B90X, the New Testament, and a Few Blogs Along the Way

Read the entire New Testament this summer!

Last year I laid before our students, and our church, an interesting challenge.

To read the entire bible in 90 days.

Many students gave it a good attempt. A few completely finished it. Many of our adults and parents jumped on the challenge as well. And though not all finished it, their attempt was a success for me. We found that the bible is approachable, readable, and, as always, relevant.

I’m beginning that challenge again, this year, with a couple of caveats. For starters, the challenge is to just read the New Testament. Second, I’m going to be blogging my own thoughts through the summer. (Read my thoughts on last summer’s reading challenge here.)

The challenge, though, has gotten a bit more complicated for me. To blog at least two times a week, and more, if time allows, will be a bit difficult. But I think it’s a good thing to help gauge accountability, and to get my own thoughts into a sharable format.

A word, too, about the blog posts. They will be real-time posts, as the Spirit moves me during the reading. I don’t anticipate doing much research over various passages, unless it’s necessary. But as I read the entire Word in its context, there are obvious things that just move me. I also don’t want to begin controversial discussions, but, honestly, when the Spirit moves us, and purges from our lives the messes we make, it generates conversations that can impress us in all sorts of ways. I hope you’ll be moved as I am. I’m excited to see where God takes me.

You’ll find all posts here, on my blog. The address is kylestrickland.com, in case you’re reading this through a different format.

The journey this summer, then, through the New Testament begins Friday, June 1. And it is called B90X.

If you want to read with us, regardless of where you are in the world, you can access our reading schedule by clicking here. Or, you can just read three chapters a day, beginning June 1, and you’ll finish in 90 days. And, if you’re Twitter-savvy, the reading schedule will be posted every day on @mygrouponline.

The Millennial Teenager :: True Digital Natives

For me, this infographic spells relational trouble, even while it speaks truth of the current culture we’re giving to teenagers.

(You can find the full graphic, and article at onlineschools.com, and the full graphic can be found at http://www.onlineschools.com/in-focus/millennial-teenager.)

We’ve given teenagers incredible ways to connect, but, according to the last statistic, at the very bottom, we’ve not succeeded in helping them navigate face-to-face relationships.

I’m sure there are more observations, and I would love to hear yours. Nevertheless, behold their world, and expect it to change as soon as you finish reading. And for more, just click the graphic.

Conversations about Risk and Faith

Click here to get the free four-week small group study from RE:FUEL. 

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Four conversations about risk and faith, at first, do not seem very congruent.

Is it really possible to have faith, and take risks? If God is sovereign, and he calls us to any circumstance, does God view those actions as risky?

I had the honor of writing a four-week small group discussion guide that mirrored the theme of the RE:FUEL Men’s Conference in Memphis this year. Through a pretty intense time of prayer, it became clear that I was to write four different conversations about Paul. Specifically, those four conversations cover his transformation, and each of his ventures into the world for the sake of grace.

It became clear that his motivation was, really, about Christ’s love. He wrote as much in 2 Corinthians 4, claiming that Christ’s love is all compelled him.

So when I think about risk, and I think about the Roman Empire, and I thought about why men are so afraid of risk, Paul became the clear model. He completely changed his perspective on faith, moving from zealously earning the affection of God, to zealously receiving the affection of God that was already his.

But … to receive grace is one thing. To adamantly leave every comfort, to travel to unknown and unfamiliar places, only to share grace with others, is quite the different story. Why did he do this?

These four conversations may help answer some of those questions. I hope, too, they fill in some of the missing pieces, and decisions, and revelations, that prompted such a clear call in his life. And I hope it becomes clear to you that Paul’s travels were not entirely planned, but were reactions to a constant move of the Spirit of God in his life.

So what if we lived this way? What if we completely transformed our perspective, from how life should benefit us, to how we could benefit the lives of others? We get a sense that we can really, truly receive Christ’s love, but when was the last time Christ’s love actually compelled us? Are we ready for change? Are we ready to surrender our life, really, for the sake of an everlasting love?

Here’s the link to these conversations. They are free to you. You can teach them, or use them in personal study. But either way, I promise you’ll be inspired by Paul, and you’ll begin to rethink the very structures of your life that you hoped were unshakable.

Because that’s what happened to Paul.

Focus

"Ramon Subercaseaux in a Gondola" by John Singer Sargent

I visited the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art this weekend, specifically to view their Impressionist exhibit. There were paintings there by Monet and Renoir and Degas, but this one, by John Singer Sargent, was the one that captured my attention.

It’s not even one of Sargent’s famous works, but it was intriguing to me.

Sargent painted his friend here, Ramon Subercaseaux, around 1880, as they were both riding in a gondola. Subercaseaux had a good career as a politician, and vineyard owner, and met Sargent as a business contact, wanting Sargent to paint Subercaseaux and his new wife. And from there, their friendship formed.

Though it doesn’t appear to be a spectacular portrait by any means, Subercaseaux came alive to me as I stared at this portrait. This moment, captured in a painting that was to be given by Sargent to Subercaseaux, is an exercise in light and water and personality. When viewed from just inches, the brush strokes are incredible, and the way the light is captured in the streamers behind Subercaseaux is very spectacular. And the colors made Subercaseaux real. He is staring at you, and you are in the gondola with Sargent. This is Sargent’s friend, as he saw him, and as Sargent saw the world.

With

There is such a thing as an intense reading of the Word of God.

To complete the task, within three months, you need to read about 12 pages a day in a standard print bible — or you’ll need to read about 15 chapters a day. Fifteen chapters.

Obviously, if you fall behind in the reading, even just one day, then the next day, in order to reclaim the pace, you must read about 30 chapters.

So, yes, there is a bit of intensity when you read the Word.

I anticipated the challenge, when I laid it before our students and our church about five months ago. Perhaps it’s naivete, but I thought everyone else that I knew would be as eager for the challenge as I was. I really believed that I would see the masses engage the Word of God for a straight 90 days.

And, to be honest, very many were. But somewhere along the way, in the hot days of the summer, the excitement ebbed, and those who began with big dreams didn’t, or couldn’t, keep the pace, while some finished the reading in half the time.

So what to make of all of this?

Here are a few observations:

• I really believe that the Word of God is an intimidating book to most of us. While it makes for a nice Christmas present, it’s complete story isn’t always read. It’s value is never fully realized because it has never been taught correctly. Our seminar culture means that one must have an advanced education to really grasp the story within its pages. We’ve been led to believe that need intelligent men and women to explain it to us, and to teach it to us — and that we need charismatic teachers and personalities to make it come alive in our hands. And, by default, we’ve been led to believe that without those ingredients, the Word of God doesn’t have quite the same power in our lives. It is complex, and difficult to read, and therefore, too overwhelming. The very fact that many did not complete the entire challenge is a testament to this. I don’t believe anyone simply walked away from it, but rather, I think that we have never been taught that we can, on our own, discover its real value.
• We misunderstand its place in our life. I only write this point after discovering, for myself, its true place in my life. It’s residence, in life, was a great anonymity for me. It was an engulfing black hole, until I finally decided to read it in its entirety. I knew the basic story, all the basic plot lines, and knew that there was some eventual good things, and even some horribly disturbing moments. But until I read it, I failed to understand it. For the most part, we have inherited a church culture that applauds and lauds the New Testament, while rarely opening the Old Testament. We look to Paul’s letters for means of order and propriety in worship, while ignoring the historical moments of their writing. We love the Gospels, but rarely understand the need for a Messiah mentioned so often in the Old Testament. There is a total theological story that is rarely understood. It is a book of God’s interaction with people … with good people, and with bad people. Our lives are build around complex relationships, as were the lives of those within the Word. God came to those people in different ways, and interfered with their lives in different ways. I see the Word of God as a powerful book of people’s relationships with God. I wish others could see it the same.
• Time was difficult to find. With an intense reading, finding the required hour or so to read, every day, in an already overbooked schedule, was very tough. Even in my summer of ministry events, finding the required hour was not always easy. But why did most find it hard to find that extra hour?  That is the essential question.

Here’s the sense I make of these observations:

We reside in a church culture that promotes access to God and church through visual means and great teaching. We desire people to be attracted to the product we present on Sundays, so much so that we rarely hold people accountable to the need to daily become involved in God’s written story.

Wouldn’t it be cool if people, together, discovered the truth in God’s Word? Wouldn’t it be life-changing if people actually read the story of God daily? Wouldn’t it be cool if that’s all anyone could ever really talk about? I imagine that world, and I see it.

And because of that vision, this challenge was born. In spite of the above observations, though, there were some really awesome things that came from this challenge.

• One, people’s intimidation factor diminished a little. Once you find that you can read the Word, and even read the “hard stuff,” you are no longer as scared of it. I think that is a good thing.
• Two, people are familiar with the story in ways they had never been before. Even the historical information of the Torah, though, at times repetitive, became a topic of conversation early. Through those books, one gets the idea that God was in every detail of the lives of people. I think that is a good thing.
• Three, there emerged the truth that to read the Word, you need time. People tried really hard to find the time. And even if they couldn’t complete this challenge, it became apparent really quick that to involve yourself in God’s story is a total process of immersion. I think that is a good thing.

Relationships with the Word of God improved. I’m so thankful to all who began this journey, who took a step, in faith, to read something so big and so massive. Any attempt is time in the Word, and that, to me, makes the summer incredibly successful.