Resource Materials for READ Initiative Available Online
Resources for the upcoming R.E.A.D. Bible reading initiative, are now available on the Church of God website. Materials include reading guides, instructions, and promotional items under the heading of REFLECT, a partnership with Tyndale House Publishers.
The READ Initiative is the first of five points of emphasis of which General Overseer Mark Williams and the Executive Committee believe the Church of God must turn their attention to over the next four years.
“I believe the Lord is calling us to renew our commitment to the centrality of Scripture for both faith and practice,” Williams stated. “We live in a day of scriptural illiteracy and innocence. Our age is one of unbiblical individualism and privatized spirituality. The spirit of antichrist is at work. Because we as a movement have become slow to develop a standardized, measurable plan for discipleship, the Church of God is vulnerable to false doctrine and teaching. This is why I feel so compelled to call our Church to renew its passion to learn, love, and live Scripture.”
The International Executive Committee is launching the initiative and hopes to mobilize 100,000 people in the Church of God to read the Scripture daily in 2013. The initiative is called READ. The letters of the word “READ” summarized as follows:
R – Reflect
E – Engage
A – Apply
D – Disciple
“In short, we want to read Scripture so that we might encounter God in a life-transforming way and take what we learn to teach others to become fully committed followers of Jesus Christ,” Williams added. “Additionally, I will call upon pastors to organize their congregations to corporately read the Scripture aloud during the first seven days of January. I believe this reading of the Scripture into the atmosphere will spiritually set the stage for a Christ- awakening to occur in our movement.”
Tyndale Publishers is partnering with the Church of God in the effort to make reading guides and promotional materials available to churches, free of charge, in an easy-to-use, downloadable format. These will include posters, reading guides, and bulletin inserts.
To research and download the materials, visit www.churchofgod.org and click on the REFLECT graphic.
