We will be sending out one email for every weekday – Monday to Friday, and a special weekend edition containing the passage for church that weekend.  So that’s 6 per week. It will arrive in your inbox at 6am – but you can read it a time that suits you.

We’re aiming for a simple format:

Bible – Comments – Prayer

We’ll publish the relevant Bible passage (from the CSB). Then we’ll have some comments/reflections on the passage from a JAC member. The comments will usually be short and personal. It won’t be a thorough commentary on the passage read.  Then we’ll include some suggested wording for a short prayer, based on what’s been read.

Sometimes the comments/reflections will follow a consistent pattern, using sub-headings or questions. We will explain the structure when that appears. The purpose of this structure is to model how you could read through a Bible passage on your own, and generate your own thoughts on what God is teaching you.

We’re going for short and simple. We expect you’ll only need about 10 minutes. However, this will depend on the length of the Bible passage. Sometimes we might read a whole chapter of a certain Biblical book, such as in the Old Testament. At other times, it might only be a few verses.

Comments following the Bible passage will be written by a range of members of Jannali Anglican Church. This includes staff and non-staff members. There will be a range of men and women, different ages, from across different gatherings. Each email will tell you (and have a picture) who the author is.

Yes, ofcourse. There will be a link in each email, to help you do this.

It won’t be random! And it won’t be aligned with the sermon series from church.

Our normal approach will be to work through books of the Bible, or sections of books. Normally, we’ll stay in one book for a few weeks (depending on the length of the book). From time to time, we will do some passages related to a topic or theme.

The emails are primarily designed for adults. There is no reason why you couldn’t read the same passage with your children and ask some simple questions like

In the future we are aiming to include material that is designed for families to use together

Not really. Our email system, Mailchimp does record who opens the email and when etc., but we won’t monitor that data closely.

Yes, we’d love to hear from you. Many people will have good ideas. We’ll consider them carefully, and will always aim to produce something that’s helpful for all. This means we may or may not integrate your feedback. But we will always listen to it.

There will be a link in each email to send feedback, or alternatively, you can contact wordsforlife@jac.org.au at anytime.

Great question.

1. Pray for God’s help

2. Persevere in reading God’s word regularly. Habits are hard to form and easy to lose. Keep going, even if you miss a few days.

3. Try link your time for reading the Bible to another regular habit (like when eating breakfast, or your commute to work etc). It can also help our mind to develop a habit, to pick the same place in your home our workplace where you read the Bible.

4. Share this habit with others. Arrange with a friend or your growth group to all sign-up together. Then check in with each other and/or discuss what came up in a reading on a particular day

5. Some people find it to write some notes as they read and think. Maybe you could keep a notebook with your Bible.