General Assembly Mission Council

Invitation to the Word

This video provides a two-minute introduction to “Invitation to the Word.”

Download video

Invitation to the Word is just that — an invitation to Jesus Christ, the living Word, through Scripture. It is an invitation for congregations, communities, small groups and individuals to be immersed in the Spirit through the Word. It is an invitation to five simple practices that can form us into Scripture-shaped communities, congregations and individuals. It is an invitation to read, pray, study, remember and live Scripture.

Read Scripture

We can read Scripture in a variety of contexts.

• In public worship, we encounter the Word read from the church’s Bible and hear it proclaimed through preaching.
• Bible study or prayer groups allow us to engage the Word in a more intimate setting, where friends in Christ can share personal reflections and discern together the will of God.
• For individuals a daily, disciplined reading plan of some sort is beneficial; thus, using the daily lectionary readings or a program for reading through the Bible can be helpful to discipline individual reading.
• One of the great ways to read Scripture is to hear it read aloud — in worship, in small groups and even individually. Scripture takes on a whole new dimension when you can hear its rhythms, its cadences and its poetry, features often overlooked when only read silently.

Get guidelines for reading Scripture aloud in public worship.

Download

See a chart with approximate times for reading books of the New Testament aloud.

Download

Pray Scripture

• Praying before and after reading Scripture underlines our dependence on God in order to hear, understand and respond to what the Spirit is saying to the church. The Book of Common Worship includes a number of prayers for illumination as well as psalm prayers and collects based on the Scriptures of the Christian year.
• Reading and singing prayers from Scripture is a way to deepen our prayer life. Using scriptural prayers such as the psalms, the Lord’s Prayer or the canticles (e.g., the prayer of Zechariah in Luke 1:68-79) can shape our own prayer life in profound ways.
• Lectio Divina is another way to read Scripture prayerfully or contemplatively, helping us to be open to hearing the words of Scripture as a personally enlivening and transforming Word from God.
• Hear a cantor singing the Laudate Psalms (Psalm 145-150) from the Daily Lectionary and learn how to chant the psalms.

Study Scripture

Taking Scripture seriously demands that we devote serious attention to the text.

• The treasures of Scripture sometimes require hard work to mine. For this reason, it is valuable to read large sections of Scripture — sometimes entire books — in sequence to understand the larger context of the passage and its implications for the life of faith. Biblical commentaries (such as Feasting on the Word) and study guides can broaden our interpretive horizons as we are blessed and challenged by the insights of scholars and leaders of the church.
• Studying Scripture in community — especially in groups of people with different cultural backgrounds, life experiences or theological perspectives — is another way to enlarge and deepen our understanding of the Word. Seek out opportunities — within your congregation and beyond — to study Scripture with others.
• Church School is one place we can study Scripture in depth, using The Present Word) or other biblical curriculum. Tom Wright’s excellent For Everyone series can be used in small groups or adult school for study of New Testament Scripture.

Remember Scripture

Scripture likewise calls us to hide its words in our hearts, a practice that we have often left only to children.

• Memorizing individual verses such as John 3:16, Jeremiah 29:11 or Proverbs 3:5 allows the words of Scripture to sink deeply in our hearts or on our lips at a moment’s notice.
• Memorizing longer passages such as Psalm 23 or John 1 gives us an even richer source of biblical wisdom deep in our souls, one that can sustain us in times of struggle.
• Learning Scripture through song is one of the best ways to memorize scripture. Michael Morgan’s Psalter for Christian Worship provides contemporary, paraphrase settings of the psalms to familiar hymn tunes. Some of the great hymns of the church (e.g., “While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night” — a paraphrase of Luke 2) can also help us to hold Scripture in our hearts.
• In the days leading up to September 11, the church is encouraged to pray for peace using the questions and actions around the Romans lectionary text, which is particularly pertinent.  As part of this discipline, why not memorize the scripture texts given each day?

Live Scripture

If we are to become Scripture-shaped communities and individuals, Scripture must transform the way we live. So the last practice is an invitation to live Scripture.

• This includes obeying the commands of the Scriptures, but also having our imaginations, our thoughts, our feelings shaped by the Word of God. It means being not only hearers of the Word but doers also.
• The daily practice of examen, a discipline of self-examination and repentance is one way to do this.
• It is here that we see how the Sprit works through our reading, praying, studying and memorizing of Scripture to make us into disciples. This is the most exciting, and scary, of the practices.

If you would like a nifty book mark to go in your Bible to remind you of the five practices, email us or call (800) 728-7228, x5306.

Sing “We Praise the Word of God,” a hymn about the Word of God in Scripture, Sacraments, Christian liturgy, and Christian life — above, in, and through all, the Word of God made flesh in Jesus Christ.

• View All (2) Comments
• Share

  Email

  Share

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Digg
  • Mixx
  • StumbleUpon
  • Delicious
  • reddit
  • MySpace

  Email

  Your Email

  Recipient’s Email

  Short Message

  Close

Tags:

• scripture
• word

All program areas

• A–K
• L–R
• S–Z