Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Well, a new study out of Barna found that Bible reading in the United States is decreasing. In fact, it found that people are more likely to think that the Bible is a book of fables than it is the actual word of God. In this conversation, we're gonna break down some of the reasons we think why and what your church can do to help build a culture where Bible reading is the norm. Let's do this. You are listening to the Reach right podcast, the show dedicated to helping your church reach more people and grow. Well, hey guys, I'm Thomas.
Speaker 1 00:00:33 I'm Ian.
Speaker 0 00:00:34 And today we are talking about a new study that finds that Bible reading is decreasing all over the us and we're gonna talk a little bit about why I think it should be a good conversation. Uh, it was, um, it was interesting to me. I wouldn't say that it's surprising, um, right. You know, obviously, uh, as leaders in our churches, I've pastored churches, Ian, you've pastored churches and, uh, it, uh, it's an understatement for us to say that Bible readings is important, right? Yeah. We, we obviously know that Bible reading is, uh, one of the most important spiritual disciplines that people can partake in. Uh, and it seems pretty clear from this new study from Barna that those numbers are on the decrease. And it's something that I think we have to start taking pretty seriously in the church. We need to, we need to write this ship. Uh, so we want to talk a little bit today about some things we can do, right?
Speaker 1 00:01:24 Yeah. And hopefully this in, uh, encourages pastors ministry leaders out there because we know, again, this has been a thing for a while, that many Christians struggle reading their Bible and many pastors struggle in how to encourage their, their people to, to do so. And so, yeah, why don't we just dig into the, the stats and how often people are reading their Bible. This was, you know, interesting, but like you said, probably not a huge shocker, but, um, but the first one that Stu sticks out is that only 11% of Americans, I guess this is a US study. Um, so 11% of people, um, read their Bibles, uh, seven days a week. So 11%, so yep, you the 11. Good job. Keep it up. Um, so, and then we have, um, basically 5% of people read it four to six times a week, and then you got 9% of people two to three times a week, and then you got, um, another nine.
Speaker 0 00:02:24 It goes down from there, right? Yeah,
Speaker 1 00:02:26 It goes down from there, yeah. Once a month, and then it goes down to three or four times a year. And then lastly, never <laugh>.
Speaker 0 00:02:32 So, yes. Yeah. Well, so the, the last two categories, and this is a Barna study by the way. We'll have the link in the descriptions. You can see the, the proof in the pudding here on this. But, so you had 29% say they never read the Bible. I think that means never, ever, because the one before that is less than once a year. So I don't know how often that is, if it's less than once a year. Uh, so that between those two, that's 42%. So getting close to half of people, uh, don't under open their Bible, um, really under any circumstances, it doesn't seem like. So, um, surprised. I'd say no. I, I don't think I'm really surprised by any of this here. I think, um, I would actually guess that a lot of people on the top end, they read their Bibles less frequently than they think they do, right?
Speaker 0 00:03:14 Because I think if I'm just asked in passing, Hey, do you read your Bible every day? Uh, then I'd probably say, yeah, that's something I do. I believe in that. But in reality, like, you know, there are times where I'm busy or I just don't do it, or something goes haywire in the morning. Other day we had smoke detectors go off all over our house and I had to get up at the, when I would normally be reading my Bible and stop the rigging all over the place. And I realized the next day I didn't get into the word that day. And so it's some one of those things that, you know, we, I think people tend to lie on these kinds of studies. So I'm not surprised, if anything, I'm a little bit surprised at how high those numbers are. But again, the total between people that read their Bible, let's call like regular Bible readers, those that read their Bible four to six times, or even like two to three times a week, um, it's probably around 25% of people all together. They read their Bible at least a few times a week there. So someone that has a habit in their life of Bible reading about 25% of Americans. So yeah, I'd say that probably is, uh, that's more than I would've suspected. So maybe, uh, as we're kicking ourselves and saying, man, that's really terrible. Maybe there's something to be celebrated there that people, people that do that are probably relatively committed Christians Yeah. That are doing those kinds of things. So I I, some good news in a way,
Speaker 1 00:04:28 It, I think it is, and I think we've seen in just, not just with Bible reading, but if you look at statistics across the board, like what companies track as far as like the top 10% of people in the company doing the majority of the work, right? Mm-hmm. We've, we've, we've seen those things. I think it's just kind of, that's, that's common, right? That, uh, yeah. That that fewer people do more. But, uh, but so I, I think there is some celebrating in it, but at least the next question is, you know, still it can be better, right? And still a pastor wants to encourage their, their people and not just a pastor. We, we wanna encourage people in general, uh, to, uh, to, to definitely read their Bible. So what's some, what's some motivation or some, maybe some fresh motivation, Thomas, that pastors can re uh, use?
Speaker 0 00:05:12 Yeah, I, I think something else they unpacked in this study from Barna, I think it, it was motivating to me. And I think that if we're feeling frustrated by the number of people or the amount that people are in the word within our church, I think we have to take a hard look at the numbers behind what people believe about the Bible. And so I wanna share these, I'm gonna look at 'em here and kind of give it back to you. So, um, 20% of us adults believe that the Bible is the actual word of God. So 20% of them believe that, compare that with 29% of us adults who believe that the Bible is an ancient book of fables. Uh, so, um, you know, two polar opposites and then there's the, the lions share. 49% of people believe the Bible has some, some level of inspiration from God, right?
Speaker 0 00:05:58 So there's, there's some level of that. So I think that Orthodox Christian teaching, we would believe that the Bible is the inspired actual word of God. It's word God's word to us here. That's that's what us that are leading churches would be teaching people within our churches here. So I think there's probably a direct correlation, cuz these numbers kind of, they look pretty similar. You have 29% believe the Bible is a book of ancient fables, and 29% of people say, we never read our Bible ever under any circumstances. That kind of correlates in my mind there. So I think that the problem in a lot of ways is not so much that there's lots of distractions, which is an issue, but it's more just that people maybe there's, maybe there's a seed of wrong belief about what the Bible actually is. Because if we think of it as just fables or be even like, even like good moral stories, right?
Speaker 0 00:06:50 There's not a lot of incentive. I don't go and read ESOP's fables right. Once a week or anything like that to kind of study them. And even if we just think that it is partially inspired, like it's good for teaching, but it's kind of hit or miss, I think that's not something that will drive someone to make a daily habit out of Bible readings. That's a good point. So I think the motivation for us is we need to probably do a bit of a course correction and, uh, maybe spend some time really talking about this within our churches and teaching people about what is the Bible. And when we understand that, yeah, we might see different results.
Speaker 1 00:07:21 I agree. And I think once that's taught and understood, well then there's always been these two types of things that do I plan, do I have, you know, scheduled reading plans or do I just try the spontaneous approach? You know, uh, when I, what comes to mind when I think about that as you open up the Bible and you just put your finger down on a scripture, and that must be what God sang <laugh>.
Speaker 0 00:07:42 Yeah. I had a pastor once tell me when I was a kid that his name was John, pastor John, uh, and he told me a story about how he did that once, and it went right to like that passage where it says that John was beheaded and so, uh, John the Baptist. And so he is like, I'm never gonna do that again. Right? So yeah, it's not a good idea. I don't think we're talking about that spontaneous, but for a church, I think there's a lot of value in having something that is structured Yeah. At your church as opposed to just kind of leaving it to people and having something spontaneous. The fact is that you'll never get a hundred percent participation in a church Bible reading program. If you get 50%, that is a huge win because that means 50% of your people are, are, it's a very different stat from what we're seeing from Barna here.
Speaker 0 00:08:26 Yeah. So if you get some level of participation and just giving people some kind of structure, that goes a long way. Now with that, there comes this kind of burden of guilt, uh, that people sometimes feel if they miss a day or they're behind, or how many of us have not been in that situation where, whether it be from vacation or sickness Yeah. Or whatever it be, where we get seven days behind on a Bible reading program, and then you just have to give up on it, right. Because Right, right. There's no way that I, I, I'd have to spend like four hours doing my reading today to catch up with this, and there's all that guilt that comes with it. So yeah, I would say that for churches, a structured approach is better, but give people permission to fail at it. Yeah. And just to get back up and give them not only a structure on how to read the Bible, but a structure on how to get back to reading the Bible after you inevitably have a failure in your Bible reading plan, because everybody does it. We all have shortcomings, you know, uh, even the, the best among us have days where we miss it or aren't able to absolutely give the full time. So give people a good route to jump back on. I think that's really a key to the strategy there.
Speaker 1 00:09:29 That's good. And would we recommend, or have we seen any effective types of reading plans that churches can use?
Speaker 0 00:09:34 Yeah, there's lots of them, right? I mean, so you think about like the, through the year type of plans or, yeah. Um, you could do like a
Speaker 1 00:09:41 Chronological
Speaker 0 00:09:41 For a while. Chronological Bible. I know our church does a through the year where they do the Old Testament once and the New Testament twice in the year. Now, full disclosure, uh, I occasionally jump on our church's reading plan, but I have not really been committed to our church's reading plan. I'm, I'm not a, I'm not leading the church here, so it's something that I feel okay about it and I have my own plans and things that God wants me to be going through. But I think that's a really helpful one. Again, as long as you get people permission to fail, I would caution you, especially for, for newer believers that some of the reading plans that are the Bible in a year or the Old Testament, once New Testament twice, there's a lot of heavy lifting to get through that, especially if you're new to the Bible and these concepts don't really mean a lot to you and you haven't studied some of these things yet, or it's unfamiliar to you. Uh, people can get pretty discouraged when you get to the, the genealogies or the backside of Leviticus. Oh yeah. And it can be kind of hard for people. So I would, I would exercise caution with that. Um, you know, I think for some churches, maybe something that isn't all the way through the year, but maybe just the New Testament in a year Yeah. Where you're getting through maybe a chapter or so a day that might be more palatable, especially for people that are newer to faith.
Speaker 1 00:10:56 Yeah. No, that's good. And, and, uh, I think it also is knowing your church, right? Knowing your people, knowing your, your kind of, your demographics and, you know, yeah. It, it takes some prayer and a good look at, uh, a big picture look. But, uh, well last but not least, we always like to end with like some sort of a call to action as we often say, even though we're talking about a spiritual topic here and not church marketing or anything like that. But what is maybe a, uh, some marching orders churches can, can carry out? What can they do now, you know, to what can they provide? I, I guess they're people. So
Speaker 0 00:11:27 There's a few ideas. I mean, so I come from a church tradition where we would give Bibles to people, anybody that came in the doors, they would be given a free bible. Um, they were not the nicest Bibles, they were paperback and we spent a few bucks a piece on them and it wasn't a huge investment. And if it was someone was gonna actually use it, we would be happy to do it. And we'd have people take it, take them and give them to their friends and those things. So I think there's something to be said for, for doing that, that I, I think on top of that, like giving people permission, maybe like once a year when you're starting your new Bible program, maybe in January, let's say, and people are, you're doing that message where you're talking about New year resolutions and commitments.
Speaker 0 00:12:07 Have people actually go through the exercise of opening up their phones and getting the Bible app on their phones in church and getting to the place where they can actually find, hey, we're gonna start in the book of Matthew and pulling that up so they can actually see it right there. So going through that practice, I think those kinds of things help them. I think if you're going to do a Bible reading program, have something in print, uh, don't just rely on, hey, if you go to our website there, you will find a Bible reading program. You can look at it there. You probably want something in print often, like a bookmark or something like that would go really well. They can just slide it into their bibles and there they'll have little check boxes for each day they can get through their reading program that kind of way. So, um, I dunno, there's lots of other ideas. Do you have any Ian, that people could run with?
Speaker 1 00:12:53 You know, it's funny, you, uh, you, you mentioned, uh, helping download the Bible app. I just did that for my father-in-law. Of course now he's older and, and, and, uh, getting used to a smartphone still and everything. But, uh, but I thought I, I'm, I'm a big, I use the, I have my paper Bible and I do read it from time to time. I'm big on the Bible app. Um, I know that there's also, um, uh, other outlets out there and I'm forgetting a big one, drawing a blank. It is, uh, they provide media resources for churches. Come on, help me out, Thomas. It's the one people subscribe to. Churches offer it anyway, there's digital forms and, and uh, I don't right
Speaker 0 00:13:32 Now media. Is that what you're
Speaker 1 00:13:33 Talking about right now? Media right now media has a lot of resources like that and devotional resources. Thank you for helping me there. I've known this. Uh, but uh, yeah. And so, and I think too, just good old fashioned small groups, right? Yeah. Getting people into small groups, uh, a lot I've led small groups that we're just reading through books of the Bible, you know? Sure. Chapter, chapter a week to discuss, you know, and those types of things don't make it too complicated, I would say.
Speaker 0 00:13:58 I think the great thing about you, you such a good point with small groups because the thing about them is that they add like a soft accountability to them, right? Yeah. So it's like no one at your small group ideally is gonna say, well, why didn't you read your bible today, Ian? You should have done that. They're not gonna rebuke you like that. But just knowing that in my small group, we're gonna be talking about some of the things that we've been reading this week. Yeah. It's kind of that soft reminder that I'm gonna, you know, be talking to friends and I want to be, I want to be on the same page and be, uh, doing this with them there. So yeah, I think small groups are a good, great place to kind of reinforce some of those, uh, those kind of the, the principle and encourage daily Bible reading through attendance and small groups. I think that's good.
Speaker 1 00:14:39 Absolutely. Well, good. This has been hopefully helpful stuff.
Speaker 0 00:14:42 Yeah. If it has, it would mean a lot to us guys, if you would rate, review, subscribe, do all those kinds of things, hit that, uh, bell for notifications when we put out new videos here. We do new content like this at least a couple of times a week on, uh, YouTube and other channels. So thanks guys for being a part of the Reach Right family, and we hope to catch you next week.
