Want to Know More About the Bible . . .Take the Bible Challenge!
By JoAnnJ. Filed in bible study |Tags: bible study
There’s an initiative sweeping through the church to help more people read the Bible – to read more of it and read it more deeply. It’s called, appropriately enough, the Bible Challenge. It started when the Rev. Marek P Zabriskie, rector of St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Forth Washington, PA, challenged his congregation in January 2011 to read through the Bible in a year. He hoped for 15 participants and got more than 200 including people outside their church.
Since then he and others started The Center for Biblical Studies to promote the Bible Challenge more widely – even globally. The website, www.thecenterforbiblicalstudies.org has a chart of daily readings (Old Testament, Psalm, New Testament) linked at the bottom of this page. There’s also a meditation, question or two, and a prayer that will be posted on this page every day, Monday through Saturday, throughout 2012. The website has tons of helpful resources for individuals, clergy, and parishes, and it offers options to consider for succeeding years of the Bible Challenge.
Connecticut connections:
Four of the Center’s founding members are from the Diocese of Connecticut: the Rev. John Branson, rector of Christ & Holy Trinity; the Rev. Jim Lemler, rector of Christ Church, Greenwich; the Rev. Joe Pace, rector of St. John’s, West Hartford; and the Rev. Peter Walsh, rector of St. Mark’s, New Canaan. All three of those churches are participating.
The Center’s advisory board includes international and US members, some from this diocese. The Rev. Carolyn Sharp, Yale Divinity School professor and curate at St. Thomas’, New Haven – and part of the Bible in the Life of the Church project of the Anglican Communion, will be one of the leaders in a related conference to be held in April 2012.
Bishop Ian T. Douglas made a New Year’s resolution to take up the Bible Challenge, and emailed Bishop Curry and Bishop Ahrens and all the diocesan staff with an invitation to join him, so your bishops and many on the diocesan staff are participating.
The Center would love to know if your parish is participating. Writes the Rev. Marek Zabriski: “If your church or you decide to join The Bible Challenge, please let us know so that we may learn from your experience and support your efforts. Together we can start a spiritual revolution that changes the world.”
Email them at join@thecenterforbiblicalstudies.org. We’ll have a link to the Center’s website, with its resources and list of participating parishes, on www.ctmissionconnect.org under a heading called Bible Study.