Ideas for uni ministry: Encouraging Bible reading
I’m going to start posting occasionally about ideas for uni ministry. This first one relates to Bible reading.
My hunch is that for uni students actually picking up a physical Bible is becoming less common these days. The amount of time spent on computers by students has greatly increased. Much of life is spent online – switching between emails, im, checking facebook and reading blogs…and occasionally studying towards degrees.
I reckon that Bible reading could very easily be added to that list of online activities(/distractions).
All you’d need to do is set up a blog and post a chapter a day and encourge students to subscribe by rss or email. Over the course of an average degree (3 years) you’d cover the whole Bible!
Of course there are already blogs around which do this kind of thing. But I’m suggesting that you should run one just for your uni group. Why?
1. It would create the sense that the group is reading the Bible together. The same plan is used by everyone
2. Capable students could contribute their reflections and comments to be included in the post for each chapter.
3. Prayer suggestions will of course arise from the passage but could be focussed toward things of relevance and concern to the local group.
4. Comments and discussion come from the group and are answered by the group
5. Integration (stylisticly and logically) into the group’s website
like your thinking. props.
Reply to dave miersLove to see more posts on uni ministry!
Interesting idea…
I love the thought of everyone reading through the Bible as a campus community.
Got some questions:
How would this run alongside weekly talks and/or Bible studies?
How would this work as a useful contribution to the character of the campus community without becoming an excuse for students not to be involved on campus, or a hangout for online nerds?
Reply to ArthurGood questions Arthur.
I think to the first: ‘how would this run alongside…’?
In the same way that many groups currently encourage students to read their bible personally on a regular basis. It wouldn’t need to follow the main talks/bible studies. The thought behind this is that students can get distracted by online life and not spend time reading the bible personally (speaking from personal experience!) so why not add personal bible reading to the list of online ‘distractions’…
So the second question: how would this contribute to community.
well it’s personal bible reading, but solidarity in personal bible reading i guess. Naturally that will have a strengthening effect for the community as individuals are built up to love god and each other through his word.
Reply to reubenI’m not sure that a bible reading blog would present a sufficient excuse for avoiding face to face contact though? but could be wrong…
Mate, set up the blog now! I’ll start subscribing and reading.
Reply to SamRThe solidarity thing is great. I’ve known a few mates who’ve done this sort of thing (without the technology) – get together and decide to read the bible through in a year, and met once a week to talk about what they’d been reading (and to encourage each other to keep at it). In then end a few dropped out, and it took them more than a year, but without the solidarity, I don’t think they would have been hearing as much of God’s voice.
Any thoughts on copyright for this kind of thing?
Reply to Daniel Saunders@Dan – I have found bible in one year too much also so i feel for those who dropped out. A chapter a day is mostly do-able i think…Thanks for the example though!
The copyright is an interesting one. don’t know, but i think there would be issues using a modern translation like NIV. I guess as a last resort, posts could link off site to biblegateway.com or something. i’ll look into it! (or if someone else knows, chip in!)
@Sam – I will implement it eventually, if no one else wants to take it and run with it. If it’s designed well it should be easily re-used in different settings.
Maybe a moore focussed one as a beta? I’ll talk to you more bout it. Anyone else interested in such a thing (bible blog for moore peeps)?
Reply to reubenEveryone seems to interact online more these days, but online environments are especially attractive to some people. So on a Bible blog like this, wouldn’t just a small clique of people end up dominating it from week to week? (Remember the Logos forum?)
Not everyone spends heaps of time getting distracted online like we do, and many people don’t actually have a big online life, so this would in fact require them to create *more* time online rather than slotting neatly into their lives.
For others, it could feel like too much of a big deal — ‘not another EU commitment!’
What I’m saying is that it will work very easily for some people, somewhat for many people, and not at all for others. But if we make it normative for a campus group (?), how would we deal with these things? I think these are the issues with it.
Ooh, by the way, have you seen http://examen.me/ — is this what you’re thinking of????
Examen.me is private (no online discussion) but could still be incorporated in a community…
Reply to ArthurArthur thanks for highlighting the issues. some initial thoughts:
some people dominating? I was thinking the same thing earlier today. It is a good point and a possible drawback to the group comments feature i suggested and probably gets worse as the size of the group increases! No solution to this one, sorry but i still like group commenting in theory…reading the bible together and so on.
not everyone is big into online? I agree, but i think there is a generational change at the moment which is increasing the number of people in the ‘big online life category’. For them this might be a welcome addition to that online life. Even for those who don’t blog and all the rest, they’ll use email at the very least (being students) so subscribing should still still work out well for them.
More time online? well, yes…but then bible reading on a regular basis is always going to take more time i guess!
Making it normative and another commitment? I don’t think i’d sell it that way. I’d go for ways to create buzz and rely on that to draw people who are interested into it. It’s all about options and choice. or something like that
I like the look of examen.me…it does tick most of the boxes. good find!
Reply to reubenYeah, I don’t think it’s a non-starter or anything! Cool.
Reply to Arthur