There are a lot of programs out there in curriculum-land that are designed to get people to read the entire Bible. About 15 years ago I signed up for the Bethel Bible series at my local church. That takes two full years to complete. I got a little cross-eyed studying the very detailed pictures for each book of the Bible that were in the participant material. The pictures were highly symbolic and not particularly artistic--they were designed for the purpose of helping you remember key things about that particular book. I did finish the class and heaved a great sigh of relief when we were done.
There are a host of other books and study guides that have been written for the same purpose. The Disciple series and Kerygma also take a couple of years to complete. Then there are books like the Day by Day Chronological Bible which in one year has you finish reading the Bible, but the books are rearranged in (supposedly) the order in which either they were written or the events recorded in them happened.
About a year ago I came across a new idea: Cover 2 Cover, the Bible in 90 days. This was put together by Ted Cooper, a local Presbyterian layman, who was inspired by his own experience reading the Bible from cover to cover which transformed him from an agnostic to a committed Christian. Why only 90 days for this project? Ted tells me it is because people are more comfortable making short-term committments today. You use a specific version of the NIV and read 12 pages each day for 14 weeks. Then you get together with a group of others doing the same thing once a week for mutual support and encouragement. One of the group is a leader/facilitator who has a notebook with additional information and a DVD lecture series (about 25 minutes per session) to give "value added" to the experience.
But the main thing is to READ THE BIBLE all the way through in the alloted time. I took the idea to my church and have been overwhelmed by the response so far. We made the project part of our 20th anniversary celebration and have set up several groups meeting at different times to make it easier for people to participate. This series will be published by Zondervan this fall, but we are part of the "beta testing" group for the curriculum. A number of other churches in our area have already been using these materials with a good deal of success.
In a couple of weeks the pressure will be on as the groups start to meet. So far 80 people have committed to the program and we are still registering folks. Most church members say they want to read the entire Bible but very few have succeeded in doing so. Biblical literacy in general has declined sharply in the last few decades. I'm excited about raising the level of Biblical literacy in our congregation and hope that many of those who finish will want to follow up with some in-depth Bible study. To me, that will be the true measure of the success of the program.
There are a host of other books and study guides that have been written for the same purpose. The Disciple series and Kerygma also take a couple of years to complete. Then there are books like the Day by Day Chronological Bible which in one year has you finish reading the Bible, but the books are rearranged in (supposedly) the order in which either they were written or the events recorded in them happened.
About a year ago I came across a new idea: Cover 2 Cover, the Bible in 90 days. This was put together by Ted Cooper, a local Presbyterian layman, who was inspired by his own experience reading the Bible from cover to cover which transformed him from an agnostic to a committed Christian. Why only 90 days for this project? Ted tells me it is because people are more comfortable making short-term committments today. You use a specific version of the NIV and read 12 pages each day for 14 weeks. Then you get together with a group of others doing the same thing once a week for mutual support and encouragement. One of the group is a leader/facilitator who has a notebook with additional information and a DVD lecture series (about 25 minutes per session) to give "value added" to the experience.
But the main thing is to READ THE BIBLE all the way through in the alloted time. I took the idea to my church and have been overwhelmed by the response so far. We made the project part of our 20th anniversary celebration and have set up several groups meeting at different times to make it easier for people to participate. This series will be published by Zondervan this fall, but we are part of the "beta testing" group for the curriculum. A number of other churches in our area have already been using these materials with a good deal of success.
In a couple of weeks the pressure will be on as the groups start to meet. So far 80 people have committed to the program and we are still registering folks. Most church members say they want to read the entire Bible but very few have succeeded in doing so. Biblical literacy in general has declined sharply in the last few decades. I'm excited about raising the level of Biblical literacy in our congregation and hope that many of those who finish will want to follow up with some in-depth Bible study. To me, that will be the true measure of the success of the program.
1 comment:
That sounds great. I'm really interested in how this works.
We have had a number of folks take Disciple, but few folks (myself included) are interested in such a long commitment. This sounds like it would be more effective.
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