A couple of weeks ago we gave out Kingdom Kits to all of our families with young children here at CBC.
I know at least a few of you were wondering what was in the box - read on and you'll find out. The contents of the kit are designed to help families pray together throughout the 11 days of Thy Kingdom Come, which runs from Ascension Day (10 May) to Pentecost (20 May). Each day there is a different focus and activity.
The focus and the activities are all from a leaflet provided. These can be purchased from CPO, or last year's leaflet is available as a downloaded from the Thy Kingdom Come website. (The image above is from last year's pack.) If you're struggling to read the print above you'll find the full-size version here. Complete Kingdom Kits can be purchased from CPO or you can make your own. Here are a few images from inside our boxes.
Today was the third instalment of our series at CBC, looking at some of the 'I urge you...' statements that we find in the New Testament letters. Today our focus was on submitting and serving, starting off with 1 Corinthians 16:12-18, but also taking in Philippians 2:3-8, Luke 22:25-26, 1 Corinthians 12:4-31 and Ephesians 4:11-13. We also used a couple of videos - the links are here: https://www.ignitermedia.com/products/7018-mechurch https://www.ignitermedia.com/products/8217-free-to-serve
Unless this is the first time you've visited my blog it's unlikely that you've not come across The Bible Project. They're the team responsible for the Corinthians and the Romans videos that I've posted recently. Whether it's brief videos about individual books of the Bible, videos exploring biblical themes, or videos looking at questions like, 'how do you read the Bible?' - then their site is well worth a visit as it's packed with some really good and helpful stuff.
Back in the day of the iPod Nano (2nd Generation) I used to listen to quite a lot of podcasts. I spent time on public transport travelling around north London and so listening to a whole range of podcasts made good use of my time. But for whatever reason, at some point, I got out of the habit. My iPod is long dead and phones have become smart phones.
And whilst the latest phones struggle to make a phone call they do allow you to do loads of other stuff - including subscribing to podcasts. And so I have recently got back into the habit of listening to podcasts and there is some brilliant material on The Bible Project site. I am currently listening to their 'Design Patterns in the Bible' series - which is over four hours of spoken material that was a part of the process behind a 6 minute video on the same topic, which is the eighth video in the 'How to read the Bible' series - with each of the previous seven videos having about an hour of spoken material in a previous podcast.
That's a lot of really good material. You'll find the list of their podcasts here or you can subscribe on an appropriate app.
For the next couple of Sundays, as we continue our new series looking at the 'I urge you' phrases in the New Testament letters, we're going to be in the letter known as 1 Corinthians. This week we're looking at the theme of being united based on Paul's instruction in 1 Corinthians 1:10
I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought.
Then next week we're looking at submitting and serving one another starting with 16:15-16
I urge you, brothers and sisters, to submit to such people and to everyone who joins in the work and labours at it.
An important part of working out what the Bible is saying to us now, is to know what it was saying then. Because these are letters - written by an actual person (Paul), to a group of actual people (the church in the city of Corinth), about an actual series of events (issues that had arisen in the church) it is important to know this background before we start to attempt to apply this letter to CBC in 2018. We're not going to have much time to look at this background - but below is a great overview video from The Bible Project. There's also plenty of other great stuff on the Bible Project website including written content and access to a series of podcasts.
