Bible Reading Contest

Hey Parents,

Want a fun and easy way to encourage your students to read their Bible on a daily basis?

This week we are starting a Bible reading contest based on our Bible Reading Bookmarks we hand out every week. If you are unfamiliar with the bookmarks, let me briefly explain...

bcsm provides bookmarks, every week, with six chapters of the Bible printed on them (one for each day of the week, except Sunday). These are set up as a way to help your student make a habit of reading the Bible. It takes a slow reader an average of 4 minutes to read a chapter of the Bible. So we are encouraging students to set aside some time, even if it is five to ten minutes a day to get into God's word and talk to Him about it. 

Now, if they do this every week from the time they are a freshman to the time they start college they will have read the gospels twice and the rest Bible once. We try to challenge seniors to read just a little bit more than one chapter a day so if someone started in sixth grade they would read the whole Bible twice and the gospels at least thrice.

The whole reason we do this is because getting into God’s word on a regular basis is an important habit to form... and the best time to form good habits is always now. 

But we recently thought it would not be a bad thing to have a little fun with this, too so we created an old school sticker chart.

1. Every time you read a chapter of the Bible, you earn a sticker for your team (Dudes and Ladies are the teams).

2. Every Sunday you will be given the opportunity to write your name on the bottom of the chart (if you have not already done so) and place your sticker(s) you earned that week in the chart (eg. If you read 2 of the chapters this week, you would put two stickers on the chart, Limit 6 per week per person).

3. This is on the honor system. Don’t lie about reading the Bible. That is just so wrong on so many levels. 

4.  The first team to fill their chart gets a special prize (anybody who placed at least one sticker on the chart is a part of the team and is entitled to a prize) from the special prize division (not just the normal prize division) of Woolworth’s Department Store... because everybody needs a little Woolworth’s. 

5. Participation is not limited to students. 

This is where you come in. What if you encouraged your son or daughter to read the Scriptures on a regular basis by reading what they were reading? What kinds of conversations could you have about the teaching found in Scripture if you both were meditating on the same thing during your personal devotion time? How would it feel to help your child's team win, or, if you are on the opposite team, be the motivation for your student to keep going because they know their mom will get the six stickers for the other side whether they get theirs or not?

Either way, encourage your kids to grab these bookmarks and read the chapters on them. This week's reading is Psalms 7-12.