Thank you to everyone who filled out my reader survey last week! Your responses have energized and inspired me greatly. I’ve spent this past week poring over your words and letting them guide my plans for this next year.
Your responses confirmed a few ideas I’ve been incubating and generated some new ones. Where previously I had only a blank calendar and few ideas about how to proceed into this next year, I now have a full plan for the year and am so excited about what’s in store.
Today, I wanted to share some of the survey results with you and provide a preview of what you can expect here this year.
Results of the Reader Survey
This blog and community have grown by leaps and bounds this past year, so I wanted to know more about you, the readers who subscribe and who read these posts each week. I wanted to know more about your needs, your struggles, and where you are in your faith journey. I wanted to know how I can best encourage you as you continue along in that journey. Here’s a little about who we are as this community:
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- We are believers, and most of us are fairly involved in our church community.
- We represent just about every variety of Christian church, including Baptist, non-denominational, Pentecostal, Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Catholic, Salvation Army, Church of Christ, and more.
- We are all taking steps on our spiritual journey, ranging from those just starting out in a relationship with God all the way to others developing into maturity, serving in ministry and as spiritual directors.
- Yet, no matter where we are on the journey – just starting out, somewhere in the middle, approaching maturity, or having fallen off track – we’re all seeking to know God more and grow in our relationship with Him.
What spiritual encouragement do you most want this year?
The topics you are most interested in seeing here are:
- Developing a Prayer Habit
- Hearing God Through Prayer
- Trusting God
You indicated you’d love to see more prayer studies and guides for praying and using different prayer forms. You’d like to develop stronger and more consistent prayer habits and dig deeper into God’s Word. You want that regular, weekly (even daily) reminder, encouragement, and challenge to stay focused and remain committed to your faith.
What can you expect here in 2017?
1) Weekly posts here on prayer and spiritual encouragement
I’ll be posting a prayer post each Sunday, with a prayer for the week and a scripture selection from that week’s lectionary readings.
I’ll also have a new topical posts up each week to encourage and inspire us on our journey to grow in our relationship with God.
2) Weekly newsletters for email subscribers with additional encouragement
If you’re a subscriber, I’ll send you a weekly newsletter with links to the week’s posts and a prayer or verse for the week. I may also include other related content I’ve found around the web and relevant resources to help you go deeper.
If you’re not already receiving the email newsletters, be sure to sign up here:
3) Join me on Facebook and Pinterest for even more encouragement!
I’m always adding new pins for prayer, trusting God, studying the Bible, and other encouraging topics. Click here to follow me on Pinterest.
If you’re on Facebook, like my page where I post daily quotes and scriptures you can share and links to other encouraging articles and resources. Click here to like my page on Facebook. I’d love to make our Facebook community more interactive and vibrant this year.
4) New resources to ignite and inspire your prayer life
I’m planning a number of new prayer study guides this year. I’ll also offer a free download or email course with each, so no one has to miss out, but the study guides will help you go deeper. I’m currently working on one focused around the Lord’s Prayer which will be released as a study for Lent. Look for more announcements around these soon!
In the meantime, have you checked out the Pray Deep prayer journals? Pray Deep is a 21-day prayer study to ignite your prayer life and explore different forms of prayer. Pray Deep: Finding Stillness in the Storm is a 21-day prayer study focused on learning to be still and trust God in the midst of life’s storms.
5) Prayer
You can definitely expect a focus on prayer here. In addition to the weekly prayer posts, you’ll find encouragement and guidance on growing your prayer life through weekly posts, newsletter content, resources shared on Facebook and Pinterest, as well as the new prayer study resources.
If you’re in need of a specific prayer, I’d love to pray with you. You can either submit a prayer request at the link above or hit reply on any of the weekly newsletters and let me know how I can pray for you. I’ll share my prayer with you.
I’m so grateful you’re here! I hope you’ll join me in 2017 and let’s grow our faith and prayer lives together!
Comment below and let me know if this is going to help you grow this year and what you’re looking forward to the most.
~Kathryn
P.S. I do promote some products through affiliate links, but only when I think it’s something that will be of value to you. I also promote and sell some of my own books and resources. I understand many of you are on limited incomes or are not interested in purchasing anything, so please know I offer these only as additional options and will continue to provide other free resources. Your purchases through any affiliate links or of my own resources help cover the increasing costs of keeping this blog running. I sincerely appreciate your support!
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