E 100

Our church, Westover, just recently started a new program. It's called E 100. The vision for Westover for 2009 is to live in simple obedience of the Lord. Simple not meaning easy...of course! One of the areas of simple obedience is being obedient studying the Bible. The lessons cover 100 essential passages in the Bible. It chooses 50 from the Old Testament and 50 from the New Testament. We both purchased the small an inexpensive journals. The goal at Westover is to have as many people as possible to commit to prayer and to reading scriptures for the next 20 weeks (ok, now it's 18).

Outside of the sanctuary, there is a huge wall for people to sign as an outward expression of their commitment to read and learn from these scriptures with the rest of the church. It is somewhat overhwelming to look at the wall and all of the people that are doing this together!

This is my first time ever taking part in something like this. We have been really excited about how many things we have learned from our readings so far. At times I thought, "the flood? I have heard that story so many times..." and I obviously didn't feel very excited about reading it. But Brett and I prayed for the Lord to reveal something new to us, and He has every time! It has been so interesting and exciting!

This program also coincides with us joining a small group at our church. I haven't been in a small group in a few years! We were really fortunate that the teachers in our LifeCommunity (aka Sunday School class) are the leaders of the group. We have only been in the small group for 2 weeks and taking part in E 100 for two weeks, but it has taught us a lot....especially with all that has been going on in our life.

Another neat thing is the focus of our pastor's series right now. It is titled "He is....I am." We are going through many characteristics of God. For example, He is omniscient therefore I am known (every single detail of you and me)...and He is omnipresent therefore I am never alone. Once again, this has been speaking to me a lot, especially as my nerves tend to get a little crazy. There is peace in these truths, and the more that we remind ourselves of this...the less fear can take ground!

Thanks for reading my thoughts...

We look forward to sharing some of what we learn!

With love,
Jessica