Hi Friends,

As many of us have had our schedules changed drastically by this pandemic, and are essentially house bound for the foreseeable future I wanted to share a few resources that may be helpful in our time at home. I recognize that for many, life may have actually gotten busier due to the nature of your work or having young kids home from school, on top of working remotely. For others, you may find yourself with more time on your hands, and are thinking through how to best use that time. I’m praying that wherever we find ourselves in this new season of life, that this change would be used by God to help us draw closer to Him. Here are a couple categories to be thinking about as we consider our new schedules:

1. For those with children, use this as a time to invest spiritually into your family.

Being that everyone is home this is a great time to start doing consistent devotions together as a family if you aren’t already. Maybe you’re already doing this, but could use some new thoughts on ways to make this time more effective. Here is a link to 10 ideas and 10 tips for family devotions.

Here are some recommended resources for families with children. Special thanks to Megan Crowell, our Deacon of Christ Church Kids, for many of these suggestions:

Devotionals:

Podcasts:

  • God’s Big Story (free) is a great new Bible story podcast for kids that they will really enjoy listening to by The Village Church. 
  • Adventures in Odyssey is offering a 4 week free trial membership. My kids loved listening to these audio dramas growing up.

Music:

Misc. Resources:

  • Click here for a sermon notes template for younger kids that can be used during our live streamed message on Sunday morning, and here for a sermon notes template for middle school age kids. 
  • Here and here are a few articles that are helpful in thinking through how to discuss what is happening with your kids

2. Use this as a time to hit the reset button on your own personal study of God’s Word

Maybe you started this year out with lots of resolutions. One of those resolutions may have been to read through the entire Bible this year, or to be more consistent in the spiritual disciplines. Whatever the reason you may have gotten off track, use this season as an opportunity to hit the reset button, and recommit to being in the Word. Here is a great plan to do that. This app is really well done, and incorporates some really cool educational videos on the different parts of the Bible into the reading plan.

Also, if you want to go deeper in your study of a particular topic, doctrine or book of the Bible, Ligonier Ministries has just made their collection of video courses free of charge. This is an excellent resource with some great teachers. They even have a great group study feature that you can use to study with a group of friends. Click here to go to their site.

Finally, dwell Audio Bible gifted us a free 60 day membership to our church through their app. You can listen to different versions of the Bible with different voices with instrumental music in the background.  It’s a great way to go through the Bible. Here is the link: https://dwellapp.io/signup/with/cvSVWD

3. Use this as time to be refreshed

I’m grateful that we serve a God, who cares for us to the extent that he commands us to be refreshed and find rest. This refreshment comes in all different forms to us, but one possible way is by reading for enjoyment. Instead of diving into a new season of your favorite show on Netflix, grab a great book. Here are some possible suggestions of classic works that you may enjoy. 

Also, if you are a parent of young kids, sometimes refreshment looks like finding different ways to keep your kids occupied while they are home. Here are 20 days worth of educational resources by Scholastic that may help keep them occupied, and learning at the same time.

In Christ, 

Pastor Matt