Resources for Bible reading, prayer and growing in the love and knowledge of God in the new year.

For the last couple of years, I have posted some things that might help you to grow in Christ in the year about to begin. It seems worth doing, because making use of the things God has given to help us grow is a great thing to do!

The resources below are largely focussed to help us in either personal Bible reading, or personal prayer. But it is worth mentioning a couple of vital means of growth that are not individual or personal, but rather things done ‘together’:
One is church – as the old saying goes, a Christian without a church is like a ship’s captain without a boat – it just doesn’t work.
And related to that, Growth Groups (what we call our midweek discipleship/fellowship/home groups) foster growth in a very unique way, giving us the chance to work the message of Jesus into our lives in a context of loving encouragement, challenge and support.

But back to the resources below: as always, there are fair number of them, and the idea isn’t to overwhelm you! But I just hope one or two might help you either start a spiritual discipline for the first time, get back to one that has lapsed, or freshen up something that could use a bit of new life.

May the Lord, whose grace this is all an expression of, bless you to grow fruitfully in the coming year!
Chris

Bible reading

Ways to access the Bible:

• YouVersion – while I prefer paper Bibles, this is great for having numerous Bible translations on your phone for free, as well as the possibility of different reading plans and prayer helps. Excellent for having audio versions of the Bible at your fingertips.
• Bible Gateway Audio – another easy way to access a lot of audio Bibles that may be very helpful.
• Biblia – another online Bible with various versions, and not many ads. Nice to look at, closer to a paper Bible, and has easy reference to resources and helps.

Bible reading plans and aids:

• Bible Reading Chart – a simple colour coded chart. You can mark off chapters you have read, and thereby keep track of what you have read over time, making sure to take in the ‘whole council of God’. The colours also allow you to keep track of getting a good diet of different genres of Bible books. Useful whether you read half a chapter a day or many chapters a day.
• M’Cheyne Yearly Bible Reading Plan – a time tested way to read the whole Bible in a year, covering around 4 chapters per day, from different parts and genres of the Bible. This chart version from TGC is easy to print, read, and mark off, to keep track of what you have covered (print it and keep it with your Bible). If you’d rather do it on your phone, an app for keeping track of your reading with this plan is here on Android. And a version that covers the Bible in 5-days-a-week (leaving a little wiggle room) is here.
• TGC Bible Reading and Devotional – following the M’Cheyne plan noted above, this plan provides these chapters along with a devotional by wise and learned scholar Don Carson. Both the Bible text and the devotional are provided in both written and audio formats, all in one place each day. If you just want the devotional as a podcast (eg to use with the chart above) you can get it here (includes links to various platforms, eg Apple, Spotify).
• Bible 52 – due out from Bible Society in 2023, this covers 52 chapters of the Bible across the year, ideal especially for doing as a family with kids, with activities and simple prayers provided (a sample page is downloadable from the linked page).
• Redeeming Time – this clever little app helps you to see what you part of the Bible you could read in the next few minutes, rather than frittering away time on social media scrolling etc. It also lets you see (and keep track of) how many days it would take you to read books of the bible if you had, for instance, just 5 minutes a day. It is surprising and encouraging how much you can cover with a spare few minutes!
• The Bible at church this year – although not exactly a Bible reading plan, here are the main books we are planning (at this stage at least) to preach through at church in 2024, so you can read through them and familiarise yourself with them if you would like: Luke 19-24; 1 Samuel 16-31; Colossians. In Growth Groups, among other things (including a Bible overview), we will likely look at more of John’s Gospel, and at Nahum.

Prayer

A number of the Bible reading helps above include helps for prayer, but here are some more that are focussed on prayer in particular:

• PrayerMate – prayer app for smartphones. Keep track of and plan for things to pray for, set reminders pray for things you need to pray for or have promised to pray for. You can also subscribe to prayer updates from many different organisations.
• Paul’s prayers collected – a complete list of the Apostle Paul’s prayers in the Bible, collected together, which you can use as a basis to pray from.
• Prayers from the Book of Common Prayer – a collection of collects (prayers for use at different times of the year, connected with different parts of the Bible’s story), and prayers for various occasions – collected from the traditional Anglican prayer book, time tested over a number of centuries.

Other helps

• New City Catechism – free mobile app resource. Catechisms have been in use in the church since the very beginning – ways of summarising the key doctrinal truths and implications from the Bible and helping people (including families together) to take them in more deeply. A good contemporary (but deeply rooted) catechism has been made available. Could be good, for instance, to look at one topic with your family over dinner once per week. Also available as a free e-book through this link.