Dear friend
It's a new year and we invite you to take up a new challenge for 2011, the E100 Bible Reading Challenge! This year, Christians around the world will celebrate the 400th Anniversary of the King James Bible. 400 years since ordinary people could hear God speak to them in their own language. What a thrill that must have been! As a joint celebration of this anniversary and our 125th year as a corps, we would like to invite every member of our fellowship to take part in the E100 Bible Reading Challenge. The challenge involves reading and reflecting on 100 of the most significant passages in the Bible (50 in the Old Testament and 50 in the New Testament). Our prayer is that, as we make a group commitment to delve into God's word together, we too will feel the thrill of hearing God speak to us.
Each person participating in the challenge will be supplied with a daily devotional book to help keep them on track. The E100 challenge will be spread throughout the course of the year, the first reading commencing on Monday, January 24th and the last on Friday, December 9th. There will be breaks in the reading schedule to allow for Easter and the summer holidays. Small group leaders will also have the opportunity to incorporate the E100 challenge into their group studies. This is different to anything else the corps has done to-date and is a wonderful group challenge for us in our 125th year. To cover all the major passages and all the significant themes of the whole Bible together - what an amazing achievement that would be! We urge every member of the corps to participate.
Today, on Commitment Sunday (January 9th), copies of the daily devotional book are available for you to review and take away (while stocks last!). The books have cost the corps £5 each and if you are able to make a donation towards the cost, please use the little brown envelope supplied with the book. If not, please accept the devotional book as our gift to you.
We invite you to commit to taking part in the challenge, using the E100 Planner enclosed (which you should keep for yourself). You will see from the planner that the 100 readings are divided into 20, themed blocks of 5 readings. Each block will be introduced (and preceded) by a sermon on a Sunday morning, spread throughout the year, commencing on January 23rd.
The sermon preaching series will introduce the 100 daily readings as follows:
OLD TESTAMENT
Jan 23rd Block 1 In the Beginning (readings 1-5)
Feb 6th Block 2 Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (readings 6-10)
Feb 20th Block 3 The Story of Joseph (readings 11-15)
Mar 6th Block 4 Moses and the Exodus (readings 16-20)
Mar 20th
Block 5 The Law and the Land (readings 21 - 25)
Apr 10th Block 6 The Judges (readings 26-30)
May 1st Block 7 The Rise of Israel (readings 31-35)
May 15th Block 8 The Fall of Israel (readings 36 - 40)
May 29th Block 9 Psalms and Proverbs (readings 41-45)
June 12th Block 10 The Prophets (readings 46-50)
NEW TESTAMENT
June 26th Block 11 In the Beginning (readings 51-55)
July 10th Block 12 The Teaching of Jesus (readings 56-60)
July 24th Block 13 The Miracles of Jesus (readings 61-65)
Aug 28th Block 14 The Cross of Christ (readings 66 - 70)
Sep 11th Block 15 The Church is Born (readings 71-75)
Oct 2nd Block 16 The Travels of Paul (readings 76 - 80)
Oct 16th Block 17 Paul to the Churches (readings 81-85)
Oct 30th Block 18 Paul to the Leaders (readings 86 - 90)
Nov 13th Block 19 The Apostles' Teaching (readings 91 - 95)
Dec 4th Block 20 The Revelation (readings 96 -100)
With the services being recorded on a Sunday morning, anybody who misses a sermon can easily catch-up by going to the corps website at www.felixsa.org.uk during the following week. The above timetable ensures that participants have at least a fortnight to: read the five readings (in the first week) and then get together with their small group (if relevant) to discuss what they have read (in the second week).
For those not in a small group, Allister and I each plan on running a monthly session (one over lunch and another in the evening) to help individuals keep on track and reflect on what they have been reading. These sessions will cover two blocks at a time.
Staying the course will be a challenge but if it were easy, it wouldn't be much of a challenge! Working together, encouraging each other to keep going will be key. However, we believe there will be loads of positive outcomes: allowing God to speak to us afresh through his Word, reminding ourselves of the complete revelation of God through the Word, a sense of unity amongst corps folk, and a wonderful sense of group achievement when it is done. It gives us something to aim for, and an opportunity to stretch ourselves individually and corporately.
If you have any queries or comments, please speak to Kathleen or Andrew Gee.
So that we can keep track of who is participating in the challenge, it would be helpful if you could place your name on the notice board at the hall entrance (if relevant). If you don't collect a book today, don't worry, we will be ordering some more and they will arrive in good for the start of the challenge (reading 1 on January 24 ).
Yours in His service
Allister & Kathleen
