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Journeying through James (May 2020)

How we are going to pursue God together in May 2020

Greetings church family,
We are in for at least another month of staying at home and I wanted to share my plan for the month since a few of the things we were doing together in April have ended.

In order to celebrate Easter in April, our worship at home guides were focused on Jesus’ death and resurrection and we did a Bible reading plan with that theme. Many of you participated in the reading plan and shared what you were learning through it. If you didn’t finish the plan and would still like to, you can still do that.

For the month of May, we are going to shift our focus. We are going to go through the book of James together. There are five Sundays in May and there are five chapters in the book of James so the worship guides will cover one chapter in the book of James each Sunday.

I’ve also picked out a reading plan that goes through the book of James. Maybe you are thinking: if I’m reading the chapter on Sunday, why would I read it again during the week? That’s a good question. In our culture, we tend to think, “If I’ve already heard it once, I don’t need to hear it again.” But we just heard last week in Colossians 3 that we need the word of Christ to dwell in us richly. We need to get God’s Word into us - to dwell in us richly. Hearing something once isn’t dwelling in us richly. And the book of James is going to tell us that we need to not just be hearers of the word, but doers of the word. So until we are doing everything we have read, it’s good for us to hear it again. God compares his word to gold, like a treasure we should cherish. He compares it to food that nourishes. My desire in having us focus on James both on Sundays and in a reading plan is that the book of James would be dwelling in us richly by the end of the month.

But you may also be asking: why James? Well, for starters, it has five chapters and there are five Sundays so it works. But I also think the message of James will be helpful to us. Many other books could have been helpful too. Even some of the others with five chapters. We’ve spent the past six weeks focusing on what Jesus has done for us in his death and resurrection. What I liked about James is that he gets very practical about what our faith is supposed to look like in action if we have trusted in Jesus. Right our world really needs to see our faith in action. James deals with a lot of the issues that we need to be living out and that people need to see us living out. One of the main themes of James is testing: testing to see if our faith is real. What does real, genuine faith look like? I think this is a great time for us to reflect on that and for us to show those around us what our faith looks like in action.

So here’s just a little bit about the reading plan. It’s a 12 day reading plan. We are going to do it on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays again starting this Monday, May 4, and it will last through the month. This one has a devotional reading but it also has a video message with it by Francis Chan. Francis Chan was a pastor out in California and he’s an author. The videos are on average about 8 minutes long. The shortest is 6 minutes and the longest is 12 minutes. But if you don’t want to watch videos, you can just do the devotional reading without the video.

So let’s Journey through James together this month. Let’s allow the book of James to dwell in us richly. Let’s keep encouraging one another through WhatsApp, teaching each other and giving thanks. Let’s keep pursuing God together as the body of Christ.

With love,

Pastor Mitch

 

Reading plan info

Click here to join the reading plan if you haven't already.

James reading plan schedule

  • Day 1 - May 4
  • Day 2 - May 6
  • Day 3 - May 8
  • Day 4 - May 11
  • Day 5 - May 13
  • Day 6 - May 15
  • Day 7 - May 18
  • Day 8 - May 20
  • Day 9 - May 22
  • Day 10 - May 25
  • Day 11 - May 27
  • Day 12 - May 29