One More Time for BIND

Thinking over the last five years I have spent as DCE at my church, I would have to say that the most significant thing we did, next to convincing the session to establish a dedicated Sunday School period, was the Bible in 90 Days program that we did last fall as part of the 20th anniversary celebration of the church.

It was a very exciting time. More than 125 people bought Bibles and joined one of the many groups that committed to the program. Although Hurricane Rita disrupted our schedule, about 70 finished reading the Bible in 90 (well, 97) days.

Last spring we offered BIND again and had a group of about 12 begin, with more than half of them finishing. So this fall we are offering it again. I wish that we had the money in the church's budget to do some advertising locally, because I don't think other churches in our area are offering BIND. But we don't, so this time I have a very small group--only 3--committed to meeting on Wednesday nights. I decided I missed the discipline of the daily readings so I'm leading the group myself. I also wanted to see the new videos that are part of the package Zondervan published, and so far I think they are more helpful than the "beta" version that we used last fall.

My hardy little band must make their way through Leviticus, Numbers and most of Deuteronomy this week. That's one of the tougher, less accessible parts of the Bible for most of us today. I'll find out tomorrow night how well they fared.

There's a different dynamic with a group this small. Our experience last fall was that the smaller the group, the more people successfully finished their reading. On the other hand, having just three people limits the opportunity for wide ranging discussions.

Wish us luck!