What do you do for your personal devotions?

[Mike McVey]

This is my first thread-starter, so please give lots of grace. Maybe I am just too post-modern ;), but I have found that over the past six years I have done personal devotions in many different ways. At different times I have used the RCL & BCP daily office lectionaries as well as Oswald Chambers, Eugene Peterson, etc.

Currently, I am trying a new method. There are lots of churches out there that show their services online. Because of all the bible-study preparing for sermons and bible-studies and what-not, I find that this helps me not look at scripture as future sermon preparation. I'm not suggesting this for everyone, but I was curious, what do you do for your personal devotions?

[Barb Bouldrey]

I read through the Bible...at times. I often use a devotional book, such as those you mentioned.

One thing I accepted years ago is that I am a night person. I can concentrate on reading better late at night instead of early morning. The concept of getting up a half hour early just to read the Bible does not work for me.

I do not feel guilty about not starting my day with devotions. I end my day and prepare for the next day at night.

I tease people and say that if I have my devotions at 12:05 in the morning, I have my devotions FIRST...way before any of those early risers.

The best thing I did for myself was be involved in the women's Bible Study Fellowship in our area. For 5 years I did daily Bible study lessons just for me. Not to teach my Sunday School class, but for me.

Too often my mind looks for things in my devotional life to help me teach my Sunday School class or help in my district missions work. I need spiritual things that are just for my own personal spiritual growth.

Barb

[Mike McVey]

One thing I accepted years ago is that I am a night person. I can concentrate on reading better late at night instead of early morning. The concept of getting up a half hour early just to read the Bible does not work for me.

Too often my mind looks for things in my devotional life to help me teach my Sunday School class or help in my district missions work. I need spiritual things that are just for my own personal spiritual growth.

Exactly. I'm glad I'm not the only one. It's for that reason that I look to some other people's sermons to help shepherd me.

[Scott Hilton]

I have used and do use Oswald Chambers and some other various sources. I have lately enjoyed just reading hymns and thinking of what they mean in the life God has granted me. It has done a lot of realy good when I read the words that we sing to the Lord.

Blessings
Scott

[Kent Campbell]

I usually follow the daily readings in the RCL. I will also from time to time use the BCP in conjuction with my RCL readings. Within the last few months I have supplemented N.T. Wrights book "Simply Christian" with both the RCL and BCP.

[Joel Merrill]

Welcome to Naznet, Mike :fav09
I have tried devotional books and just never found one I liked. I will sometimes read a book like "The Prayer of Jabez" that was popular a few years ago but I mostly just read my Bible. I don't really have a system. I've read the Bible through several times but mostly I will pick a book and read it through. Sometimes I will pick a topic and research it. I probably read the New Testament more than the Old but I try to read both. I used to buy a different version every time I read the Bible through. I am an underliner and it was kind of fun to get a brand new Bible and start underlining. When I first became a Christian in 1972, I read the KJV for several years. The Living Bible was very popular then and I read it for a while. I didn't like it as well and never read it clear through. I tried a few other versions and paraphrases but didn't like a lot of them well enough to read them clear through. Then I bought a New American Standard Bible and read it for quite a few years. The pastor I had at the time used the NIV most of the time and really encouraged the congregation to use it. When it came out in the Old Testament, I finally bought a NIV Study Bible and I have been carrying it ever since. I read all of the notes and many of the cross references. I have read it through a bunch of times and it is all marked up. I've been looking at other Bibles but so far I haven't found one I like as well.

Joel

[Joanne Vergin]

What are RCL and BCP?

[Mark Bolerjack]

Revised Common Lectionary
Book of Common Prayer

[Wanda Van Winkle]

Hi Mike!

It's good to hear you're alive and well.

I saw another discussion about SNU students. To answer that question, someone posted a survey to gauge the age of NazNetters, and the younger people were in the smallest group. Perhaps they have better things to do than sit in front of a computer :-). So you probably will find very few students around here.

I left SNU as an employee three years ago, was grad assistant at another college, taught English as an adjunct in three different colleges (including SNU) while working part-time at a bank. Now I work at the bank still and part-time at the post office. The post office pays about three times as much as adjuncting :-). I may still teach some English classes when I'm older and retired.

If you're still in Pennsylvania the next time we visit, I'll try to contact to you. We drive right through Pittsburg.

[Jim Franklin]

Currently, I use the Come Ye Apart with scripture, then a portion of The Message, and then from a devotional book by the late General Superintendent G B Williamson. I have a different prayer list for each of the 7 days of the week averaging about 200 each day. I generally do my devotions early in the morning between 6 AM and 7 AM but if my schedule that day calls for an earlier than usual get go then I try to do my praying then and the reading in the evening. I do not want to feel rushed during my devotional time. I meditate on what I have read and the people for whom I pray.

[Mike Schutz]

I often use a devotional published by The Upper Room called A Guide to Prayer. It involves a weekly Psalm reading, daily scripture readings, as well as short readings from other sources.
I also use some of the materials published by Renovare, directed by Richard Foster. I am especially fond of the "devotional classics."


I have also found myself not as legalistic as I used to be about separating my devotional life from my sermon preparation, especially when I am doing a series. I am preaching from James this summer, in a break from the RCL. I like being immersed in a passage, and don't see the need for what occasionally seems an artificial separation between what I am personally studying and what I am preaching.

I am uncomfortable about answering this question when asked by church members, as they are often looking for the "one right way." I am not a good model for a devotional life, as in most other aspects of life. I am strange, weird, and altogether not a model for how to do anything.

[Barb Bouldrey]

Scott reminded me about music. I feel that having Christian music playing throughout my day is part of my devotional life. So often, the Lord stops me as I am listening to a song to bless me or encourage me or remind me.

Barb

[Mike McVey]

If you're still in Pennsylvania the next time we visit, I'll try to contact to you. We drive right through Pittsburg.

Wanda, that would be awesome. My email is mike.w.mcvey@gmail.com This is probably the easiest way to contact me.

[Meghan Schoonover]

I have a mix of things. Currently I'm using this (http://www.amazon.com/David-Days-Heart-Personal-Reflections/dp/0805444270/ref=sr_1_3/002-5786409-0391206?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180389204&sr=8-3) devotional book by Beth Moore on David. It has a bible reading portion, a short devotional, and a journaling prayer section. I'm also reading through the bible using the grid in the back of my bible (approx. 4 ch./day). If I'm in a corporate bible study/small group/sunday school I'll do that work, too. I'm very much a night person and usually don't start my devotions until late evening, after the kids and my husband are in bed. He is a morning person, so it works well for us as he gets his quiet time in the morning and I get mine at night. :)

[Marsha Lynn]

Welcome to NazNet, Mike. This is an interesting question.

I start pretty much every day with my Bible and prayer journal. It takes an unusually early morning and strong pressure to hit the ground running for me to skip a day of those two basics. (Well, my Bible-reading schedule gives me Sundays off. I get scripture exposure others ways on Sunday.)

On good days, I also dip briefly into various books and magazines on Christian living that I'm reading. They aren't necessarily intended to be read in small chunks, but I read them that way anyway. Most of the reading I do that doesn't involve the computer happens in the morning.

Marsha

This is my first thread-starter, so please give lots of grace. Maybe I am just too post-modern ;), but I have found that over the past six years I have done personal devotions in many different ways. At different times I have used the RCL & BCP daily office lectionaries as well as Oswald Chambers, Eugene Peterson, etc.

Currently, I am trying a new method. There are lots of churches out there that show their services online. Because of all the bible-study preparing for sermons and bible-studies and what-not, I find that this helps me not look at scripture as future sermon preparation. I'm not suggesting this for everyone, but I was curious, what do you do for your personal devotions?

[Belinda Y. Edwards]

These days i find myself going through a book that had an impact on me a few years back. i sit once again - to revisit, concrete and learn fresh thoughts.

Reflecting God by Wes Tracy, Gary Cockerill, Donald Demaray, and Steve Harper.

[Jim Monck]

I usually read a chapter in the OT Hebrew and then the NT Greek and translate it. I'm working on my own translation.

Seriously, I need a translation to help me understand the Old English of the KJV that has been updated since the earlier version.

I am using a read through the Bible in a year that is laid out in such a way that you read some OT, NT, Psalms and Proverbs each day.

[G R 'Scott' Cundiff]

Good question Mike! Thanks!

Over the years I have used several different approaches to devotional time. For the past 3 years or so here is my approach:

1. Read the My Utmost for his Highest devotional
2. Read a chapter or so of some devotional book (or even non-devotional material sometimes)
3. Take a small portion of The Message and write my own devotional material from it (which, in turn is posted to my blog)

A few years prior I read the Message through and highlighted portions of it, I now used those highlighted portions to inspire my writing.

[Greg Farra]

Scott,

Cute grandkids. Don't you wish you'd had them first? At least that's what I hear most grandparents say!:fav18

I generally read the Bible for devotions. Most of my other reading has been for COS. I'm in Genesis right now. Last winter I read the NT for a seven week class, so I was ready for some good old stories of faith.

Greg