2023 Bible Reading Plan
God’s Word is a Feast!
Welcome! At Basswood Church, we are convinced that we cannot live by bread alone, but by every word of the Bible. We aim to be men and women of the Word in everything we do. Because God’s Word is central to us we make it a focus by joining together to be fed together through a daily reading plan throughout the year. It has been a great joy to see and hear of so many people being blessed through reading the Bible together.
We are inviting you to join us in reading through God’s Word. This year we are using the time-tested plan created by Robert Murray M’Cheyne. This plan goes through the New Testament and Psalms twice and the Old Testament once. There are four readings each day of the year. Each day’s reading usually takes around 20 minutes or less. You can access the M’Cheyne plan in many ways (PDF, podcast, the Bible app, and Logos). There are also handy bookmarks that have been created to keep track of your readings.
We are also using Jonathan Gibson’s Be Thou My Vision: A Liturgy for Daily Worship as a guide for daily prayer. This book is a 31-day liturgical guide designed to provide structure to the daily worship of individuals and families. Each daily reading includes a call to worship, adoration, confession, assurance, creed and catechism, the Gloria Patri, a prayer of illumination, Bible reading, intercessory prayer, and the Lord’s Prayer. Designed to be read in 15–20 minutes a day, this beautifully produced liturgy will provide focus and purpose to our daily quiet time while teaching us historical prayers, creeds, and catechisms that point us to Christ. Get a copy and join us!
The prayer guide and Bible reading together should give you around 30 minutes or more each day with the Lord. This will be life-shaping!
This is a great opportunity for our church family to commune together and to invite neighbors and friends to read God’s Word along with us! The Lord’s Word is a feast, and the Lord welcomes everyone to come to the meal. Think of this as a ministry of hospitality. We ourselves were invited by the Lord of the Table and we want to make known His invitation to others to come join Him!
What if I miss readings or get behind?
This question is a great one! But think of the way we all treat eating physical meals. If we miss lunch and don’t get to it before dinner rolls around, we don’t sit down at our table and say, “Wait, I need to eat my sandwich from lunch before I can eat this grilled chicken!” We just sit down and eat the next meal.
Our encouragement is to stay the course, but not be discouraged if you fall a day or even weeks behind. We need God’s Word. We can not see His power in our life without it, so don’t give up if you’re behind, jump in and start on the day you make it back.
Don’t despise even the short and small opportunities to read God’s Word! Have you ever thought it only “counts” if you are sitting down in a quiet place, early in the morning, with a cup of coffee, and 30 minutes to read? (Which, don’t read this wrong, that is wonderful and right to be desired!) But don’t think that is the only way Bible reading can look. That causes too many to never read/listen at all. Remember, we can’t earn anything by daily reading, but we do gain fellowship with Christ Jesus Himself. What a gift!
So a word to all of us: Be hungry. Eat. And…consider yourself always hungry!
DON’T GIVE UP! Jesus’ Table is always set, His feast is always prepared, and He feeds His guests well!
Our former app can still be accessed through the appstores!
