OK. Somebody up North left the barn door
open. It is 44 degrees on the Island
right now. And the weather app on my
phone says we are going to get down to 33 before all this is over with. Now I have to get out in it and put one of
those cover things on the front outside faucet (the one that faces north). Feel free to take the cold back. We really don’t need it here.
It is
now official. I have completed another
book. No, really. This one is called Visual Verses: A Weekly
Devotional Guide to Encouragement and Scripture Memory. Now I don’t have enough money to send it off
to a self-publisher. Besides, there are
hundreds of illustrations – that’s the point of Visual Verses. And with my last book each illustration had
to be sent as a separate jpeg file. That’s
just a little bit crazy. So for this one
I will just print each copy out slowly and methodically on my printer here at
the house. It does take forever, but it
gets the job done. I printed up five in
the first run. Three went to my kids for
Christmas presents. Looks like the cost
will be $15 per copy plus a $5 charge for mailing. I’m hoping that will cover all the costs of
toner and paper and postage.
So
what are Visual Verses, you may ask? Or
you may not. Or you may have actually
seen one and wish I hadn’t brought it up.
A Visual Verse is, in a nutshell, a rebus. And what is a rebus? Good question. A rebus is dictionarily: a puzzle in which
words are represented by combinations of pictures and individual letters. In this case Scriptures verses comprise the
words. I learned back in college that if
I could attribute a weird picture to a key phrase in each line of a list of
things, and then make those weird pictures somehow interact with each other, then
I could learn concepts much more easily that just by constant repetition - by
rote. Several years ago I started
applying that method to learning, then teaching Scripture. Since I have been at Seaside, the Visual
Verses have become a fun way to start off the service with a key verse of Scripture
while breaking the ice, so to speak, with the people as well. And that breaking the ice is often needed in
an area where every single Sunday we have numerous visitors who we likely will never
see again. They are in town for a quick
weekend away from working in the big city of Houston. Or they are here for their one week at the
time share condo. It really helps to
have something light-hearted and fun to open a teaching conversation. The book
is set up as 52 separate, short devotional thoughts with a visual verse tied to
each. That gives you a week to work on
learning the verse before tackling another one.
So
there you have it. That’s my commercial
for the year on this book. If you want
one you have to let me know so I can get it printed for you. Reply to this blog or email me or message
me. It won’t be a classy, high-sheen
super-artist kind of work. But it will
be fun. And if you are a visual learner …
it might give you some insight on using your unique style to become a better
disciple of Jesus.
Philippians
3:8-9 says, “What is more, I consider
everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus
my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I
may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that
comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ — the
righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.”
Father, use this book to help folks draw closer to you and your word. Amen.
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