Early COVID was a wild time. Long before things got politicized, there was a season where everyone was trying to figure out what to do and how to do it. New things were tried, some of which were worthwhile and kept, some of which were dropped. It was an opportunity, if we took it, to move away from “business as usual,” drop some bad habits, and establish some good habits.
One of the things that many pastors did in those early days was provide regular video devotionals. I knew several folks who aimed to post one every day, usually recorded live. I liked the idea, but I also knew that I had to make sure I set myself up for success by leaning into my strengths and using what I had learned from other aspects of my life.
First of all, I knew that I shouldn’t try to make live video posts at a certain time. If I tried to do that, I would miss a few by mistake and then it would be hard to pick it back up again. Once I knew I needed to record them in advance (but with minimal preparation and editing), I also realized that I would have better success if I only tried to get five videos a week instead of seven and that I should produce them back to back and schedule the posts.
I think that is why I was able to keep it up for longer than some other folks. Once things got more or less back to normal, I noticed that my clergy colleagues stopped doing their regular posts. However, I kept my project up for about four and a half years.
Another aspect of my own self-reflection was that I also knew that if I didn’t have a focus and a system for what to do, I would quickly be paralyzed by choice. I needed to narrow my attention, so I decided to work through the book of James as it is an extremely practical book (some might say it is TOO practical) and then see what happened. Over time, I ended up covering every passage in the New Testament.
What started as a project to keep the Scriptures in front of my people during an unusual time developed into me trying to produce a resource that I would have found helpful in my earliest days reading the Bible. I would have loved to have someone who could walk me through book after book, explaining things that may not seem obvious, to connect dots that a new reader wouldn’t necessarily notice, and to help me understand some basic insights from academic Biblical scholarship in a way that would build up my faith rather than tear it down.
I pass this resource on to anyone who may find it helpful. I will include two links here. The first one is for a playlist that includes all the videos in “canonical order.” That makes it easy to find any book or passage you may be looking for. I will also include a link to a playlist where the videos appear in the order they were produced. Some of that is so my announcements at the end of each book as to what is “next” makes sense. Some of it is because the earliest videos make frequent reference to the pandemic. Also, I lost an enormous amount of weight during that project and it is still amazing to me to scroll through time and see things change. If any of that sounds interesting or helpful to you or someone else, please use and share them.
Reflections on every passage of the New Testament (Canonical Order)
Reflections on every passage of the New Testament (Production Order)