Background to Grow with the Bible

Since 1996 the major Bible reading notes agencies BRF, CWR, IBRA and Scripture Union, and now also The Salvation Army/Words of Life have been working together under the name Grow with the Bible to tackle the alarming decline in personal Bible reading throughout the UK.

To date three major Grow with the Bible initiatives have been promoted. The first, in 1997, was the production and distribution to churches and Christian bookshops of 300,000 copies of a leaflet, which set out to raise the profile of the Bible and the importance of reading it regularly. This was enthusiastically endorsed by church leaders of all denominations, many of whom commented on how good it was to see the four Bible reading agencies collaborating in this way.

Grow with the Bible for a Month

The second initiative was launched in Autumn 1998 and set out a challenge to the churches. A four-week A5 booklet of daily Bible reading notes Grow with the Bible for a Month was produced and made available along with a leader’s pack. This contained four sermon outlines and notes for four house-group sessions based on the four weeks of the Bible readings, so that the Sunday sermons and house-group meetings could be linked to the themes of each week’s daily readings. The challenge to churches was: ‘Just imagine if your entire congregation was reading the same Bible readings on a daily basis, with your house-groups thinking about, and your preaching based on, the same themes – just imagine what the impact might be if you both individually and corporately engaged with scripture in this way…’

Over 20,000 copies of the Grow with the Bible for a Month were distributed direct to churches. Feedback was extremely positive, particularly where the material has been used with new Christians and those who have been part of Christian education courses. From early 2001 the Grow with the Bible for a Month readings were also made available via the Grow with the Bible website, so that they could be downloaded and photocopied. The readings were downloaded over 4,600 times during the two years they were available on the website.

Looking for something good to read this week?

2002 heralded a significant new development for Grow with the Bible, with the Bible reading agencies collaborating for the first time with the major Bible publishers in a joint campaign.

A leaflet Looking for something good to read this week? was produced to challenge and encourage people to pick up a Bible. It offered help with finding the right version of the Bible for you – the essential first step to regular personal Bible reading – along with details of where to find more information about the Bible reading notes and other resources available.

300,000 copies of the leaflet were printed and distributed between May 2002 and Easter 2003. The campaign was promoted direct to churches, through bookshops throughout the UK, and in association with a number of other Christian organisations. Discussions with Christian Resources Exhibitions Ltd led to the organisers making ‘Restoring the Bible in the Life of our Nation’ the central theme for all three Christian Resources Exhibitions (CRE) during 2002.

Those involved with Grow with the Bible believe that if we are to succeed in our aim of encouraging more Christians to read the Bible regularly, a collaborative venture is likely to achieve more than each of us ‘doing our own thing’. As the saying goes, we are ‘better together’.