Hey Everyone!

I’ve got a lot of announcements for this week. But very quickly, we will be covering Judges 17-19, which I know seems like a lot, but they are short chapters. We finally enter into the darkest phase of Israel’s "Canaanization”, and we will see just how badly it really goes for them. In the same way that Judges had a double introduction (you will remember that Pastor Jason and I covered one each), it also has two "Outros”. This will be the first one as we finish off sad chapter in Israel’s History.

I also mentioned before that we have chosen our next teaching series, "Handling the Word With Confidence” which makes use of the First Principles resources. We will be starting this on March 8, and it does require a purchase of the accompanying book, which costs $10. I would also very much appreciate you providing me with a little bit of information about where you are in relation to Morningstar’s "Learning Pathway”. On that note, I would appreciate everyone completing the survey that I have created online. You may access that at http://svy.mk/UpperRoom1

Now on to the announcements (in Chronological Order)

1. The Upper Room is going bowling this Saturday, the 18^th, at O’Connor Bowl (O’Connor & St. Clair). The cost is approximately $15, but could be lower depending on how many people attend. While it is not absolutely necessary to sign up/pay ahead, it is highly recommended! Otherwise, please arrive promptly at 7PM (or even earlier) so that you can let Vivian, who is planning the event, know that you’re there. The Facebook event page can be found here: http://on.fb.me/z9iZGW

2. Pastor Jason and I just learned about a wonderful opportunity for Christian training that will be happening right here in Toronto (in fact, quite close to our church, at St. Timothy’s Anglican Church, which is at Sheppard and Midland). Friday, March 9 to Sunday, March 11, Pastor Paul Washer, a powerful preacher of the gospel of Jesus Christ, will be teaching several sessions. Here’s the kicker, it’s talking about generational issues. The topic is: "Our next generation and ourselves”. Please contact me for more details. We will likely be going as a group, and so, a sign up sheet will be made available. You can get more information about Paul Washer at http://www.heartcrymissionary.com/.

3. As I mentioned on Thursday, the Gospel Coalition has announced their Ontario Conference, which will be held on May 29-31 at Heritage Seminary in Cambridge. You can get more details about that at their website, http://bit.ly/TGCOntario2012. If you do sign up, please let me know!

That’s all for now.

Shalom,

Chris

Hey Everyone!

This week is the second of three lessons that look at Israel’s final cycle of apostasy. Please read Judges 14 and 15 to get acquainted with the particular passages we will be looking at. We are going to be turning to Samson’s life now (as opposed to his parents, as Pastor Jay did last week), and we will see how Samson both epitomized what it meant to be a Canaanized Israelite, and how he took things even further (or at least how the narrator sought to use Samson to show the turning point of Israel’s relationship with Yahweh). It is a sobering message, but one that needs to be heard in our day.

That’s all for now.

Shalom,

Chris

Hey Everyone!

I hope you were all as challenged by Pastor Jay’s exhortation to be "saturated” in the Word of God as I was. And as a result of that, I hope that you would make the effort regularly reading the Bible. As Pastor Jay mentioned last night, there are some really great ways that some people have come up with in order to make it easier for you to do so. And so what follows in this message is a list of the different plans that are available online for you to download and print. Included are my own thoughts about each plan, and some recommendations that I have.

But before I get into those plans, really quickly, there are, of course, electronic resources available. I’m sure there are even apps that you can use to go through a reading plan. But just two that I want to highlight are...

YouVersion: (Multiple reading plans & versions of the Bible) http://www.youversion.com

ESV Bible: (Multiple reading plans for the ESV Bible) http://www.esvbible.org

One thing I want to say, and no I’m not trying to "convert” anyone to the ESV with this. Just an observation I’ve made... but it seems to me like Crossway (the publishers of the ESV) is head and shoulders over every other Bible publishing companies in terms of making use of recent technology to make the Bible available and accessible to everyone. Esvbible.org is already, in and of itself, an excellent resource, but in addition to that, I have you to find another app that can match the ESV in aesthetic appeal and ease of use.

Introductory Plans

These plans are a great way to start making Bible Reading a regular part of your day. They are shorter plans that give you an overview of some parts of the Bible. The first three plans are the shortest plans and are your most basic introductory plans. If you are a brand new Christian, I would suggest starting with the 30 Days for a New Christian, followed by the next two 30 day plans (with Jesus and in the Psalms). If you have been a believer for a while and know some things about the Bible, but haven’t had the chance to read through the Bible systematically, then I would suggest starting with the 30 Days with Jesus, followed by 30 Days in the Psalms. Of course, if you feel like you need it, then start with the plan for New Christians as well.

After doing the 30 day plans, then move on to the 60 Day, 90 Day, then 180 day overviews of the Bible. These plans will give you a big picture over view of the Scriptures (obviously, going deeper and deeper with each major sweep). Once you’ve gone through these and have built up the habit of reading Scriptures regularly (hopefully daily), then it would be appropriate to move on to the next "level” of reading the word.

30 Days for a New Christian

http://www.zondervan.com/m/readingplans/plan_new30_af_cms.pdf

30 Days with Jesus

http://www.zondervan.com/m/readingplans/plan_jesus30_af_cms.pdf

30 Days in the Psalms

http://www.zondervan.com/m/readingplans/plan_psalms30_af_cms.pdf

60 Day Overview of the Bible

http://www.zondervan.com/m/readingplans/60Day_af_cms.pdf

90 Day Overview of the Bible

http://www.zondervan.com/m/readingplans/90Days_af_cms.pdf

1-Year Plans

Before I get in to these 1-Year Plans, let me make it clear that you do not necessarily need to start with the shorter plans before doing these larger plans. The shorter plans tend to have less reading each day (say, 2 chapters for the 30-180 Day plans, and 4 chapters a day for these 1-Year Plans). Also, the shorter plans tend move you through the "highlights” of the Bible; the significant/milestone points in scripture that really help you understand the story as a whole. What I should mention about how much more "advanced” these 1-Year Reading Plans are than the shorter "Introductory” plans are that they tend to be more "unforgiving” in the sense that if you miss days, you fall behind, and it can be difficult to catch up. So it would be really important for you to be disciplined about building up the habit of reading scripture every day if you’re going to be "successful” in completing these plans.

Having said all of that, my favourite 1-Year plans are connected to a devotional book written by D.A. Carson. It’s called "For the Love of God” and there are 2 volumes to choose from. These two plans follow a modified version of the "M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan” which walks you through the Old Testament once and the New Testament twice in the year.

An alternative to these two reading plans are the One-Year Bibles that are published by Crossway (for the ESV) and Tyndale Publishing House (for the NIV). These Bibles are actually rearranged so that you follow their reading plan (I think there are 4 readings per day, 1 each from the Old and New Testaments, and 1 each from Psalms and Proverbs.)

For the Love of God Volume 1

http://s3.amazonaws.com/tgc-documents/carson/1998_for_the_love_of_God.pdf

For the Love of God Volume 2

http://s3.amazonaws.com/tgc-documents/carson/1999_for_the_love_of_God.pdf

ESV One Year Bible

http://www.amazon.ca/ESV-One-Year-Bible-Standard/dp/1581347081/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1327691597&sr=8-1

NIV One Year Bible

http://www.amazon.ca/One-Year-Bible-NIV/dp/0842324518/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1327691597&sr=8-2-fkmr0

Horner's Bible Reading System

Horner’s Bible Reading System is the Reading Plan that Pastor Jay was talking about last night: the one where you read 10 chapters a day. It is a little "hardcore” and would be the next step for those who looking for something beyond the 1-Year Reading plans.

Horner’s method has you read 1 chapter each from 10 "Lists” of books of the Bible. Going through this system, you actually read through the Bible once every 8 months. BUT, having said that, the 10 lists that you read from are not equal in length. There are some parts that only have 28 chapters (Acts) and some, only 31 chapters (Proverbs). So while you go through the whole Bible in 8 months, what that really means is that you go through the 2 longest of the 10 lists in 8 months (List 8, the Historical books after the Pentateuch, is 249 days long; and list 9, which are the major and minor prophets, is 250 days long), while you go through the shorter lists multiple times over that same period of time (so, you read through List 8 once in 8 months, while you read through Acts almost 9 times).

The PDF I am providing in the link below gives you more details on how the system works and the justification for reading the Bible this way. It even has "bookmarks” that you can print out and keep in your Bible to keep track of your readings.

http://www.wbfva.org/files/professor_grant_horners_bible_reading_system.pdf

3-Year Plan

This final plan is a 3-year guided plan. It goes through the Bible chapter-by-chapter, but it does not simply go through it cover to cover. It does jump around to help break up the monotony of some parts of the Bible (like Leviticus).

This plan is also a great introductory plan because it is just 1 chapter of the Bible. Alternatively, I would suggest this plan, along with another resource like a good Study Bible, or Gordon Fee’s book "How to Read the Bible Book by Book” (http://www.amazon.ca/How-Read-Bible-Book/dp/0310211182/ref=pd_sim_b_1) for more in-depth Bible study that you can do *in addition* to your daily devotional reading.

http://www.zondervan.com/m/readingplans/3yrGddTour_af_cms.pdf

Alright, well that’s all for now. I really hope that these resources will be able to bring you yet one step closer to that goal of becoming "competent” and "confident” readers of God’s Word.

Shalom,

Chris

Hey Everyone!

I do apologize for this crazy late weekly update. It was a paper week for me, and it was a crazy one. You know how it is with the first major assignment of the year right? Hehe.

Anyway, this week... by which I mean, tomorrow, Pastor Jason will begin the study on the life of Samson. We’re almost done Judges! Please read through Judges 13 & 14 to prepare for the lesson.

That’s all for now.

Shalom,

Chris

Hey Everyone!

Well, we’re back! Yeaaahh! This week at the Upper Room, Pastor Jason will be resuming our studies in Judges. He will be starting a new cycle with the judge Jepthah.

Now, I realize it’s been a while since we’ve been in Judges, and you might not have even thought about the book of Judges since we stopped in mid-November. Or, you might be coming to the Upper Room for the first time all year and have not heard anything about Judges at all. Well here are some of the things you might want to try to catch up/prepare for this week’s lesson.

1.The least time consuming will likely be reading my Inductive Study on Judges. No, I’m not trying to promote my own writing, or my blog or anything like that. But at this point, this is probably the most concise resource that we have for you to get an understanding of the book of Judges as a whole. You can access that here: http://www.excelstillmore.ca/2011/11/141/

2.Another option is to listen to Pastor Jay’s first sermon and to read through my sermon notes for the first two lessons in Judges. In those, we laid out the theme and background of the book. You can access that here: http://bit.ly/UpprRmJudges

3.I would suggest either Number 1 or Number 2... AND THEN, to do this... Read through all of Judges in one sitting. It shouldn’t take long – about an hour or so. But if you read carefully, it will help to bring all of the parts together for you. I say it over and over again, I really like reading the Bible and listening to an audio Bible at the same time. I count it as having gone through it twice! Hahaha. But anyway, an excellent resource for that is here: http://esv.to/Judges

Well, that’s all for now. I’m really looking forward to seeing you all again on Thursday!

Shalom,

Chris

Hey Everyone!

I know, I know! It’s the week in between Christmas and New Years, which is supposed to be time off for everyone. But I can’t help myself! There’s so many things I’m preparing for in the new year, and some of them are time-sensitive. Like this initiative, I’d like to start with those of you who are willing to make the commitment.

I’m praying for a small group of us – 5 to 10, to commit to reading through the Bible, every single word, in 2012. Here’s how it will work...

1.The reading plan we will use is the M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan, which walks through the Old Testament once, and the New Testament twice in one year.

2.This represents reading 4 chapters from 4 parts of the Bible each day (From January to March, it’s 2 each from the Old Testament and New Testament; then for the rest of the year, it’s 3 from the Old and 1 from the New).

3.An optional addition is to read through D.A. Carson’s devotional "For the Love of God” (It’s available for free as a PDF E-Book).

4.Comment once a week on what God is teaching you through your readings (either on a new Facebook group I will set up, or a blog that I will set up).

If you having been wanting to read through the Bible in one year and haven’t been able to figure out where to start, this would be a great way for you to get involved! It provides both the systemic program that would help you accomplish the goal, and the accountability of having friends walking through the process with you!

If you wish to participate, please email me as soon as possible so I can get you set up so that you will know what to read on January 1. By the end of the first week, I will also have some sort of forum for us to engage with each other set up, so that we can start writing about what God is teaching us in his word.

That’s all for now! Hope you all had a Blessed Christmas, and I pray you will have a Happy New Year.

Shalom,

Chris

Hey Everyone!

What’s this? An email from Chris in the middle of the week? It must be important!

Do you not know what to do with your Thursday since The Upper Room is taking a 2 week break? Well, this might be something you can consider for next week. Pastor Jason and I have been informed of a ministry opportunity that a group of you might want to get involved in. It’s a DVD Distribution drive at a predominantly Muslim neighbourhood.

Here’s the snippet we received from Shawn from the JesusNetwork.ca

--

Who: you, your small group, family, church etc

What: Helping distribute 50,000 Jesus DVDs in Christmas cards to new immigrants

Where: various locations, mainly connected to Don Mills Rd

When: December 27^th to December 39^thstarting at 9AM and going until 9PM

Come when you are able to. Let us know what time works best

Why?? Because the immigrant rate is growing faster than the birth rate. If we do not attempt to reach these new immigrants now when they first arrive then who will? We have the Christmas season which makes a distribution like this simple. We knock on someone’s door, wish them a merry Christmas and give them a Christmas gift. Let’s go!

--

If any of you would like to organize a group to go, that would be wonderful! You can reach Shawn at prayer@jesusnetwork.ca. You can also find them at http://www.facebook.com/jesusnetwork

We have many means of trying to organize people. One of them is through Facebook, where the Upper Room has both a "Page” (for announcements such as this one) and a "Group” (for discussion among members). If you would like more information about either of these two modes of communication, please email me and I’ll get you connected.

If you do not have Facebook but wish to be involved in this, email me as well, and I’ll connect you with anyone who is organizing something or planning to simply head down to help.

By the way, this is the perfect example of the kind of thing that would normally run through the "Missions Committee”. Emails and other communication that Pastor Jay and I receive from folks like Shawn at the Jesus Network would be forwarded to the committee, and it would be their mandate to drum up support with everyone else and to organize a group to go.

Well. As it eventually is. That’s it for now.

Shalom,

Chris

Hey Everyone!

God is good! He’s sustained me through my exam period – I handed in my last one today. I do apologize for not having sent out a weekly update the past two weeks. But now that I am not worried about Aorist Active Indicative paradigms and the Theotokos theological controversy between Nestorius and Cyril, I am quite up for writing this last one of the year 2011!

This week at the Upper Room, we will be holding a Christmas party. Here are some details about it, as well as answers to some discussions that have come up in Facebook.

1.The party will be pot luck. Please bring a dish of your choice. If possible, let me know what dish you’re going to bring (or what kind of dish it is – appetizer, main course or desert) so I can make sure we’ll have enough of everything. Please do make sure it’s "finger” type food that can easily be eaten.

2.Yes it will be supper-ish. It certainly will be mine because I’ll be coming from work (Yes, I convinced someone to trade shifts with me!). It will be "Filipino-Style” though in that we will not be setting up a table to sit down on (in Filipino parties, the dining room table is used for the food, and the people eat sitting wherever they can find space. For those who were at my birthday party in October, you know what I mean).

3.I (or that is, Youth Ministries) will cover drinks, plates and utensils.

I’ll be bringing my karaoke machine. But please, also bring a board gave if you’d like to play and such. We won’t be running anything formal. It will just be a nice little gathering for us to enjoy each other’s company (again, those who were at my birthday party will know what I mean by this).

That’s pretty much all I have for the party. Do just remember that this is the last week we are meeting in 2011 – we will be taking a 2-week break, and will resume on January 12.

Ok now, last thing. Just a few of the announcements that I want to reiterate.

1.I’m still looking for people for the two committees that we are setting up: the Social Justice and Missions committees. I won’t explain what’s involved now, but please message me if you’re interested.

2.Pastor Jay had mentioned an opportunity for us to minister to a family in the church that needs a little bit of help with some things: a move on December 26^th and some babysitting assistance to give mom and dad a little break. If this is something you’re in taking on, please talk to myself or Pastor Jay.

Alright. That’s all for now.

Shalom,

Chris