Syston Methodist Church are celebrating the 400th Anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible this autumn. We have three related events
Bible Reading Challenge
Starting at our Church Anniversary on Sunday 9th October we have a challenge to read the whole New Testament in 30 days. I am delighted that having put the notice out last week we already have over 20 people signed up for this.
The key objective is to Deepen our Discipleship (Our Circuit Mission is: Deepening Discipleship. making New Disciples) through encouraging us all to read the Bible more and improve our understanding of Scripture. This reading challenge will help especially with understanding God's big picture and also improving our experience of the relationships between the books, characters and events of the New Testament.
However, we have added a little side objective which is to raise some money for the mission of Syston Methodist Church and for Bible Translation. So there is a £5 entry fee (gets you the reading plan), opportunities for sponsorship and a £10 "fine" if you give up before the end.
If anyone out there in Internet land would like to join in, I am happy to recieve donations amd then email you the reading plan.
We are also making sure we support and encourage those on the challenge so we are offering two suppoert groups that will meet weekly starting the week before the challenge. So far just over half those signed up for the reading challenge have also signed up for the small groups which means both are going ahead.
Bible Exhibition
Towards the end of the Bible Reading Challenge we are putting on a Bible Exhibition with a lareg collection of Bibles in different languages & formats. It will include a guide to English translations and also people's own Bibles with their stories of why they are important to them. We hope to have a number of other exhibitors as well.
The Exhibition will then feed into a new monthly event (normally 1st Sunday evening of the month, starting 6th November) at Syston at 6pm titled "A Fresh look at the Bible" which will be led by our Superintendent Minister Rachel and myself. We had a good session planning this today and I am really looking forward to this.
So a busy time, but the reactions have been great so I am very excited about what God is doing here.