(Matt Koerber)
This is our first entry in the Spring Reading program for March 2, 2025. The program will last from Sunday March 2, through Easter Sunday, April 20. There are a total of 50 days, and since we begin and end on a Sunday, there are eight Sundays. Each of the 42 weekdays will have a devotional that shows up here. On Sunday, the sermon during the Sunday morning service will take the place of the devotional. Therefore, each of our Sundays will have a very short post that directs people to church YouTube channel. Members who cannot attend for some reason are encouraged to stay current by watching the sermon. Other people who are following along, but not necessarily part of our worshipping community are invited to watch the sermon and stay current.
Here is the link to the Sunday, March 2 Livestream. Afterward, it will save to our YouTube page. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STDBzH91gnE
There are couple of notes to make at the outset.
1.) My partner for this project is Dr. Josiah Hall. Josiah teaches NT at Grove City College and has a part-time staff position at our church. Josiah has studied and written extensively on the Gospel of John. He designed the structure of this program and will write a large number of entries. He is also teaching on the Gospel of John during the Sunday School hour. His teaching for the adult class is designed to work together with the devotionals and the sermon series.
2.) In addition to Josiah many of the other elders and pastors at our church are also writing entries. The name of the author will be provided at the top of the devotional so that you will know whose voice you are “hearing” as you read. I am the general editor, so each of the entries will be posted by me, but only about 10 of them will actually be written by me, and those will be so designated.
3.) You will note that our homepage for the reading program includes an overall schedule for the readings so you can see where we are going. It also includes a separate description of our goals for praying together. Last Spring, our reading program focused on prayer and we were delighted to see how that led to real changes in our practice of praying together. We want to replicate that for the program this year. The prayer items are not directly related to the Gospel of John, but rather focus on some immediate needs of the church. We will pray for spiritual health, generally, but we will focus very specifically on needs for our new building. This is not the only thing we will pray for as a church, but I believe it is essential to ground our efforts in prayer… lest we try to do this building project in our own strength. We will have weekly items for prayer focus and specific requests at the end of each devotional. Those specific requests have been influenced by input from various committees. We will also have a time of open prayer at the end of the evening service and special times of prayer at 300 Saline St. each Saturday from 8:30am – 9:30am.
I look forward to join with you all on this journey together through the Gospel of John. – Matt Koerber