Trenton church welcomes 2020 by reading through entire Bible out loud
TRENTON, N.S. — Some people start out the new year with fireworks. Others take part in a polar bear dip.
But members of The Church of the Nazarene in Trenton tried something new this year. They read through the Bible — all of it.
It was a massive task that began as soon as the new year started, and continued through 11 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 4 — 83 hours.
“It was exciting; the run-up to the end,” said Pastor Leon Teal of the Saturday morning finish.
Members of the congregation signed up to volunteer for specific time slots. Each slot was for an hour and participants were asked to read for an hour straight out loud. They continued relay reading through the night in the front of the auditorium of the church.
When it came to the tough to pronounce Biblical names and places, Teal encouraged his parishioners to “take your best guess,” he said with a laugh.
Thursday afternoon, John Wood was reading through a passage of the book of Job.
“This isn’t an ordinary book,” said Wood, pausing briefly from his reading. “If we sat here reading novels or technical manuals, it would mean nothing, but what we’re doing is speaking into the spiritual realm, the living word of God. And we’re doing it not just to somehow gain merit. That’s not what this is about. This is about making change for Pictou County where it matters — in the spiritual realm.”
Wood said he enjoyed the experience of reading out loud.
“I’m reading in Job and it’s people talking. They’re kind of in a conversation and reading it out loud brings that conversation part of it to me. I’m finding that I’m expressing the words reading it out loud in a way that just reading down through the page doesn’t really do.”
Teal said they had a good cross-section of people taking part with one participant being only eight or nine years old and others being in their 80s.
“You hope that as people participate that there’s some kind of encounter with God,” Teal said.
During their Sunday morning service, Teal opened the floor to allow people to talk about how the experience impacted them. There ended up being about 55 who had helped with the reading.
Many talked about how they enjoyed the shared experience and a deepened sense of community within the church.