A version of this story appeared in the Higher Ground newsletter from The Washington Times. Click here to receive Higher Ground delivered directly to your inbox each Sunday.
A Christian ministry known for its pocket-sized devotional booklets is turning to a larger, book-formatted Bible presentation to engage readers with Scripture.
Our Daily Bread Ministries has acquired the Institute for Bible Reading and its “Immerse: The Reading Bible” book series from its founders. The institute describes itself as a nonprofit think tank that seeks to increase Bible reading, something that’s been in decline recently.
The non-denominational Our Daily Bread, based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, is known among Christians (particularly those over age 50) for its decades-long publication of monthly booklets containing a daily Scripture reference and devotional thought.
Matt Lucas, president of Our Daily Bread Ministries, said the organization’s focus extends to getting people to read the Bible as a story and become inspired.
The “Immerse” series uses the New Living Translation of the Bible, a more modern rendering that is popular among evangelicals. It presents the Bible in six volumes that read like a novel, rather than a verse-numbered and footnoted study text.
It’s supplied with reading plans that a book club could use to complete a volume in eight or 16 weeks. Four questions are suggested for each club discussion: What stood out to a reader that week? Was there anything confusing or troubling? Did anything make a reader feel differently about God? How might this change the way readers live?
Research showing a decline in biblical reading highlights the need for such an approach.
The American Bible Society reported its annual “State of the Bible” survey in April that the percentage of Americans reading the Bible plummeted to 39%, down from a pandemic-era high of 50% in 2021. The organization said its research revealed that 24% of American adults read the Bible at least once a week outside of a church service.
“I think people just find the Bible difficult to read and to understand at times as we become more Bible illiterate,” Mr. Lucas told The Washington Times. “I think there’s just a sense of it being disconnected from everyday modern life.”
One of Our Daily Bread Ministries’ goals is to get people to engage more with Scripture, and its acquisition of the “Immerse” project is one step toward that goal.
Mr. Lucas said the Bible “does ask us to engage it” as a book and not a dictionary-like volume in which specific references are sought. “It actually asks us to read, reflect and respond to it. So that’s what we’re trying to help people do,” he said.
“The book club idea is reading the Bible in its original form as a reading Bible rather than a study Bible and doing research about what’s the best way to engage Scripture so that you try to read it as close to how it was originally received,” he said.
Scott Bolinder, a co-founder of the Institute for Bible Reading, said in an interview his organization has sold more than 300,000 copies so far, and hopes the acquisition by Our Daily Bread Ministries further pushes its sales.
“The opportunities are enormous, not just in North America but around the world,” Mr. Bolinder said, referring to Our Daily Bread Ministries as “very kindred spirits in this whole idea of trying to get people to not just have Bibles, but actually engage them deeply and read them well.”
The series has been translated into Spanish, Mr. Lucas noted, and the group is looking into Portuguese and other languages. Our Daily Bread is connected to more than 100,000 churches worldwide, and the ministry will reach out to those congregations as a starting point, he added.
There’s also an “Immerse” curriculum for Christian and public schools where the Bible can be taught as literature, something that once was common but which has declined in recent decades, he said.
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