Friday, August 14, 2009

Count Down "5" - Subject Shifting Devotion Method



This method is for those who do not know how to have their daily devotion or those who are still seeking for a better way of having their daily devotion.


I wrote this method in 1998 and has been used as a suggested daily devotion method in our church - Richmond Emmanuel Church (http://www.emmanuelvoice.org/). It is also the way I have been using since 1998 as my own way of having daily spiritual devotion.


It all started with a lunch with Rev. Dr. John Stott in 1991. After he listened to my sharing of quite a number of unhappy things in my ministry he said, "Silas, I suggest you to shift your subject." I said, "Oh, John, sorry! You must be bored to hear all these." He said, "No, not that kind of shift. You know, for half an hour you talked about so many struggles using "I" as the subject. In English, a sentense has a subject, a verb and an object. If you make a shift and use "God" as the subject and "I" as the object, I don't think you would have so much problems."



From that day on, I am on a "subject shifting" journey and a total new way of "seeing" things. I wrote the Subject Shifting Devotion Method in 1998 and since then many people has been using that as their devotion method.


John Stott has this line in his new book(the last book he wrote, Through the Bible Through the Year. Oxford: Candle Books, 2006)he gave me as a gift three weeks ago in his home in London:

Page 14

The Creator's Initiative Genesis 1:1

The first four words of the Bible("In the beginning God")...God is the subject of nearly every verb.


Please click to the link below for the method:

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Attachment: Subject Shifting Devotion.pdf

1 comment:

  1. Dear Bishop,
    I find this method to be very good and I am willing to try it out to see if it works for me. I might add that when beginning your devotional time it might be beneficial to add a few words of praise and thanks giving to God as a means of preparing your heart and ears to listen to the message He has for you that day. Thank you so much for sharing this with us.

    Robert O'Brien
    The Anglican Church of the Resurrection, St. Louis, Mo
    robert0199@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete

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