FAQsWhat if I do a different Bible Reading Plan? This goal is to encounter God in His Word and encounter Him in prayer. Therefore, if you choose a different plan, that is perfectly fine. However, we want to encourage you to adopt this Field Guide as best you can into your daily routine for the sake of church-wide unification and discipleship. Our Bible reading plan in the Field Guide is following our Sunday School curriculum (though not perfectly) and designed so that you encounter a balance of both the Old and New Testament. Even if your Sunday School class isn’t using the D6 curriculum, the reading plan offered in the Field Guide is a healthy balance. We have left Saturday and Sunday as “catch up” days. What if I want a One-Year Bible reading plan? In order to read the entire Bible in one year, you must read 3.25 chapters a day. Simply choose other books not offered in our course, read an additional two chapters, and record your reading in your Field Guide. The books offered this Fall and Spring in the Field Guides are: Job 1-6, 16-20, 33-42, Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Psalm 1-18, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, and Colossians. What if I don’t like to journal? Not everyone likes to journal, or has never really done it. The goal in journaling is to respond back to God in prayer and to record your thoughts. This can be done in a variety of creative ways. For our children, some of them will write, or draw a picture. But for our youth and adults, we ask that you at least write something in your guide every time you meet with the Lord, even if it just one sentence, “met with God today. Need to pray more”. This will serve as a way to measure your time with God and will encourage you as you get more practice. Journaling is helpful, not essential. How do I keep me and my family remembering all of the verses? The easiest thing is to simply make a habit that before you all eat a meal together (at least one meal a day) have each person or at least one person quote the current week’s verse. You might be surprised at how well this works. We do not provide a Saturday or Sunday Bible reading in the Field Guide. Use these days, or your Family Worship Night to review the week or month’s verses. You will need some momentum, so be creative and come up with some reward for the hard work they put into this. What if a miss a couple of nights from my family Worship commitment? Even if you miss a couple of nights (thus a couple of weeks) of your Family Worship Night, persevere anyway! Our goal is that you have 30 family worship nights in 36 weeks. We have given some “life happens” room for you and your family. Frankly, life is going to happen. Someone is going to get sick, you will get a serious call, or you will forget about a family commitment. Just because life happens, doesn’t mean we quit. Even if you miss a couple of months, you can still reach the goal of 30 family worship nights by doing two a week. Is that really going to hurt your family? You also need to know that we as a church family are going to celebrate your accomplishments regardless of how well you think you do. Do I have to commit to all three goals or can I just commit to one or two? You don’t have to commit you or your family to all three goals, even though we would encourage you to. You may just want to commit to one. However, it should be noted that our goal and prayerful hope is that these three goals will be repeated next year as well (different verses and Field Guides of course) with even more families jumping on board. You will eventually want to be a part of all three goals. What if I’m single, married without children, a teenager with parents who aren’t Christian, or have an unsupportive spouse? We have designed the Family Worship Guide to include everyone in our church regardless of their personal situation. Married couples who don’t have children, or their children no longer live at home can either have their family worship night as a couple, or can partner up with other couples from our church for discussion and prayer. Furthermore, singles can do the same with other singles. We as a church can even reach out to the teenager whose parents aren’t Christians by having students invite their friends over to experience a Family Worship Night once in a while with their family. Naturally, there will be some life situations where a family worship night isn’t practical. That’s ok! The Lord knows your heart. Be dedicated to the first two goals and leave the family worship night for a more appropriate time. Can’t this lead to legalism? All things can lead to legalism if we do not walk in the right perspective. There is a strong difference between pursuing spiritual disciplines, and attempting to measure our spirituality according to what we do. We are commanded to pursue spiritual disciplines for the sake of godliness (1 Timothy 4:7). Spiritual disciplines (what is presented in Bold Course) are activities that help us to grow in godliness. We are to do them through the Spirit, to train us in godliness. We are also commanded to fight legalism. The very same apostle who told the Corinthians that he buffeted his body to make it his slave” (spiritual disciplines) also preached against the Judaizers who were coming into the church and forcing unneeded religious activity upon Gentile Christians (legalism). Therefore, we as a church affirm that we are not only free in Christ, we should fight for the freedom of our brothers and sisters in Christ (Galatians 5:1). |
