Glorious Mud

I want to invite you to make a plan for reading the Bible, but first I want to tell you a story. After I graduated from high school, I moved from California to Iowa to attend a small Bible College.  I wasn't a believer, but I chose to go anyway because Dubuque, Iowa was as far as I could go away from home and still have my mom pay for it. What a crazy year - I went from beaches to corn fields and pigs, from the 80's punk-skater subculture to the 80's Christian subculture, from never opening a Bible to being immersed in intense theological study and discussions and even the study of Koine Greek.  I had no idea what I was getting into. I hated high school - and most things about my life in San Diego at that point - and I thought an escape was in order.  I had no plan to actually believe this stuff.  But while it wasn't part of my plan, I became a believer that year (thankfully, it was part of my Father's plan!).  It was a strange thing - the more I s

This Sunday I challenged our people at Trailhead Church to memorize Titus 2:11-14 , our text for the four weeks of the Advent season.  For some, this may be the first time they have tried to memorize scripture, so I thought I would pass along a few thoughts to help out. First, memorization is all about repetition and familiarity.  Find creative ways to keep the verse in front of you throughout the day.  Write it on a 3x5 card and tape it to your bathroom mirror.  Make it the background of your computer.  Pull it up on your phone and review it when you have a little down time.  Try to recite the verses to yourself and see what comes easily and where it still gets fuzzy.  That way when you look back at the verses, you'll know where to focus attention. Second, to truly memorize something it has to move from your short term storage to your long term memory banks.  How do you make that happen?  As you get the verses down, put time between your input and output - in other words, try