It’s here! It’s here! It’s finally here!
This week we start off reading two chapters of the Gospels every week! The Gospels are a combined 89 chapters, and so we’re looking at about 45 weeks of reading the Gospels together. This should bring us right up to the end of this annual focus year on Christ the King Sunday next November.
Starting this week and every week after, we’re challenging you to read about 10 minutes of the Gospels (that’s approximately how long two chapters should take you). You can do it all at once or you can spread it out. You can read the two chapters once or you can read them over and over during the week. You can just read them or you can find resources that will help you get more out of them. However you do it, we just want you and every member of University Lutheran to join together in reading God’s Word together.
I think there is going to be a value to us reading, but not only reading – reading TOGETHER. That’s why we’re calling this challenge “Together with Jesus”. We, as a congregation, are going to get closer to Jesus by reading His words in the Gospels, but we are also going to get closer to one another by reading His words TOGETHER. When you come to worship this Sunday, you will know that the people there had the same hard time that you did trying to pronounce “Aminadab” in your head. That’s going to be valuable for us as a Jesus Centered Community.
It connects up with our Red Letters for the week. Jesus tells us to “Abide in My Word” (John 8), and in that chapter, He paints a picture of our abiding together and being knit together like branches of a grape vine. So this week when you read Matthew 1 and 2, you will abide in Jesus but you will also abide in His congregation, this Jesus Centered Community that is University Lutheran.