In 2020, BentonBlog was focused on persevering through the challenges of COVID, social injustice and unity. Then 2021 became a year of finding resilience through the time of testing. I faced some personal challenges and stopped posting to BentonBlog. Instead, I began editing the Hampton Roads Church daily blogs as part of the ResilieNT reading plan. My haverim group used this plan for our read, pray, talk discussion times in 2021. This helped us to be more resilient through various challenges to our physical, mental and spiritual health.
F-O-unda-T-ions: “you can’t spell ‘foundations’ without ‘OT'”
For 2022, BentonBlog will be focusing on “Foundations”. We’re focusing our haverim groups on the Old Testament this year. While reading through the New Testament in 2021, it was clear how important the Torah and Old Testament scriptures are to understanding the gospels and letters of the New Testament. My haverim will be using the 2022 Hampton Roads Church Reading plan this year. The plan starts with the Torah, then includes Proverbs, Psalm 119, Daniel and the Minor Prophets. More details are available here.
Haverim Helps and Resources
I’m also posting articles to help haverim groups. Haverim Helps: More Resources for the 2022 Old Testament Reading Plan has some helpful information on running a haverim group session, along with links to past articles on starting a haverim group. Haverim Helps: Three Things For Each Day’s Reading includes three points from each day’s reading that can help haverim groups with discussion topics. More “Haverim Helps” articles will be posted, including how to transform your small group discipleship groups toward a haverim approach for group and individual discipling times.
Other Foundation Resources
I’ll also be posting a series on spiritual disciplines called “Daily Disciplines”. The studies are based on a midweek class I taught ten years ago as a Summer midweek series in the Montgomery County church (now Capital Rivers church). The series covered topics like daily devotion to God through Bible study and prayer, along with disciplines like fellowship, evangelism, family times and finances. Getting back to basic disciplines will help us be more consistent and intentional about our spiritual growth, both personally and as a community.
Once the Daily Discipline posts are completed, I’ll post some thoughts on each discipline area. For the daily devotion to God’s Word, the posts will focus on Psalm 119. I’ll share the lessons I prepared on this amazing psalm for the first haverim sessions in 2020. Psalm 119 is all about love for God’s Word and will encourage you to develop a daily discipline of reading and meditating on the Bible.
I hope you’ll join me as we take this journey of Foundations together.