Make Sure Everyone Gets The Word
Mona Underwood takes a close look at the 20-somethings who come for Bible study on Sundays and Wednesdays at her church in Rincon, Ga. They are missing one important book.
“About 75 percent of our folks don’t have a Bible,” said Underwood, who leads college and career ministry.
Mike Glenn, the senior pastor at Brentwood (Tenn.) Baptist Church, found the same thing to be true at Kairos, Brentwood’s gathering for young adults. He sent a group of them to a nearby LifeWay Store, and they came back without one Bible between them.
Their question? “Which one?” There were overwhelmed with the many translations and options they had to choose from.
Both Mona and Mike came to the same conclusion. They decided they needed to provide Bibles for the people who come to their church.
Here’s the truth: providing Bibles is a best practice for Young Adult Ministry at your church. At every church who is effectively reaching this generation, they make sure Bibles are available to every person who wants one.
It’s the foundation and the handbook for everything we do, yet only a very small percentage of the people in this generation have ever opened a Bible. Their parents probably have not read to them from this book, and, tragically, the Bible has become just another book in our society.
This has to change, and the best way to do it is to make sure every person who walks into your church has a Bible. Put them in the chairs where your worship gathering is held. Put them on tables in your classrooms. Make sure you have a supply in your home, if your Bible studies are held there. Wherever you are impacting the lives of young adults make sure everyone has access to The Word.
They don’t have to be $50 study Bibles - they can be inexpensive paperbacks. The most important thing is to make sure you have Bibles that are published in accurate, readable translations. LifeWay publishes the Holman Christian Standard Bible, a wonderful translation which I use personally.
This not a shameless plug for any one translation. This is a shameless plug for The Word.
One other piece of advice for leaders: keep extra Bibles with you at all times, ones that you can give away whenever you come in contact with someone who needs a Bible. Give them away in airports, coffee shops—wherever you have an opportunity to strike up a conversation with a new friend.
Not too long ago, I was in a church where a great message was being preached at a mid-week worship gathering. The speaker asked everyone to turn in their Bibles to a specific passage. The guy in front of me looked puzzled, looked all around his seat and couldn’t find a Bible. This was his first time to attend, and it looked it might also be his last.
Before I could process what was going on, an observant young lady hopped up and handed him her personal Bible so he could read along.
Don’t let this happen in your church.
Make sure EVERYONE gets The Word.
About the Author
Jim is the director of Young Adult Ministry at LifeWay Christian Resources. He has worked for the past 11 years in a variety of roles, ranging from marketing to publishing to Internet development. Before being called to full-time ministry, he worked as a reporter and editor at Alabama’s capital city daily newspaper, the Montgomery Advertiser, for 10 years. Prior to coming to LifeWay, he also worked as an adult-in-missions editor at the Brotherhood Commission in Memphis. Jim and his wife Tammy have been married for 23 years and have two sons, Spenser, 17, and Ethan, 10.
There have been 3 replies so far
This article is so true. Our church now has paperback Bibles that we have available to give to folks without one, and we also keep some in the pews for those who may arrive with a Bible for the worship service. Each of our Sunday School classrooms has extra Bibles as well.
The problem I now have as a Sunday School leader of college & career young adults is getting them to read their lessons before they come to class on Sunday. No matter what I can’t seem to get them to do this. Any ideas?
1 | tea42
Monday, July 16, 2007, at 2:32pm
It’s a tough issue because frankly most of the church world is not reading ahead about what they’re doing on Sunday. Perhaps the way to handle this is to frame up for the people who come to your group why this helps them have a better Sunday morning experience. Does it make the discussion more rich? Does it help them understand the relevance of your teaching better? Perhaps you could email scripture passages to your group the week before and get the conversation started there? It might just spill over into Sunday morning. One of the things we are doing with Threads studies is giving leaders emailable audio files aimed at keeping the conversation going when the group is apart. That’s one of the reason behind providing playlists of music to go with the studies as well. It gets you in the frame of mind where God can speak to you about what you’re learning away from the group session. I hope this helps a little bit.
2 | Jim Johnston
Tuesday, July 17, 2007, at 1:23pm
I currently work with college students through the Baptist Collegiate Ministry and through our local church (I’m one of four Sunday School Teachers). Much of what is mentioned above hits home in my ministry. But it hits home even more. As a former youth minister, I believe much of what we are seeing with today’s young adult generation is partially due to the way that we youth ministers (I don’t speak for all but I’m sure I represent many) did ministry among them when they were in our youth ministries. I can remember many times preparing for worship and feeling that it was important that ALL the students see the passage for themselves. So, I would pull up Quick Verse and paste the passage in the powerpoint. That way everyone could see it and read along with me. Good? No. Unfortunately, I noticed that many of the students that were bringing their Bibles would assume that I would have the verses up for them to read each week.
I really struggled with this over time. I realized that I had to do something to make the turn back to them bringing their Bibles. Yes, I did do the cheezy “Bring your Bible this week and we’ll put your name in for a free CD.” But you know what….they began bringing their Bibles. And I stopped putting the verses on the screen. Instead we made sure we had some inexpensive (cool looking) paperback Bibles. We even gave some away to kids who didn’t have one.
So, all in all, I’m to blame. Please forgive me. :)
3 | kansasmo
Thursday, July 26, 2007, at 5:07pm
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