Encouraging a culture of Bible reading

Last year someone pointed out to me we had no system at church for encouraging people to read the bible for themselves. My reaction to this was of course denial. But his analysis was on the money. Occasionally personal quiet times might be encouraged from a sermon, or I’d speak to people one to one about their bible reading. I’d obviously try and model it myself. But despite an evangelical commitment to the centrality of scripture we mostly just lived in hope that people might read it themselves. There was no system in place to build a culture where personal bible reading was encouraged.

Perhaps the strangest thing about that omission is that the need was so obvious. Negatively, we struggle and struggle against biblical illiteracy - many of our regulars would not have read the Old Testament. Positively, I’m convinced that encouraging better listening to God’s word has the most potential to see immediate and sustained growth in the love and knowledge of Jesus.

So this year we’ve tried these things to put a system in place to encourage personal bible reading.... Keep reading