I’ve spent a lot of time over the past couple of months working chapter by chapter through 1 Chronicles for the Faithroots Podcast, I’ll return to that in the Autumn. I’m about to run a little series of articles taking us through the book of Esther. In the Autumn, our church are starting a teaching series on the letter of James. The books of the Bible I’ve mentioned have something in common, they are probably among the least read/least preached. That’s why I’m excited by the opportunity for us to dig into them.
The risk is that we can end up with a distorted Biblical diet in church life. That’s particularly the case if we primarily rely on topical and thematic preaching as well as some approaches to expositiory teaching that work particularly slowly verse by verse. However, even those of us who are committed to expository book preaching can find ourselves circulating through the same books. The risk is increased as well because most churches will see a change over of pastor within 10 years. This means that as a pastor starting out again at a new church and as a congregation with new leaders coming in, you may find yourselves reverting to the same old familiar places.
What I’d encourage you to do as church leaders is to pause and check, go through the talk library or the old service rotas. Look back over the past 10 -15 years. What patterns do you see. If you’ve been through Luke and Acts 3 or 4 times and you’ve never stepped into Jude or Deuteronomy then maybe its time to do something about it.
All Scripture is God breathed and useful. Is there evidence that we believe this?
Faithroots 