Reading through the Bible is a common New Year’s resolution, and this year, members of First Baptist Church, Birmingham, approached the goal together.
From Jan. 3 to Jan. 17, church members read the Bible aloud from the church sanctuary, broadcasting the reading on Facebook Live and YouTube as well. The effort — “Faith Comes by Hearing: Two Weeks, 66 Books, One Awesome God” — took 72 hours and involved church members of all ages in a ministry effort even as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to present challenges in ministry, said Rich Hutchens, associate pastor at First, Birmingham.
“We’ve been working hard not to default to survival mode,” Hutchens said. “We’ve endeavored to stay proactive by giving our people opportunities for ministry. So, we thought, ‘We focus on Scripture every Sunday morning. We have a unison reading of Scripture together that is the basis for the message on that morning.’… We wanted to give our congregation the opportunity to be involved in the reading of the word of God.”
Bible reading marathons are common across Alabama around the National Day of Prayer observance that happens annually on the first Thursday in May.
When a staff member proposed the idea for January 2021, Hutchens thought it had the potential to provide a sort of reset, a renewed focus coming out of a tough year.
“[I thought] it could be a great thing for us to do as a church to really declare our commitment to the word of God, to provide people sort of a reminder that this is what we are about. … Out of that, it took a life of its own.”
Logistics planning
The logistics took some working out.
Hutchens used Biblereadingplangenerator.com to figure out how long it would take to read the Bible in 15-minute increments daily — 288 days — which he divided into two weeks to figure out how many slots per day it would take.
Then readers were recruited, beginning with “anchor readers” who were willing to commit to at least 10 blocks of 15 minutes each. Next they added “support readers” who signed up for at least 5 blocks of time.
Finally, a banner went up with all of the remaining passages listed and a place for readers to claim those final slots.
A few precautions were also put in place due to COVID-19. The church set up two reading stations and allowed only two or three people in the sanctuary at a time.
Family, friends and community members could watch the readings, which were livestreamed on Facebook and YouTube, live or at their convenience.
One of the first readers, Kassie Smith, was nervous about reading aloud.
“I had some doubts because I don’t read out loud very often,” she said. “It worked out that I got some of my favorite passages, kind of by accident. I always loved the Noah story, and one of the passages I marked in my Bible years ago on a mission trip happened to be open, so I got it.”
Churchwide effort
Most of the 288 time slots were filled by church members, but church staff members took a few slots and substituted for readers as needed.
The effort made participants more appreciative of God’s word, and Hutchens heard from many participants who said they had picked a time slot because it was the only time available, only to find the selected passage spoke into their specific circumstances.
Those testimonies show the power of Scripture, he said.
“The word of God is foundational to everything that we do. It is the one thing that gives us hope in the midst of any situation. We felt that following 2020, this would be a great way to begin 2021 — herein lies the hope that we have,” said Hutchens. “We know of Christ, and we know of the gospel through the written word of God.”
View “Faith Comes by Hearing” on the church’s Facebook page, First Baptist Church of Birmingham.
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