Bible Reading Challenges from Local Church Pastors

My tradition as a local church pastor is to emphasize Bible Reading as a Christian discipline. Each year around the New Year, I preach on the topic and hand out various Bible reading schedules. Lately, I’ve provided these schedules here on P&D as well. You will find links for our schedules at the end of the article. There are other good schedules out there as well.

As part of the emphasis this year, I invited comments from a group of pastors to challenge you with challenges they are making to their own church people. Yesterday, we posted a full article from one of them. We commend it again to you. Today we have two brief challenges from pastors for alternate ideas for Bible reading. These challenges aren’t “the whole Bible in the year” but rather “systematic purposeful Bible reading.” No matter which approach you take, the important thing is regular Bible reading. You should vary your Bible reading programs, to keep your approach to the Book from becoming stale, and you should persist in your Bible reading programs, to keep your heart from growing cold.

Here are the challenges from two of our friends:

From Doug Wright, pastor of Keystone Baptist Church in Berryville, Virginia

365° Bible Reading Club
“Well-rounded people reading year-round”

I am looking for 75 people to join me this year to read one chapter per day – 365 chapters this year. The plan is simple. You pick what & where you want to read. I encourage you to vary it a little. If you are a beginner, read from the New Testament – perhaps begin in the gospels. If you are a more seasoned believer, you may want to rotate Old & New Testament books or choose something from the different sections. Bible reading charts are available at the information desk and you simply mark off the chapters as you read.

Now, there are a few guidelines. You can’t just read 365 chapters in a month or two and say you are done. The goal is to develop a daily reading habit. Some might have a plan to miss a day or two. For example, someone studying for a Sunday school lesson may set aside a day or two to study and double up on their reading the other five or six days. That is acceptable. What we don’t want is simple neglect and then trying to read a bunch of chapters at once. Minimally, you should plan to read at least five days each week.

The other guideline is that you have to be accountable. A few of us will check regularly and have you submit a report so we will know how we are doing as a group. Many people are self-disciplined enough to read because they determine they will do it. Others need a little encouragement. You may be able to encourage someone else by your faithfulness to the plan.

The goal is to read God’s Word habitually. While other books, devotionals, etc. are helpful, nothing takes the place of what God has chosen to preserve for mankind. He considers this information important – we should too. When you regularly read, you learn how God thinks and develop a biblical theology. This will make you stronger and will make our church stronger.

From Mike Privett, pastor of Summit View Baptist Church, Greenville, SC

I am inviting our church family to “Ponder through Proverbs” with me either in personal or family devotions in 2020. My goal is for folks to meditate on the Word of God repeatedly this year. Read the chapter of Proverbs that corresponds to the date of the month, then I will give opportunities in the Sunday evening and Wednesday evening services for folks to take one-minute to share something that the Lord has taught or emphasized to them in their reading that week. We will also review Proverbs 2:1-5 each time. Those who accept the challenge will read through Proverbs twelve times in 2020.

To God be the glory!

As promised, here are our Bible reading program links.

Three from the Discipleship Journal at the Navigators site:

The 5x5x5: a plan for reading the New Testament in one year – if you aren’t in the habit of daily Bible reading, this gives you a good start.

Book At a Time: this plan alternates between one OT book and one NT book with additional one chapter a day readings from the Wisdom literature and Isaiah.

DJ Bible Reading Plan: this plan has you reading four different portions each day, giving you a well-rounded look at all the Biblical message from different perspectives.

Each of these plans includes at least one flex day in the week. These enable you to catch up if you fall behind. Alas, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak!

My own Chronological Bible Reading Plan. This plan came from a time in our church when we preached chronologically through the Bible in a seventeen-month period. I keep tweaking this plan as I use it regularly, but no doubt some errors remain. The idea is to read the Bible chronologically, with the prophets in line with the history so, as I say, “you can see what the prophets were mad about.” I’ve also included a flex day in the latest edition of this plan.

The Murray McCheyne plan. Many disciples use this plan, it might be just what you like to use.

Honorable mention goes to the ESV Reader Bible. Here is a link to it and several other “Readers Bibles” at Christian Book Distributors – The price fluctuates, it appears you can get a softcover edition for less than $10 right now! It has no verse or chapter numbers, just text, with a few headers. It makes for quite a different Bible reading experience. In the narratives, you do tend to feel less constrained by chapter divisions. My review is published here. The short version: I recommend this especially for the narratives and as an alternative to the plans you would use regularly. I don’t plan to read the Reader Bible every year, but will probably pick it up again for another foray in the future.

Preaching on this topic in our church, I said, “Pick a plan and get started, see how long you can go before you peter out. Then when you realize you’ve stalled, get yourself started again. You may have to restart yourself several times a year. That’s all right. Just make a plan and work your plan and see what the Lord will do in your life.”

Don Johnson is the pastor of Grace Baptist Church of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada.