Growing during the Ordinary Times

Six months ago I wrote to encourage you to focus on your spiritual growth in 2025, setting time aside for spiritual reading and prayer.  (To see that letter click A Year of Spiritual Growth, December 30, 2024)

As New Year resolutions tend to fall to the wayside and the business of life takes over, I wanted to encourage us again to pause. Take a closer look at the ways God has been inviting you to grow. Is there a consistent way of thinking or doing things that needs to change? How can we grow in our love for Him? How can we better display His love to others, especially those we find hard to love?

We pray you take these questions to heart. Listen to the Spirit. Be open to other ways He may be directing you, and molding you to be more like Christ.

As we have entered Ordinary season, I also want to remind you of what Christiane wrote last year:

“Now, we come to what’s known as Ordinary Season with awe and expectation for the manifestation of His Presence in our everyday lives. Every mundane, and ordinary moment of our lives can now participate in the expansion of His Kingdom. We have been given the privilege to walk with God, letting Him display His Light wherever we go, and showing forth His Love to all those who come our way.

We shouldn’t think of these days as ordinary, in the sense “there’s not much happening”, rather we should celebrate how our ‘ordinary life’ becomes ‘extraordinary’ as participants in Jesus’ death and resurrection. We can live out the most mundane and ordinary events of our day in God’s Presence.”

(Thy Kingdom come, June 1, 2024)

As you long for and rejoice in God’s Presence in your life, you may want to consider some of these good resources. They are practical ways to pray using apps on your phone.   They have been very helpful to us when reading Scripture, praying, and meditating each day.  Amazingly, all of them are free! For those who don’t like the digital experience, we will be making some daily bible reading guides available at the church in front of Charlotte’s office.

The YouVersion Bible app is the most popular way to read the Scriptures outside a paper Bible in the world.  With over 3,100 Bible versions in 2,000 languages it has allowed people from every nation to connect with God.  I’ve been using it for more than a decade and find it helpful to always have a Bible with me wherever I go. To download YouVersion Bible you can go to this website: https://www.bible.com/

For daily prayer and meditation, another app that has been very helpful to us is called “Lectio 365”.  Some of you have heard us talk about the practice of praying the Scriptures slowly and repetitively, listening to what God points out to you each time (called Lectio Divina).  This app gives a way to practice that daily. You can even listen to it being read to you from people around the world.

To download Lectio 365 you can go to this website: https://www.24-7prayer.com/resource/lectio-365/

I also recommend using the Book of Common Prayer for morning, mid-day, and evening prayer.  This app, called The Daily Office, loads each prayer time with the Scriptures for the day so you can pray from the BCP no matter where you are.  They even have a Compline prayer to pray just before falling asleep, and a “Family Prayer” version, which follows the same basic pattern, but is much shorter.

To use The Daily Office you can go to this website: https://www.dailyoffice2019.com/ or type “The Daily office” into your app store search.

For the 1928 BCP version (but with limited features) you can go to this site: http://www.episcopalnet.org/1928bcp/index.html

I pray God meets you, in this second half of the year, in powerful ways as we seek and worship Him in Spirit and Truth.

Blessings and Peace,

Rev. Todd and Dr. Christiane