The story behind the SMS devotional series.
It was not my idea! For about a year (6 or 7 years ago) I used to send words of encouragement and prayers to a few that I felt needed them. I used to finger type them into my phone and then copy and paste the message to other numbers. This would include on occasion interactions with the recipients. Before that, going back more than 20 years, I used to send out 2 or 3 liners to people. I still have those in a book.
My son, Jesse, introduced me to a program that would allow me to store numbers and send messages that had been edited on a word document, which eliminated some of my fat finger typing and punctuation mistakes.
On one occasion I was asked by a recipient to deal with something specific. Then a friend asked me to do something on Revelation because she never understood it and even disliked the book because of this. I declined, stating the complexity of doing such a thing by SMS would be cumbersome and difficult. However, after a few days, the Holy Spirit convinced me that I had missed a calling and that I should give it a go. So, I did! Using the original program, I began the task, which became the first series. During this verse-by-verse journey through the book of Revelation my son Jesse developed a specific program for this work, and life became a whole lot easier. There were over 50 people receiving the “Revelation Reflections” and suddenly I had a God given ministry. Jesse developed the ‘one80’ delivery platform. I still used to keep the devotionals short so that people could read them in just a few minutes.
At a teachers’ retreat a lady from the Mccrindle research company added to the inspiration when she stated in her presentation that 60% of people with mobile phones check them as soon as they get up in the morning. I decided then, that my devotionals would be waiting on people’s phones as soon as they opened them in the morning. (I did get a few complaints about 5:30am being too early to have their phones beeping.) 6 years later I still have people tell me that the SMS devotional is their first call for the day.
The Revelation Reflections took almost a year. When asked by the original inspirer what I was going to do next, I answered Psalms! I already was an expert in the Psalms and had extensive notes in my Bible. This became “Meditations on the Psalms.” During a long service trip to Brazil with my wife, I spent most of my time writing these. This was followed by “Walking in the Footsteps of Paul.” This drove my devotional life for 18 months, as we went everywhere Paul went and looked at the when, where, and why each letter was written.
I believe this “ministry” was motivated by the Holy Spirit. I baptised a young couple via the one80 ministry, and there is another couple right now preparing for baptism. I also realize I have no idea what God is doing with this ministry in the lives of people. Eternity will only tell.
Whispering Eternity was a series on my search for meaning as a teenager. This was followed by “Evidence”, which explored the reasons for God, the reliability of His word, and the proof that Jesus was who he claimed to be.
As a collector of stories for children’s ministry and sermons, I then opened up my filing cabinet and began a series called “My Favourite Stories.” I got about halfway through my drawer and old sermons. It took a year and I thought that was long enough. I may do part 2 in the future.
My next venture was to do a series on Daniel, the most apocalyptic book in the Old Testament. Jesse came up with the title “Daniel Unlocked” and he developed the web site. An old student of mine, whom I taught in year 7 and 8 did the graphics. Jackson, who has a degree in graphic design, and his wife Genovieve were the ones baptised about 3 years ago and now he is doing theology at Avondale. I love the book of Daniel – it was a faith builder in my early years when I was seeking to find God amidst the meaninglessness of life. This I have just completed – thank you for joining me!
My desire now is to rewrite the original series on Revelation – “Revelation Unlocked.” With Jesse’s developed website I can do a much better job of explaining things because I have more space to do so. If you were part of the original one 6 years ago, I hope you will join me again for this much improved version. Even better, invite someone to join or develop a network that you can forward the devotionals to. The book of Revelation has never been so important as it is now in the present climate.
Tomorrow I will talk about how you can help expand it beyond the current circle.