Advocacy for SE
Of this I am convinced: This side of heaven there is nothing more wonderful we could ever hold in our hands or engage with our minds than God’s Word as given to us in the Bible.
The author describes 25 ways of engaging with Scripture:
Survey the Word, Listen to the Word, Read the Word Silently, Read the Word Aloud (Privately), Read the Word Publicly, Discuss the Word, Hand-copy the Word, Study the Word, Cross-reference the Word, Stress the Word, Highlight the Word, Read the Word Responsively, Paraphrase the Word, Dramatize the Word, Sketch the Word, Read the Word Interpretively, Memorize the Word, Recite the Word Interpretively, Personalize the Word, Sing the Word, Hum the Word, Display the Word, Share the Word, Teach (or Preach) the Word, Do the Word! [more...]
On the Bible Engagement Leadership Blog from the American Bible Society, you can find articles published weekly on topics of Bible engagement.
Recent articles include:
How to get your whole church reading the Bible
The most important factors in increasing Bible engagement
How to use movies to energize your Bible engagement
Diversity: how to help kids see themselves and others in the Bible [more...]
"Are you stuck along the way of engaging with the Bible? If so, where? Why? If you're involved in ministry, are the people you work with stuck? If so, where? Why?"
Scripture Engagement can be seen as a process: Bible Availability, Bible Awareness, Bible Use, Bible Understanding, Bible Engagement. The process can be arrested at any step along the way.
This article presents some of the key challenges for ongoing discussion. Give your feedback in the comments here or in the Lausanne Global Conversation. [more...]
So what is Scripture engagement? It is a way of hearing and reading the Bible with an awareness that it is in the Scriptures that we primarily meet God. It is a marinating, mulling over, reflecting, dwelling on, pondering of the Scriptures, resulting in a “transformative engagement” with God.
Bible Gateway, the popular Bible website, now has a section on Scripture Engagement, created in partnership with the Taylor University Center for Scripture Engagement.
Here you'll find a set of practical exercises and activities you can undertake to interact more meaningfully with the Bible. Introductory articles include 'What is Scripture Engagement?' and 'An Overview of Scripture Engagement Practices'.
Topics include: Lexio Divina, praying Scripture, memorizing Scripture, singing Scripture, journaling Scripture, hand copying Scripture, Scripture engagement through visual art, storying Scripture, speaking Scripture, manuscript Bible study and public reading of Scripture. Each topic has practice tips as well as links to helpful resources. [more...]
Scripture engagement is about meeting God. It is a relational process. When you come to Scriptures, are you meditating on them, letting them be on your heart, talking about them, letting them be planted in your life, looking at them intently, and retaining them?
This 30-day Bible Reading Plan has been prepared for those participating in the FOBAI Annual Meeting: "Next Generation Scripture Engagement - the South Asian Experience".
The plan focuses on what the Bible says about God’s Word and is full of relevant Scripture passages and quotes for SE practitioners around the world.
Day 1: What do we mean when we say the Bible is the Word of God?
Days 2-3: How do we come to the Word of God?
Day 4: What is the Word of God like?
Days 5-7: Qualities of God's Word
Day 8: The Persons of the Trinity are distinguished from
one another in Scripture according to their role in the divine speech
Day 9: In the Bible, Scriptures are spoken of as if they were God and God is spoken of as if he were the Scriptures.
Day 10: The God who speaks.
Day 11: God's Word is about Jesus
Day 12: Where God's Word is, there is God's Spirit
Day 13: Hearing God's Word
Day 14: Speaking God's Word
Day 15: Singing God's Word
Day 16: Memorizing God's Word
Day 17: God's Word is clear... [more...]
BibleFresh is a joint initiative which aims to encourage and inspire churches across the UK to make the most of the year 2011, empowering Christians to a deeper level of engagement with the Bible. The initiative brings together nearly a hundred agencies to raise the level of biblical literacy across the UK, through the following four tracks:
- Bible Reading
- Bible Training
- Bible Translation
- Bible Experiences
The BibleFresh website now has a leaders' guide to download and will host other resources as 2011 approaches. [more...]
"So my challenge to Christian leaders who are genuinely concerned about the decline in Bible reading is this: stop telling us we’re biblical ignoramuses, and start encouraging us to meet God in his Word. Because ultimately, true Bible engagement is real God engagement. And that’s our deepest need."
Whitney Kuniholm (Scripture Union) urges us to move beyond mourning Bible illiteracy - the increasing lack of Bible knowledge in our societies. Rather, he encourages us to call people to Bible engagement - meeting God in his Word and responding in obedience. [more...]
"Praise God for this event where so many people from what Brazil calls the three waves of missions worked together. As one person reported, he heard expatriates, Portuguese MT Brazilians and indigenous people calling the event 'their forum'."
This is a report from the first Brazil Forum for the Use of the Scriptures in Indigenous Languages, which brought together 200 people, representing 59 ethnic groups and 32 organizations.
There were plenary sessions in the morning with group discussions following. In the afternoon there were workshops on topics such as Scripture Memorization, Use of Indigenous Scriptures in the family and eight other diverse topics. The evenings were for enjoying different ethnic music, hearing testimonies, and in general, having good fellowship. [more...]
It is important for all of the local churches to be increasingly implicated in the translation project for the following reasons: It ensures that the translated Scriptures will be used after the New Testament’s publication, so that there will be a greater impact of the Holy Scriptures in the life of the Church.
The Cameroon Association for Bible Translation and Literacy (CABTAL) has a Church Relations department which seeks to involve local churches in the translation task from the very start of the project. It is their belief that the more the churches are involved in supporting the work, the more the published Scriptures will be used.
The August 2006 edition of CABTAL's "Scriptures Alive" magazine focusses on this part of their ministry, describing the many ways in which they are sharing the vision for Bible translation and Scripture Engagement: banquets, Sunday morning presentations in churches, speaking at general assemblies, attending New Testament dedications, visiting a Bible translation project, seminars at a Bible Schools and seminaries... [more...]
Only God's inspired Word changes people's lives. That's a fact. It's also a fact that fewer people than ever know that the answers to their problems are contained in that dusty book on their shelves.
The Center for Bible Engagement exists to encourage Bible reading and Bible study; to not only equip the reader with biblical answers to life's questions, but to foster a biblical lifestyle as well. [more...]