Scripture Challenge for 2014

Today I wanted to share what we will be doing for the 2014 Scripture Challenge. Can you believe this will be my 6th year in hosting this challenge? Wow! Anyway, I searched BibleGateway, and found Psalm 42:8 which says "By day the Lord directs His love, at night His song is with me— a prayer to the God of my life." What a beautiful, beautiful psalm. Jesus is the God of my life. His love is infinite, and He abounds in grace. All prayer and praise belong to Him. I love to worship and praise Him through song every single day. Sometimes it's through hymns and sometimes it's through contemporary Christian music. I find when I focus on Him through song, my mind and my heart are where He would want them. It's when the music isn't playing that it's easier for me to wander. I know KLOVE radio station has a 30 day challenge to listen to nothing but Christian music for 30 days and see how it changes your life. I know for me, it's amazing! I encourage you to listen to Mark Hall's 1:15 minute video about the challenge. Click here to see his video.

So, what better way to continue our study of our precious Lord and Savior than through song. This year our study will be called "Scripture Lessons and Lyrics." We will basically be combining a word study and combining our study with a song that points to Christ and the word we are studying. It might be a contemporary Christian song, a hymn, or whatever the Lord leads me to.

Album, ATC, Cards--What Will You Use?
So, what will you use for your album this year? What have you used in the past? Maybe you are new to these challenges and would like some ideas. You can:

*Create ATCs and put them on a holder

*Create any size scrapbook page and put in an album
*Create cards and mail to someone that might need to hear the words you have for them
*Or create anything else you can think of; let your imagine run wild

Of course, if you are doing pages, you can create any size and use any album you want! You can do hybrid or digi pages; this is your album. You can create anything you wish. These are just ideas!  I will be doing 6x6 pages as I did for 2013. I really love this size for these challenges, and they make a great album for the coffee table!

If You Participate, Do You Have to Create Something?
Absolutely not! :) You can just study God's Word and keep notes. You do not have to create a thing! I personally love the creating part and someday my kids can have these pages too as part of my faith legacy. For those of you not creating pages, etc., you may just want to keep a journal with your study notes.

What if You Want to Study with People at Church?
Wonderful! Please have them study along. However, I ask that you not copy my work. I also ask that you have the participants print the study directly from my blog post each time. It takes me many, many hours to prepare these studies, and they are inspired by the Lord. The studies are copyrighted, and I pray that you respect that. Thank you! For more information, please see the section below titled "Will this challenge be hosted on other sites? What about posting on my own blog?"

Now let me share a bit about how this challenge will work.
**I will post two studies a month beginning Sunday, January 11, 2014. Mark your calendars, and see the entire 2014 calendar below! :)
**Challenges will be posted usually by 5 p.m. Eastern Time on challenge Sundays.
**My post will also share some thoughts, scripture or scriptures that I chose (usually from the NIV), music of some sort, and a picture of my page.
**Then you will study your Bible and find scriptures that are meaningful to you based on the study and truth posted for that week.
**I love using Biblegateway to look up single keywords in the Bible. It is a great resource for this study.
**Then you will create your page using your selected scripture/thoughts based on the study for that week.
**Feel free to look at the 2013 Hymn and Scripture Challenge to see how the study will work.

Is there a time limit to complete the challenge?
No, there is not a time limit to complete the challenge. This is for you so that you can study and learn to apply God's truths to your daily life! You do what you can when you can. On occasion, I may offer RAKs, and at those times there will be a deadline. Watch out for those. :) You may join this challenge at ANY time throughout the year! Encourage your friends to join along!

Do I need to sign up?
No, you can just subscribe to my blog to get the updates.

Will this challenge be hosted on other sites? What about posting on my own blog?
No, you will only be able to find the challenge here on my blog. Please do not copy the post to other websites or your own blog. You may certainly link the study but do not copy the study. Feel free to post a quote but not the entire study. Remember, this study is copyrighted. Thank you! And make sure you subscribe to my blog if you haven't already. :) If you have friends that you think may be interested in joining us, feel free to send them the link to this post! For more information, please see the section above titled "What if You Want to Study with People at Church?"

Where can we share our work?
A lot of us will be sharing on our blogs, Pinterest, and in various galleries such as A Cherry on Top, 2Peas, Scrapbook.com, Flickr, etc. Wherever you share, you can use this keyword and it will help others find your work more easily--SCRLLC14. I will also use inlinkz.com for this challenge so that you can leave a link to your work here on my blog for others to see.

Is there a blinkie for this challenge?
Yes, but let's call it a button instead of a blinkie. :) I purchased a kit from Studio Girls Scrapbook Graphics called "Chic Clusters" to make this blinkie. Click here to see the kit.

It's a miniature version of the picture at the beginning of this post. I did not make one that blinks. It is a "stand alone" button. You will find this button in the sidebar of my blog and below this paragraph. Right-click and save it to your computer to add to your blog. I also ask that you link it back to this post or my blog. Feel free to add it to your message board signatures too. I hope you like it.

2014 Scripture Lessons and Lyrics Challenge Schedule:
Challenge 1: January 12
Challenge 2: January 26
Challenge 3: February 9
Challenge 4: February 23
Challenge 5: March 9
Challenge 6: March 23
Challenge 7: April 13
Challenge 8: April 27
Challenge 9: May 11
Challenge 10: May 25
Challenge 11: June 15
Challenge 12: June 29
Challenge 13: July 13
Challenge 14: July 27
Challenge 15: August 10
Challenge 16: August 24
Challenge 17: September 14
Challenge 18: September 28
Challenge 19: October 12
Challenge 20: October 26
Challenge 21: November 9
Challenge 22: November 23
Challenge 23: December 14
Challenge 24: December 28

To see all of the current challenges thus far for 2014, please click here. (Link will be active when challenge begins.)

Whew, sorry this post got so long. Book mark it. It will be the "main information page" for the Scripture Lessons and Lyrics Challenge. Please e-mail me if you have more questions, and I would love to know your thoughts on this upcoming challenge. Feel free to leave comments here! Blessings, and see you January 11th with our first hymn and study for 2014!