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Dear Thom, Brad, and Ed,Over the past week my vision for what we might accomplish through a biblical literacyinitiative has developed signiﬁcantly. I think this vision could be great for Lifeway but,more importantly, great for the denomination and, even more importantly, great for theKingdom.WHAT IF . . .In 2009 or 2010 we used a church-wide initiative (think Purpose Driven Life--I under-stand this was somewhat successful [smile]; also see seismicshifts.com) to see howmany Southern Baptists we could get to read through or listen through the Bible to-gether during that year (500,000? 1,000,000?). Pastors and churches could be enrolledand supplied with Kits. We could invite those outside the convention to join us as well.Neither churches nor individuals would have to use the HCSB, but of course we wouldhave a boatload of tools available to them in the HCSB. The campaign COULD be, forexample, 20+10 in 2010, encouraging people to read the Bible for 20 minutes + 10(seconds or minutes?) per day, or it could have the title, “Reading the Bible for Life.” Ofcourse your folks may come up with something better

(GG - or “Reading God

sStory”)

. It would be great if this initiative could be a joint venture of Lifeway, the RyanCenter for Biblical Studies at Union, and the Executive Committee of the Convention.All of this could follow on the heels of your Lifeway Research Project on Biblical Liter-acy, done in the previous year.OUTCOMES1. To raise the level of biblical literacy among Southern Baptists of all age-groups.2. To help Southern Baptists become better readers of Scripture in terms of interpreta-tion.3. To ignite a passion among Southern Baptists about reading, studying, living, andsharing the Scriptures.4. To gather Southern Baptists around a common agenda upon which everyone caneasily agree.TOOLS and DISSEMINATION1. Kits for each church with instructions on how to lead the church in the initiative.2.

Reading or Listening Through the Bible:

A “One Year Bible” version (and a “Two Year Bible” version?--the point would not neces-sarily be that everyone would make it through the Bible in a year, but that everyonewould be reading through the Bible in that year). I am sure you are familiar with these.The text already is divided into each section with check boxes to check off as each sec-tion is read. Also, you could do a “Journaling” edition of the HCSB like the one the ESVrecently released. This would have space for journaling on each reading. We alsocould do a stand-alone journal (I would be glad to write the introduction and help withthe design).Reading guides could be produced for reading through the Bible in the following for-mats: a. straight through the Bible; b. readings layout like the Discipleship Journalapproach--readings from two different places in the OT, and from two different places inthe NT each day (

GG - this could also be done in a 3 part--OT reading, Poetic andProverbial Lit. reading, and a NT reading; or read through OT once and NT twicein a year)

; c. a chronological approach; perhaps a children

s approach that would giveshorter and more selective readings. We also could produce handy charts (this couldbe incorporated in the Bibles) for readers to list people, places, events, etc. Also, itwould be nice to provide churches with Scripture Readings that they would incorporateinto their services for a year (or give them a guide to do OT and NT readings in eachservice as a part of normal worship).The HCSB could be put up online as a podcast in audio mp3 ﬁles corresponding to thereading methods above.

(see the ESV daily reading feeds that have the text and aListen option).

A Book and Workbook:

How to Read the Bible for Life

A book that I would edit, perhaps entitled,

How to Read the Bible for Life:

Hearing

and Living the World

s Greatest Book

(or “Reading God

s Story: Hearing and Living the World

s Greatest Book”

The book would be lay-level (cookies on the bottom shelf;think of someone who has never read through the Bible before; this is not Fee and Stu-art, which is more an advanced lay-level or seminary text). I think the book might bestbe done in an “interview” format in which I would interview a different “expert” in eachchapter, much like Lee Strobel

s book,

The Case for Christ

. The chapters would not belong or complex but would focus on a few key principles for each area. The bookscould be sold in bulk to churches for a discount. We also could do an audio version ofthe book.I think there would be two ways of going about this. Over a 3-4 day period we actuallycould record the interviews in studio (e.g. Michael Card already has offered me the useof his professional studio if we need it) and then transcript the interviews for the book. Iwould write a brief introduction to each chapter leading into that interview (1/2 page orso). I would send each contributor very speciﬁc questions ahead of time, suggestingthat we want the interviews to be "natural" but VERY substantive. The other way wecould do the book would be to send the questions and have each respond in writtenform, which then would be edited for the book. Then we could do an audio version thatwould constitute a more natural interview in the studio. There are 2? chapters, plus an

introduction and conclusion; we also could include the Bible Reading plans in Appendi-ces. Perhaps we could shoot for 7-10 ﬁnished pages per chapter. Again, we are shoot-ing for beginning principles for developing readers--we don't want to overwhelm them.Perhaps later we could do a follow-up volume that would help people go to the nextlevel.The Outline might look something like this:Forward: Very Famous GuyIntroduction: The Virtues of Reading the Bible George GuthrieReading the Bible

s Story Preben Vang and Terry CarterReading the Stories of the Old Testament Paul HouseReading the Laws of the Old Testament Danny HaysReading the Poetic Literature of the Old Testament David HowardReading the Proverbs and Other Wisdom Books Dan EstesReading the Prophets Gary SmithReading the Stories of the Gospels Jonathan PenningtonReading the Stories of the Acts John PohillReading the Parables and Figurative Sayings Craig Blomberg or Ken EasleyReading the Letters Tom SchreinerReading the Book of Revelation Scott DuvallReading the Bible as an Authority for Life David DockeryReading Various Translations of the Bible Mark Strauss?, Ken Easley?, Clint Arnold?Reading the Bible as a Hearer and Doer of the Word George GuthrieReading the Bible Theologically Steve WellumReading the Bible in Light of Literary Context and Kind Ray Van Neste & Ken EasleyReading the Bible in Light of the Biblical Culture and Background Andreas Kosten-bergerReading the Words of the Bible (meaning and cross-referencing) Don Carson or KenEasleyReading the Bible using Helpful Tools Mark Dubis & Paul JacksonReading the Bible with the Church (historically, our church, third-world church) DavidPlattReading the Bible for Personal Prayer and Worship Don WhitneyReading the Bible in the Family George & Pat GuthrieReading the Bible Culturally and Counter-culturally Ed Stetzer & Greg ThornburyReading the Bible for Evangelism and Missions Thom Rainer & Wade AkinsConclusion: Reading the Bible for Life George GuthrieAlso, we could do a

How to Read the Bible for Life Workbook

. For each chapter of thebook we could provide a simple overview of the principles in that chapter, as well assimple, practical assignments that would get the reader to apply the principles in that