Prayer Diary

‘Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message…’ (Colossians 4: 2,3)

12/10/2008

God’s call on Scripture Union is unchanged: to encourage people to develop their relationship with him through prayer and reading the Bible. The challenge in an age in which more and more people’s lives revolve around the internet, is harnessing this on-line medium to help more people into God’s Word, and to transform their lives.

Word that transforms

Sunday 12: Focus for today and throughout the week

People read the Bible in many different ways, often not regularly or systematically. Our desire is that everyone is impacted and nourished by God’s Word, which is why we’ve developed new ways for people to engage with the Bible through our website Word Live.

Monday 13

GIVE THANKS for the steady growth in the use of Word Live, launched in January, enabling people to access the Bible in many creative ways. Users of the popular music download service, iTunes, have been regularly downloading Word Live, podcasts. www.wordlive.org

Tuesday 14

Getting the Bible into the hands of school pupils as part of their RE syllabus is the challenge of the Into the Bible project, led by Gill Marchant. The resource provides 101 Bible passages in a book for children with 24 lesson outlines on a CD for teachers. We’d love churches to catch a vision for using this to help their local primary schools use the Bible with integrity.

Wednesday 15

The team who prepare Bible resources for adults comprise Andrew Clark, Lizzie Green, Phil Andrews, and Tricia Williams. One of the challenges for them is to identify writers who not only write well but know how to draw others into being motivated to discover Bible truths for themselves.

Thursday 16

The Scripture Union Bible resources team work to produce good books but the challenge remains: how to get them into the hands of the people who need and want them when fewer people visit Christian bookshops, and fewer people read books at all.

Friday 17

Bible Sunday is a couple of weeks away, October 26. John Grayston has been developing free resources from his book Explorer’s Guide to the Bible for churches to use on Bible Sunday, to encourage Christians to engage with God’s Word regularly. The resources are on our website at www.scriptureunion.org.uk/biblesunday

Saturday 18: International focus

Japan: Reaching out to young people in Japan is never easy. The front line ministry of CSK (Ministry with High School Students) is led by Scripture Union General Secretary Tadashi Oyamada. Colleagues Yoshihiro Matsuda and Tetsuya Nagata head up CSK camp work.