Date

4-2021

Department

Rawlings School of Divinity

Degree

Doctor of Ministry (DMin)

Chair

Reginald Weems

Keywords

Bible, Reading, Christian, Identity, Formation, Discipleship

Disciplines

Christianity | Religion

Abstract

As Christians are becoming increasingly secularized by the teachings within their communities, it is critical to address how to creatively ignite, encourage, and inspire daily Bible readership among Christians. Teachers of God’s word must creatively ignite Christians to read their Bibles, daily. This will arm Christians with God’s word so Christians can effectively counter pervasive secular teachings and the consequential impacts of secular teachings that have infiltrated the Christian lifestyle. The researcher utilized a qualitative phenomenological research design and selected five participants by purposive sampling. Participants represented Christian-centric and goal-centric communities. By telephone, the researcher provided participants with pre and post questionnaires along with material written by Grace Abounds Association of Pastors (GAAP) that emphasized God’s mercy. The researcher examined the levels of Bible readership among participants and observed how participants responded to the biblical teaching emphasized within the writing, determining whether Bible reading interest was ignited. The results were that participants recognized biblical and modern-day parallels within the GAAP writing and expressed that the parallels coupled with the emphasis on mercy reminded participants to apply God’s mercy to the contexts of today’s events. The researcher recommended that pastors and ministry workers creatively ignite congregants to read, daily, their Bibles. The researcher also recommended that pastors re-establish two things with congregants: To read, daily, God’s word to counter the growing phenomenon of secularized Christianity and to apply God’s teachings within the contexts of today’s societal events.

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