Get Packing! (July)

Artwork by Edward Steel

July 2024 (7 July - 3 August).

Open the Resource Pack PDF for all the information on the weekly subthemes and the daily prompts and Bible readings which shape our Daily Worship and Sunday Live services. Take a look at our Connect Bible Study Questions PDF to see the material adapted for small Connect groups or personal Bible study.

It’s summer, the sun is shining, and it’s time to get packing!

This month the epic foundational story of Exodus is going to help us get packing with God! We ask the Holy Spirit to move us from where we have been to where we are going — into newness of life. To let go of the past so that we can immerse ourselves in the promise of the present.

Letting go of a heart-heaviness can sometimes be hard to do, but God holds us carefully and tenderly as we see in Exodus as he leads the Hebrews out of Egypt. God hears our cries and leads us out of sorrows with a new sense of purpose.

We begin by asking — as the Hebrews did — what are we leaving behind? What do we want to no longer carry into our new life with God? What are we glad to be rid of and what do we need help letting go of? Following on from that, like the Hebrews hurriedly preparing for the first Passover, what are we wanting to take with us? What is essential? Often what we pack are not ‘things’ at all, but traits like curiosity, hope, confidence, and open heartedness that God uses to equip and enthuse us.

Then, as we join the Hebrews wandering in the wilderness, we check in with how we are going. Are we going round in circles or, worse, going backwards? Are we on the lookout for manna, and are we open to resting, re-setting and reconfiguring along the way? And finally as the theme draws to a close we look ahead to the urgent. immediate Gospel of Mark that begins in a different wilderness — but with the same people — asking insistently, ‘So what now?’ If we are getting packing with God are we open to our restless Messiah Jesus’s call to adventure to discover the burgeoning Kingdom all around us and share it!

Overview

• What are we leaving? — Getting rid and letting go.
• What are we packing? — The essentials we need to pack.
• How are we going? — Two steps forward, one step back, and several sideways!
• What now? — Anticipating the Kingdom and revelations of divine glory!

Are we going round in circles or, worse, going backwards?

Join a connect Group

Each week of the four week theme runs Sunday-Saturday and has its own subtheme, which contains daily Bible readings and prompts for thought (see the Resource Pack PDF for more information). Check out our Connect Bible Study Questions PDF to see the material adapted for small Connect groups or personal Bible study.