On 10th anniversary, Bring Your Bible School Day expands to Take Your Bible everywhere
A notable change has come to this year's 10th annual Bring Your Bible to School Day. The observance on the first Thursday in October has been shortened to Bring Your Bible Day, meaning "everywhere" — school, work, a coffee shop or restaurant, the gym.
Wherever life takes them on Oct. 3, Christians around the nation are being encouraged to bring their Bible with them to display, read and reference when speaking with others about Jesus Christ.
"My team looked at the numbers for young people who are leaving the church from high school to college, and research that suggests parents are the No. 1 faith influence on their children in almost all categories," said Emerson Collins, project manager for Bring Your Bible Day.
"In an effort to instill and maintain the faith, we said let's include parents as participants this year and add young adults, who are the peers and mentors of young students who are in school," he said.
Sponsored by Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family, a worldwide Christian media and communications ministry, the event is a way for believers to live out their faith by sharing their beliefs, offering comfort and solace through the Bible and acknowledging religious freedoms, Collins said.
This year's theme is from Romans 1:16: "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes..."
Decreasing religious interest and church attendance by younger generations in recent years led the Focus on the Family team to deduce that teens leaving the nest lacked a biblical world view and were deficient in confidence in the Bible and their parents' faith, Collins said.
"Our goal in supporting Bring Your Bible Day is to build a confidence in God's word as well as a biblical worldview," he said. "We have plenty of stories from previous years about students who were hesitant to take their Bibles to school until Dad said, 'I'll bring my Bible to work if you'll bring yours to school.'"
Last year's Bring Your Bible to School Day drew 1 million students, the most participants since the initiative began in 2015.
Collins said he hopes the reason for the growing popularity of the observance demonstrates "the need for Christ and the gospel in our schools for a message of hope, life, peace and unity for our country and for our students who are experiencing a lot of turmoil lately."
Students represented 50,000 different schools and some 5,000 churches last year.
This year's goal is to reach 2 million total participants — adolescents, young adults and adults, according to Collins. "We're hoping parents can set a good example for their kids."
The concept is easy: Carry around your physical Bible on Thursday and have it open and visible on your desk, the table you're sitting at, the treadmill at a fitness facility or other place to "proudly proclaim you're a follower of Jesus and you have a message of hope to share," Collins said.
"Encourage everyone to have a conversation about Christ and the gospel, a believer or unbeliever — whoever the Lord puts on your heart," he said. "Invite them to dinner or church. Build a relationship that's encouraging and brings hope to another individual."
Sometimes students have encountered problems with staff who don't realize students have the right to bring their Bible to school, Collins said.
"Occasionally, they are confiscated by a teacher, in which case we follow up with the Alliance Defending Freedom and gently inform the school and the teacher it's students' First Amendment right as long as it's not disrupting the learning that's happening at school," he said.
"We work with the family to get their Bible back and support them — but largely students have had positive experiences over the years."
Every year social media channels light up with stories, including one about a student who bought 30 pocket New Testaments, took them to school and handed them out to anyone who wanted one during a break.
Another story came from a student who brought their Bible to school and started a conversation with a friend, who was addicted to drugs and dealing with other problems.
"They prayed over the individual, and now a year later, that person is getting baptized," Collins said. "It's an encouragement to us all."
Focus on the Family provides resources for Bring Your Bible Day at .
Contact the writer: 719-476-1656.
