Monday

How to Share the Gospel on Social Media - Good News for Everyone in 90 Seconds - Coffee & Conversation







Do you need some help to share the Gospel 
on Social Media?


Do you feel you need a short interesting video to help you 
share the Gospel?






We all could do with help or instruction to help us tell others about Jesus and there are many ways we can can find help.

In this post I want to point you to a Video which will do a lot of the work for you.

When looking for videos about the Gospel we need to be sure we are looking for good reputable, reliable, Bible Based companies or individuals behind these and not just click unto Google or Youtube and search Gospel or Good News.

We also don't have enough time to search through all that would pop up on our screens from these types of searches to weed out
 
the 
 boring, 
old-fashioned, 
long-winded ones

especially when we want to get someone's attention on Social Media.


Hence I want to introduce you to a video that is

NOT boring
NOT old-fashioned
NOT long-winded

and

is produced by people I can fully recommend


What could be better than a direct, to the point, colourful, eye-catching
90second video

who would refuse to take a look?



"Speak Life" has produced this video (see below)
called

Good News in 90 Seconds

and
it does what it says.




 



You can find this and other projects by this organisation on 
Facebook

and
Twitter




Here's a direct, to the point, colourful, eye-catching way to share the Good News







For other ways to share the good news on Social Media you can see my
 Facebook Page Sandra's Ark from which you are welcome to share my Bible Verse graphics, Inspirational pics and any other posts.



Wednesday

How to Learn Micah 6 v 8 Plus Free Colouring Page - Bible Memorization


I could never do it!

          Do what?

Memorize a chapter of one of the Books of the Bible!

Yeah that's not so easy,  

BUT  

you can learn ONE verse of the Bible.







Let's look at a verse from one of the shorter books of the Old Testament  -  Micah

Many people think they could never manage to memorize a whole Psalm or a whole chapter of Scripture.

It is a rather daunting challenge especially if you have never learned any scripture before.

So we are not even going to tackle all of the book of Micah or even of it's 7 chapters but we will take Micah chapter 6 verse 8


"He has shown thee, O man, what is good; 

and what does the Lord require of thee,

but to do justly,

and to love mercy,

and to walk humbly with thy God?"



So in memorizing this verse we will look at 3 things:
  • Memorising Tips
  • A Music Video of Micah 6 v 8
  • Some Freebies to help you.








Memorising Tips
If you read the Top 10 Ways to Learn Scripture you will see that I give 10 tips to help in this process but we don't have to use all 10 of them on each verse - just the ones that suit best with the verse.


For Micah 6 v 8 I'm going to advise using tips 1, 2, 6, 8, 9, 10

 



1.  Read the verse often, every day, multiple times in the day.

Leave a bookmark in your bible and every time you go past it grab the bible and open at the verse etc.  (you will pick up other ideas later in this post).

Reading and repeating somethings over and over is the natural way to get it into your head.

With this verse you may feel like breaking into 2 parts as it is a long verse but when reading it is often best to read the whole verse to instil the meaning into your mind which actually helps with the memorizing.



"He has shown thee, O man, what is good; 

and what does the Lord require of thee,

but to do justly,

and to love mercy,

and to walk humbly with thy God?"




2.  Write out the verse several times.

Why?  Because he action of  WRITING  helps us learn anything.

If you note the way I have written the verse above in 5 lines and use this method of writing it out yourself you will find it easier to get a kind of flow to the wording.  As we all know that as we write we often say the words in our heads then you will understand why I mention the flow of the words.








6.  Question and Answer within a verse.

If you ask a question you expect an answer to that question and in some verses we see that pattern so use it to your advantage when memorizing.

When the first part of the verse poses a question check if the second part answers it and if so then learn it as a question and an answer - it really will help.

Let's look at Micah 6 v8 to help you see my point.

The first two lines as we have it written here seem to state a fact and then lead into a question


"He has shown thee, O man, what is good; 

and what does the Lord require of thee,


The last 3 lines then give an answer


but to do justly,

and to love mercy,

and to walk humbly with thy God?"



So as you read or write this verse think what the question is about and what the answer is and then each will help you to memorize the other.




8.  Make it easy to see the verse clearly and regularly each day.


In no.1 above I mentioned your bible and a bookmark

but

we cannot have our Bible at hand every moment of the day so if you feel you need frequent readings of the verse like pop-up reminders then do the following:

Get a post-it pad and write the verse out clearly on it then tear off the post-it and stick it on
  • the mirror you will use first thing each morning and last thing each night
  • the front cover of your Bible
  • the front cover of the book you are currently reading
  • the door of the fridge
  • the inside of the door of the cupboard where you go to get your favourite mug for that cup of coffee








9.  Make or use Bible Verse Graphics 

The picture of Micah 6 v 8 near the start of this post is an example of a Bible Verse Graphic.

A picture with the words written on it clearly.
By making these yourself you will learn as you create them.

or

by using ones made for you that you keep close to hand
(see my freebies below)


I also post a bible verse graphic every morning on my
so if you want to be encouraged by a verse each day or have a graphic you can Share to your timeline or Save in Facebook then click through to my Facebook Page and be sure to like and follow the page to see those graphics in your feed each day.



or Colouring Pages of the bible Verse

While colouring in a Bible Verse Page you will be spending time around the words and this also helps to learn the verse.


or Phone Screensavers / Wallpaper

What better use of your phone - to keep that verse in front of you each time you go to check your messages.

For this you will need it to be a suitable portrait shape and size so most of the normal verse graphics you see will not suit.


I have a few verses made out for screen savers & you can download them from






and finally my favourite way 
but it is not always possible to use this method


10.  Sing it.

It is well known that in singing a song you can easily learn the words of the song.

Many people have benefited in memorization from putting words of scripture to music so


If you can find a song based very closely to the scripture passage then use it.




Music Video of Micah 6 v 8


Fred & I have made several short videos of songs/choruses to help you memorize certain verses and you can watch the one for Micah 6 v 8 below 






We also prepared a playlist of Short Songs to memorize Scripture on YouTube:




Some Freebies to help you


For this verse I have 2 Freebies to help and you can download them via my  RESOURCE LIBRARY  (available in both A4 and Letter size)

Firstly a pdf containing 8 copies of the graphic for Micah 6 v 8 shown earlier in this post.






Secondly  this colouring page of  Micah 6 v 8  





More Help:

For other verses see my Memorizing Scripture Page 

For other freebies see my Resource Library







 



 




I Love Butterflies - A Dose of Encouragement


Where do I begin?


I cannot remember when I was not interested in something which had a butterfly on it.



Most people who know me well will be able to tell you that

 I love Butterflies.







I have Butterfly 

     necklaces,    rings,    scarves     &    brooches

 - not sure how many I have but because of these items many people know I love butterflies 


Over the years my family have bought me scarves, vases, bags and necklaces at Christmas time all decorated with butterflies.


Even the Ladies who came to the International Christian Club of Brussels knew I loved them as I was often found with a butterfly brooch pinned to my jacket.
When I was leaving Belgium to return to live in Northern Ireland I was given a lovely white lace Butterfly brooch from one of these ladies as leaving gift.



Isn't it beautiful?




My daughter even had a mug specially printed for me with butterflies on it for my Birthday one year and I featured it in a humorous blog post called 3 More Coffee Mugs








I have bought myself bags with butterfly designs, clothes with butterflies & room decorations with butterflies.








Then there was the time Fred and I spent a lovely afternoon in our home in Belgium taking pictures of the butterflies that were on a bush just outside our lounge window -  I was going to miss the Butterflies






It just makes me smile to see butterflies around the house and in our garden with our Buddleia (butterfly) bush here in Northern Ireland too and we manage to get some nice pictures of the bush in full bloom




 with butterflies around it each summer.









Why do I love Butterflies?

Because they are beautiful, intricately patterned, delicate creatures.

They are also a great reminder of new birth in that they start as caterpillars and turn into beautiful butterflies.

Just like I was once a person marred by my sin and through God's Love and the Grace of Jesus I was able to experience a new birth and share Christ's beauty.

I love to share about the butterfly in Kids Work that I would do to explain to the children that God offers them a new life in Jesus through His blood because of His Love for them.

Children hear that Jesus died on the cross but they need to know that He did this for them individually and that His beauty can become their beauty.  They need to know that he didn't stay dead but rose again and is still alive today so that they can know He talks to God about them and shares in all their feelings.

Children need to feel loved and secure above all else and Jesus wants them to accept His love and assurance that He will never leave them.


But you and I need to know exactly the same thing.


There is something very important that we all need to know.


You and I need to know we are loved and that we are safe and that there is a God planned future for us.

You and I need to experience this new birth and know that we can be beautiful in the eyes of our creator because of His Son.


There is one last Butterfly I would like to share with you today




This Butterfly sits on the Vanity Unit in our ensuite and I see it every day at the start of my day and the end of my day.


I believe in miracles.

Do you?


The Butterfly is an example of a miracle in that it changes from an ugly creature to a beautiful one.

Can you believe in Jesus and experience Him work this miracle in your life too?












Friday

How to Organize Craft Punches



Over the years I have collected a lot of Craft materials 
but not used all that I gathered together into my Craft Armoire.

One of the reasons for this was that I had not organised my supplies in the best way to make sure I would regularly use them.


I had found many storage items large and small for storing my crafts but now I was determined to get more organised.


Today I'm going to tell you about how I organised my 

PUNCHES






BEFORE


Originally I had my punches in square matching cardboard boxes of 
3 different sizes 

grouping 
the larger border type punches together in the largest box on the right
 
and 
the small & medium sized ones together in the small box on the left.






Then a mix of small & medium sized ones 
together with the large ones that were leftover from the large box 
in the medium box below







Yes you can clearly see it was not a good arrangement for storage
  1. Sizes were mixed together
  2. Types were mixed together
  3. Subjects were mixed together
  4. Boxes had to be opened to even try to remember what punches I had
  5. Punches on top of punches meant ones had to be lifted out to see the others.






I also tried using clear plastic boxes to store them thinking I could maybe have the same types or same subjects together and see through the sides.


This was the result:







I only got two boxes used when I realised I was going to need 4 of them if I wanted to keep them well sorted and 4 of these boxes would take up much more space.

If I didn't want to use 4 then it would always mean that some punches were on top of others and I would forget what I had and every time I was thinking of using a punch I would still need to go through all the punches which meant I would still be moving and opening boxes and to be honest I'm too lazy for that.

So I was back where I had started!!! 



Then I saw an interesting item one day online in Ikea's Kvissle Series

It's called the Letter Tray






With this item 
  1. I would not have to lift one box off another and open boxes and then sift through punches lying on top of each other
  2. I would be able to see all the punches in one section without even touching any of them.

So I got all my punches out again 






and started sorting them into subjects & types like borders,  designs, 



ANIMALS



PLANTS




So off to Ikea and I bought the Kvissle Letter Tray


I knew beforehand that I would have a choice of places to keep the tray unit as it could fit unto a couple of different shelves in my Craft Armoire (Ikea give you all the dimensions) 

and I knew it would be so much better than my previous system for my punches and I was right.



Corner & small border punches




Animals & Plants




Shapes




Large Borders





AFTER



It is now

       easy to open, 
 
              easy to see the punches,  

                     easy to lift them out 








and then maybe the most important fact of all 

it is
 
       so easy to return the punch to it's position - yes!
 


I will  NOW put each punch away as soon as I use it 

because 
it is just a matter of pulling out the right tray and placing it where it came from.








Doesn't it look so neat here in my Craft Armoire





even now when I got a few extra punches and put them in the wicker basket in front but that is easy to lift out and then I can pull out the trays.



NOTE to SELF
Please try not to be tempted to buy more punches