'Bring Your Bible Day' launches new initiative, encourages both students and adults to share the Bible
An annual event designed to encourage students to share their faith is opening up to adults this year.
“Bring Your Bible Day,” a project of the socially conservative advocacy organization Focus on the Family, is scheduled to take place on Oct. 3. In the past, the event has been known as "Bring Your Bible to School Day" and called on students to proudly proclaim their Christian faith at school by, as the name of the day suggests, bringing their Bibles to school.
This year is a bit different, however, as adults are also being encouraged to participate in Bring Your Bible Day.
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“With this year’s expansion from Bring Your Bible to School Day to the broader Bring Your Bible Day, children and adults alike will boldly go into their schools and workplaces to bring the healing balm of the Gospel to a hurting world,” Emerson Collins, the project manager organizing the annual event, said in a statement shared with The Christian Post.
“With political tension and economic unsurety in the air, Bring Your Bible Day not only serves as an important reminder of the values through which this country was founded, but also an encouragement to Christ-followers everywhere to be active and open about our faith in the public space,” he added.
Noting that there were “over one million student participants in last year’s National Bring Your Bible to School Day,” Collins said “this year is shaping up to the biggest one yet,” adding, “It couldn’t come at a better time.”
Statistics compiled by Focus on the Family reveal that more than 5,000 churches were involved in Bring Your Bible to School Day last year, and over 50,000 schools were represented.
The participation of more than 1 million students in last year’s Bring Your Bible to School Day comes two years after Focus on the Family’s Vice President of Parenting and Youth, Danny Huerta, told CP that his organization had set a goal to have “1 million kids bringing their Bible to school.” At the time, about 514,000 students had participated in the event.
This year, those aged 13 years old or older can sign up for Bring Your Bible Day by filling out a form on the event’s official website, while those younger than 13 can have their parent or guardian do so on their behalf. While bringing a Bible to school or work is the basic component of the annual occasion, Christians are encouraged to be “salt and light” at the workplace in other ways too.
Examples of ways Christians can include their coworkers as part of Bring Your Bible Day include “giving away an extra Bible as a gift, jotting down and distributing favorite verses, or organizing a Bible study during lunch breaks.” Participants in Bring Your Bible Day seeking to share their faith at work or school are expected to avoid disrupting school or work time.
Bring Your Bible Day is just one aspect of Focus on the Family’s “Live It” challenge, which “equips students and families to live out and pass down their faith through a series of fun, practical activities.” More than 150,000 families have signed up for the Live It challenge, which enables them to follow the “head, heart, hands” model to share the teachings of the Bible with others.
The head, heart, hands model helps families to “know God’s Word, the truth where the character and person of God is revealed and told,” “grow in a biblical worldview and view the world and our culture through God’s lens” and “go and make a difference in your own life and the lives of others through change.”
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: [email protected]
