaf_with_the_Opening_of_the_Epistle_of_Saint_Paul_to_the_Ephesians,_from_a_Bible_MET_sf1998-538-2d1.jpg

Our next 'project' was to read through a selection of the shorter books in the New Testament, starting with Onesimus (of course!)

Then Titus, Colossians, Galatians, and Philippians. I may have left some out.

I've lost the links for the Music.

We also used the Bible Society Notes

Resources for the Bible and Personal Prayer

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Landscape#/media/File:Che_ne_saj.jpg

We discussed various resources that we were using, some regularly, others on an 'as and when' basis. These were some of the materials that were mentioned.

Mobile Phone app Lectio365 free for 24/7 prayer

Daily readings booklet 'Encounter with God'

Daily Celtic Prayer Book

Bible in a Year, read on Audible by David Suchet

Another Bible in a Year but I can't remember which one

Mobile phone app Pray as You Go

The Bible Society Notes

https://religionnews.com/

Follow this link to find notes for all the books in the Bible provided by The Bible Society.

The Bible Society Book Club is an initiative to encourage people to read the Bible. We ran in our church it as a monthly supper club; each month we would meet to share a simple (but delicious meal!). Over the first course we chatted, and then over desert shared our thoughts on the book using the notes as prompt if we wanted to.

We all contributed some money for the meal; leftovers were shares, and the profits were sent to the Bible Society.

I expect the club would still be meeting if it hadn't been for the pandemic.