Welcome to Rule of Life

Join Bishop John for our annual Summer Reading Challenge.

Harvest is a special time in the life of many churches. The fruit and food and flowers in church remind us of the good things God has given to us. We often share a Harvest Supper together to celebrate God’s abundance. We come together in worship to say thank you. And we give, food and money, to extend a loving hand to those in our community and beyond who feel the sharp sting of hunger and loss.

Join Bishop John in this year’s Summer Challenge reading the Acts of Apostles. Sign up to this course and you will receive weekly emails encouraging you in your reading. The Acts of the Apostles is about the life, ministry and mission of the Church. May we be inspired and challenged by the life and work of the first Christians. Find out more about the challenge and how you can get involved.

Our Lent Challenge follows the Church of England’s #LiveLent theme for 2022, Embracing Justice. Based around the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent book, written by Isabelle Hamley, the theme remembers the cry of the Prophet Isaiah: ‘Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice?’ calling us to reflect on the injustices of the world and ask what God is calling us to do about them. Here we have videos reflecting on the six themes and an invitation to join Liverpool Cathedral's discussions on each topices

Bishop John introduces the final week of the Summer Reading Challenge.

Bishop John introduces week five of the Summer Reading Challenge.

This week we follow the story of the people of God during the exilic period. There is no book in the Bible that talks about this period. Ezekiel’s prophesied during this period, so you may want to skim the book to get an idea of God’s message to the exiles. The story for the post-exilic period is in the books of EZRA and NEHEMIAH, which together form our core reading for this week. You may also want to browse through HAGGAI, ZACHARIAH and MALACHI. The story told in the book of DANIEL is placed towards the end of Judah and beginning of the Babylonian exile. We will move on to the story in the New Testament next week but there is a gap of nearly four centuries between the close of the story we see in the Old Testament and Jesus’ time in the Gospels. As we have no biblical account for this period, I have provided some notes about this period. Hope this will help you to smoothly move on to the New Testament times.

Bishop John introduces week two of the Summer Reading Challenge.