Summertime Learning

I love summertime, perhaps a bit too much. It’s a slower pace, and the summer always allows me to spend extra time with people I don’t get to see as often which is so much fun. I spend it with students I don’t meet with weekly, people on my team, and with different FOCUS alum that I don’t get to touch base with in the school year as much. It is so amazing to hear about what God is doing in all of these different people’s lives. The rest of my summer outside of those meetings is split between support raising, planning for the next year, and continued learning.

Out of those my favorite thing tends to be having more time to reflect, journal, read and grow my own knowledge and resources over the summer. So, I wanted to spend this update just sharing some of the resources I’ve been using lately, things I’ve been reading, and some of the stuff I’m processing through and learning with the hope that it could bless some of y’all in the same way it’s been blessing me!

Sacred Rhythms by Ruth Haley Barton

This is a book that our staff all just finished up reading. In essence it’s a book covering different historical spiritual disciplines, but with a focus on not doing them just to check off a box, but as a way to create space to encounter God in. It’s a book that has been very encouraging and helpful for me. Most of the actual practices are not new to me, but the way the author writes about finding what works for you to get in touch with your deep desire to know God more intimately has been really helpful. Like many books you’ve got to eat the meat and spit out the bones, and for this one I think it can tend to be a little Christian self-helpy. But other than that I really enjoy it!

BEMA Podcast

I think I’m behind the curve on this one. It’s been a pretty popular Bible podcast for awhile now but I’ve just been getting into it more recently. They work through the Bible from specifically a eastern lens, bringing the historical teachings of Jewish Rabbis in to help grow our understanding of how people of Jesus’ time would have understood some of these books. In general me and a lot of my peers have found this podcast to be super helpful in our learning about scripture. Some of my favorite things I’ve learned are about God being the God who knows when to say enough and that he is looking for people who are willing to say the same. That we shouldn’t be ashamed of the way that God made us with limitations. That we have to learn to trust the Story.

Gentle and Lowly by Dane Ortlund

I’m just at the beginning of this book, but it’s written to address what God’s heart is for sinful and suffering people. Essentially how does God describe himself and his heart, and what does that mean for us especially when we’re feeling broken and unworthy of his love. I’m pretty pumped to get into this book more since that’s something I struggle with and I know a lot of our students struggle with as well.

Abba’s Child by Brennan Manning

This book I’m a little further into, but not finished with. It’s been so sweet so far though, learning about what it means to find our identity as one of God’s children, and really letting ourselves believe that deep down and cast off all of this other pretense we put on to try to protect ourselves or seem put together or important.

Hopefully one of multiple of these resources could bless you! I know they’ve blessed me!