How to create a Bible culture in the church

[00:00:05] Welcome everybody to the STOKE IT UP podcast, a podcast encouraging you and your journey with God. I'm Alan Stoddard and I am the host and I'm coming to you today with a podcast on this topic How to create a Bible culture.

[00:00:23] I've noticed in the last few years that people are coming to church and they're not bringing their Bible. And I noticed in churches all around the nation that I've been in and I watch online, Bible engagement has really decreased.

[00:00:42] There was a study that came out during the pandemic of 2020 that revealed that Bible engagement was actually down during the pandemic. That was a little disturbing to me. So when we got to the pandemic, I like everybody else decided I needed to get online and do some teaching.

[00:01:06] So of course our church did that and we had a younger team who could manage all of that digital technical stuff. But I got online with my phone every day as a way to start something online.

[00:01:22] I really was not the guy to start that but I just jumped out by faith and did it. Simple iPhone with a stand and went for it. Well here's what I did, I started going through books of the Bible chapter by chapter, verse by verse

[00:01:37] and I'm still going four years later. Here's what I realized as people are not engaging the Word of God in their own personal lives.

[00:01:49] And so when you go to church and you look around, you'll notice that there is a significant amount of people who are not bringing a Bible. They're not getting a Bible out. They are not even getting their phone out.

[00:02:04] And here's the thing, we are putting scripture up on the screen. So the question becomes, have we actually by using digital means created a culture that we did not really mean to create? How do you create a Bible culture? What do I mean by that?

[00:02:24] I'm going to give you 10 things to help guide this conversation to get you thinking about a Bible culture at any church. Whether you are the pastor or you are a leader who teaches in some Bible study, this will be beneficial for all of us. So here's number one.

[00:02:44] I would say this, use a physical Bible. What I had to realize in the pandemic was that my personal Bible study was terrible. I always liked to just plain out say it sucked. It was not good. I had to realize that I wasn't marking up a Bible anymore.

[00:03:04] I wasn't underlining highlighting circling words. The only time I was really studying my Bible was for Sunday sermons. I didn't teach in teaching. Nothing wrong with that. I was still having a quiet time, but there was a problem.

[00:03:21] I wasn't personally engaging in Bible study with any kind of excitement. Well I decided I'm going to get a paper Bible. I'm going to go back to the basics. I bought some highlighters, wax highlighters. I bought some pens and I started underlining and marking up and taking notes.

[00:03:40] I actually started journaling at one point, sometimes in a journal and other times in a physical Bible. I want to encourage you to have a physical Bible that you mark up that you eat up,

[00:03:53] that you study, that you underline, that you're allowed to take notes in, maybe put people's names for prayer request, whatever it is, a paper Bible, a physical Bible. If you're a preacher, I want to encourage you to use a physical Bible and the pulpit.

[00:04:10] I'm going to use the word pulpit. I mean platform of any kind, whether you're a pastor on a platform of a church or you're a Bible teacher in a small group, guiding teaching and discussion. It doesn't matter. I want to encourage you to use a paper Bible.

[00:04:29] People need to see a physical Bible in your hands. I think it makes a visual difference, but it will also make a functional difference. So number one, use a physical Bible. Now, still underneath this heading. Someone's going to ask, what about a digital Bible?

[00:04:47] Well, I encourage you to get your phone or your iPad with everyone. Most people will bring phones to church and lay it on top of your physical Bible. If you need it, some of you maybe go to church where the atmosphere is dark and maybe

[00:05:08] you can't read a paper Bible because they keep it dimmed. But use your digital Bible and set it on top of your Bible. And here's what you do. Turn off the WiFi. When you go to church, turn off your WiFi so you won't get any notifications while you're

[00:05:29] in church. Now, here's what you can do. As you can promote that, so let's move the number two. Number two is this, use the Bible.com QR code and worship before preaching.

[00:05:44] Or if you're in a small group, Bible study, I find a way to use the QR code. When I start preaching again constantly, consistently, I'm going to have on the screen when you go to Bible.com, a QR code comes up.

[00:05:59] I took a picture of it the other day. I cropped it and edited it. And I'm going to put that on the screen and get myself to where I say if you are new here and you don't have a Bible.

[00:06:12] Take your phone out and use your camera and scan this QR code and go ahead and download this app. And then turn off your WiFi and it's a way to use digital Bible in a way that is meaningful and beneficial to people in the church.

[00:06:34] So we're using a physical Bible but we're going to encourage digital Bible use at the same time. We're not going to be legalistic, by the way. We're a guilt-free environment but we're going to go for it now. Number three, turn the lights up.

[00:06:51] We're turning the lights up during your teaching. I think it's too dark in churches. That's probably a separate conversation as far as our contemporizing. I'm not against contemporizing, I'm not against lighting. I actually like a little lower light but when the teaching time comes, I like to open

[00:07:10] it up, turn up the lights and your church services. Number four, push physical with the digital. Turn off the WiFi. So I've said that when I'll ready but I want to reiterate it. Use a paper Bible but use a digital and turn off the WiFi.

[00:07:31] You'll have to say this in church, I would imagine that it would sound a little goofy but I want to encourage you to do that. That's number four. Number five, use sermon-based small groups. Now what does that have to do with Bible culture?

[00:07:47] If you use sermon-based small groups, what you're going to do is you're going to value preaching in a way that allows what you say from the Word of God to end up in a small group somewhere during the week.

[00:08:02] Larry Osmorn in his book, Sticky Church, he says, you're going to get two hours out of people, two slots of time. You're going to get Sunday morning and you're going to get one other time during the week out of people.

[00:08:15] You will not get three slots out of people. So the amount of people that would give you that third slot is very minimal but think about it, two slots. What do you want people doing?

[00:08:30] We want them to come to worship and gather to sing and to be filled with the Spirit of God and to engage the Word of God in the large group gathering on Sunday morning. But then we want them gathering in small groups.

[00:08:45] Now what do we want them talking about? We want to create a culture and churches that values the Bible. So I encourage you to use sermon-based small groups. If I can help you with that in any kind of way, hit me up. That's probably a separate podcast.

[00:09:03] I'll put a link to a podcast that we did previously with Bill Holdridge on sermon-based small groups. Number six, announced the pulpit version of the Bible that you're going to use and then sell that version twice a year. Let me tell you what I'm talking about.

[00:09:22] I use the ESV. I've used other versions but I always get back to the ESV these days. I think it's the literary beauty of it, the traditional structure and translation technique is just, I still go to it.

[00:09:37] So if I'm going to use the ESV, I would be wise. Number one, don't make it mandatory. You can't do that anyway. But I'm going to go and find some pretty nice bibles and spend some money and get the church to set up a temporary Bible store.

[00:09:55] You could do it in the four-year of your church. You could do it in a after-church and encourage people to buy a physical Bible. So announce in the pulpit your version that you're going to use and then sell that version and encourage people to get it.

[00:10:12] If people get that version, great. If they don't and they want to use another version on paper, you can encourage them to get out there Bible use the Bible.com or you version is what it's called and follow you in the same version.

[00:10:30] Number seven, lead a course on preaching. It's interesting. I started a school of ministry at Calvary Chapel, Rue Do so, New Mexico and in that school of ministry, I taught people the principles of Haddon Robinson's biblical preaching book and it was amazing.

[00:10:52] We had regular people, bikers, people who normally wouldn't have taught the Bible. I was like, you know, after about six months to a year, they started teaching the Bible in church. All because I took the time on a Thursday night to create a school of ministry.

[00:11:12] This would be a pre-bibal college level class for anybody interested in learning how to teach the Word of God inductively and to preach the Word of God in public. So I can't recommend to you more how to value a culture than to create a culture of the

[00:11:30] Bible than to create a school of ministry class on preaching. Next, number eight, you social media as a tool to engage the Word, post Bible verses out there. Get people to engage around the Bible and encourage them as they post Bible verses.

[00:11:51] And on those Bible verses, as you can, it's a great way to stoke people up and encourage them to be in the Word of God. Many people that use the U version app, they will post the verse of the day.

[00:12:07] Usually comes with an image, it's usually a pretty cool looking image and people will post it out. I don't do that anymore because so many other people do it but I encourage other people

[00:12:18] as they do it and everyone's in a while all throw something out either on the story or in a post and maybe you write a little devotional from now every now and then and encourage people in the Word.

[00:12:32] So use social media and I'm sure there's other ways that you could use social media as a tool. Number nine, Bible app usage. I'm using the ESB Bible app. I spent $20 on it and when you spend the $20 and get that paid version, it gives you some study Bible.

[00:12:56] It gives you a couple of commentaries that you get access to but it will also give you these Bible reading plans. And so in the morning when I wake up, I turn on my phone and I have it reading the Robert Murray McShane Bible Plan to me.

[00:13:15] Actually on this thing it will allow you to play background music as it reads it. I'm probably three or four days behind right now I'm catching up but it has been very beneficial to me to use the Bible app to read back to me.

[00:13:35] I'm listening to Ray Ortland read the Bible to me. There's other readers in there that are excellent. Well, there's something about hearing the Word of God. Faith comes by hearing. I think sometimes since the Gutenberg Press we've maybe lost some of our oral ability

[00:13:54] to appreciate the Word of God as it was communicated to us through story not everybody had a printed Bible. So use the Bible app and there are others. Blue letter Bible, Logos Bible app and there are other apps you can get. Olive Tree Bible. There's other things.

[00:14:14] There's so many of them. Look and see which one fits you and use that. I use the U version Bible app probably every day. I love the net Bible on that app. The net Bible has textual notes that are probably beyond your average person sometimes.

[00:14:34] They're Greek and Hebrew textual notes but they're excellent for the most part you'll love them. And if they're over your head, who cares? If you're a preacher, you absolutely want to be using the net Bible. It's a free digital Bible. It's amazing. Here's the last one.

[00:14:54] Number 10, Model in Your Life and in the pulpit what you want others to do. And I started underlining and highlighting and circling words and modeling for people word studies, how to know the context of a Bible book, whether it's in the old or New Testament.

[00:15:21] And I started to push them toward their own personal Bible study what happened was they realized they could do it. People want to be pushed toward Bible engagement. I think in our culture we've put so many verses on the screens for everybody that we made

[00:15:41] it easy not to bring a Bible, you really don't need a Bible in church and many people bring a Bible to church but there are many that don't. Too many people do not bring a Bible.

[00:15:53] In my mind I start going, are those people remembering the word or are they just coming to hear something and leave and it's gone? My friend Bill Holder dimensioned him. He said in a podcast we did he was like why would you change the topic of your Sunday

[00:16:13] morning sermon? He's right. That's why we use sermon based small groups but there's also something about creating a culture that values the Bible in church beyond what we believe propositially to functionally showing people how they can use the Bible.

[00:16:36] It becomes functional in their lives, functional in the pulpit, functional in their personal life. And we as pastors, leaders and teachers, if we carry a Bible, if we come and we hold a Bible up and say this is what the word of God says.

[00:16:52] You actually could turn your Bible to people and let them see where you've done some heavy lifting. You've done some digging in the Word of God. You've got a sticky stuck in your notes or maybe you've got some things highlighted.

[00:17:07] Let them see how you do it and that will encourage them don't get discouraged maybe by some who won't grasp it or desire it. If the Bible does say desire the pure milk of the Word and by it you will grow in your salvation. First Peter 2, 2.

[00:17:28] It says in Colossians 3, 16 that we are to let the Word of Christ richly dwell in us. There's something about the richness of the Word of God that will help us that fills us with the spirit of God.

[00:17:43] Now, model in your life and in the pulpit what you want people to do with the Bible. Three things, one be expository. I come from a tradition where I go verse by verse chapter by chapter through books of the Bible.

[00:18:02] And it's not like this boring approach to it. I believe in sermon titles. I think you ought to have good, relevant application. But there ought to be enough expository teaching that the voice of God actually hits the room, whether it's in a preaching

[00:18:22] environment on a Sunday morning or a small group during the week. There ought to be enough of the Word of God that's explained that God's heart actually hits our hearts.

[00:18:36] Another way to say it, I can just tell it in the room, you'll tell it in the room when it's obvious that God begins to speak because the preacher's focusing so much on what God says

[00:18:46] and then by the time the preacher can look up and say what needs to be said by way of application giving essence to the meaning of the Word that it's obvious that it's God speaking and applying the Word. So I encourage you to be expository.

[00:19:00] Now maybe you're a topical preacher, topical teacher. You still have to use enough Bible that God gets to have a say so at church. I think sometimes our topical teaching is more about what we think we need to say

[00:19:19] and we're not spending enough time on the Word of God. And I'm not against topical teaching. I do topical teaching at times. The Bible demands it. There are times when you preach on ethical

[00:19:30] issues in the Bible, doctrinal themes, you can't go verse by verse and do those. Those require multiple verses from multiple passages and so forth. So think about it. Think about being

[00:19:44] expository in your teaching. I will say, I asked a friend of mine Josh Black not too long ago. I said, what would you attribute the growth of your church to and he said this? He's the pastor of

[00:19:56] victory Calvary, excuse me, victory Calvary Chapel in many of the California. He said this. He said expository teaching of the Word of God. Verse by verse teaching to where people know the Word of God is valued higher than anything else. So I encourage you to be

[00:20:20] systematic. I encourage you to be verse by verse and if you're not into that culture, maybe consider teaching through a book of the Bible and see what that impact might have on the people

[00:20:35] you serve at your church or in your ministry. Next, encouraging. When you teach the Bible, model encouraging. I am not a real Joel Osteen fan at all, but if we've learned anything about

[00:20:51] his ministry is that the people that listen to him desire to be encouraged, they actually like encouragement. I think sometimes we beat people up and from the pulpit, I think in the past we've

[00:21:07] we've preached in a way that says it's easier to preach with thou shalt not than with some encouraging Word. We want to encourage people from the Scriptures and all the more as we see the

[00:21:22] day approaching. We want to encourage people, come alongside them and tell them about God, the gospel, and the great commission. Encourage them in their lives. I'm not saying you never challenge them.

[00:21:34] I'm not saying there's never a review come, I'm not saying that. When I am saying is that people are hungry for encouragement, they need it and there's a way to challenge and review even in ways that

[00:21:45] can encourage encouraging people and it won't come off as heavy handed. Always look for this. Whenever I see a new younger preacher and that preacher comes to the pulpit and teaches aggressively with a bunch of do not, do not, do not. I realize someone hasn't spent enough time

[00:22:09] with that younger preacher because that's not a good way to preach but it's easy preaching and that's usually what people default to. Here's the last one and I've alluded to it throughout

[00:22:23] the podcast here. Show people that the Bible is essential so this is number 10, model in your life and the pulpit what you want others to do be expository, be encouraging and show them that the Bible

[00:22:40] is essential. It's a functional part of their life. The grasswaters, the flower fades but the word of our God lasts forever. Hebrews 113 says, it's by the power of the word of God that God created.

[00:22:59] God's word doesn't return void again, first Peter 2 2, desire the pure milk of the word and buy it the word you will grow in your salvation. I encourage you to use the Bible and show people

[00:23:15] that it's an essential part of their spiritual growth. If we keep putting scriptures up on screens for people and they don't have to bring their vibbles, well maybe that's in some ways why the church

[00:23:29] in America especially is in the state it's in. I'm not saying it's the only thing but I am saying that we need to create a culture where the Bible is valued and people know that so I'll give

[00:23:43] any of the 10 things. Use the Bible a physical Bible. Yes you can still use a digital one number two, use a QR code and get people into the Bible app. Number three turn up the lights in church.

[00:23:56] Number four push a physical with a digital turn off the wifi in church. Not in the church but turn it off on your phone okay number five sermon based small groups consider that.

[00:24:09] Number six announced the version that you're going to use number seven do a school of ministry preaching course. Number eight use social media as a tool to help and encourage people to engage

[00:24:23] the word of God. Number nine Bible app usage push people toward the Bible app and number 10 model in your life and the pulpit what you want others to do by being expository, by being

[00:24:38] encouraging and by showing them that the Bible is essential to their lives. Well I've got some interviews coming soon but I'm still doing some solo podcast here to stoke things up. The stoke

[00:24:53] it up podcast is a part of the C.G.N. Media Network if you would like information about joining us at the Calvary Global Network and being a part of the mission of God in any kind of way

[00:25:04] and any kind of partnership let us know about it. We want to hear from you about how we can partner with you in your journey with God. Thank you for tuning into the podcast I pray you'll

[00:25:15] share this anywhere you can and I look forward to seeing you next week with another topic to stoke you up until then God bless and get your Bible out.