[Griffin Weiss]

Biblical literacy in decline is something that seems apparent without having to dig too much into what Christians know and don’t know about their Bibles. It is on the surface, a clear problem. I have volunteered with high school students through my Church for the past few years and it is consistently surprising to me how little these students, who are smart, academic people, know about the Old and New Testaments. How does this change and improve? I can think of one recommendation that may work for some communities, and maybe it would not for others. But, this idea has helped me greatly, especially as an undergraduate student, and that is to create community driven reading plans. I mean that as a community, encourage people to read a chapter or two per day of a book of scripture, maybe more, and then either report back in a group message something like that to encourage a level of accountability but more importantly, shared experience and community-driven understanding. As a college student, I did this with a group of about twenty people reading through many OT books that I had really never read before and it was a formative experience that gave me new love for and understanding of the scriptures.