Around the Word in 90 Days

Our church is doing something called Around the Word in 90 Days. Some of us are reading the entire Bible. Others are choosing to go through the Old or New Testament. We started promoting it at the end of last year. I thought it would be ridiculous for me to try to do the entire Bible in such a short amount of time. See, I have a speaking engagement in March and another in April. Typically, I spend a great deal of time in preparation for a conference or retreat. Plus, I'm still participating in women's Bible study which means I have homework for that as well. However, my husband asked me to at least try to commit to the whole thing. Generally, he asks very little of me. Make dinner, balance the checkbook, be sure the children don't kill one another. That's pretty much it.

He asked me to start early and see how far I could get by the middle of April.

I did the math. If I gave myself exactly 90 days (we officially begin on Sunday) I would have to read just under 11 pages a day in my Bible to finish on time. I started early and I'm reading roughly 10 pages a day. It takes about a half hour. If I'm not interrupted that is. It's considerably less of an undertaking than I thought it would be. I'm not following the outline provided by the church which gives us readings in both the old and new testaments each day. I've read the Bible that way in a year before--skipping around. What I've never done is read the Bible cover to cover, without skipping around, in just over one hundred days. So that is what I'm going to attempt to do. And I'm putting it here so that maybe I'll feel publicly accountable.

I want to challenge you--my readers--to choose one of our reading plans. If you don't have a half hour a day to read the entire Bible, do you have 23 minutes a day to read the Old Testament? Do you have seven minutes a day to read the New Testament? Who knows, maybe you read faster than I do. Maybe you don't have a four-year-old who interrupts you.

If you want to commit to one of these plans, I challenge you to leave a comment with your commitment. Trust me, you can still continue to do your personal Bible study. You can still prepare for your conferences--if you have conferences. I've been doing all three. And it's been really, really good. And, you know, if no one jumps on my bandwagon, that's okay. I'd just like to encourage you to consider it.

I'm going to list my progress in the side bar so that you can see how I'm doing. You certainly miss small details when you read the Bible at this pace, but you definitely get the comprehensive overview which is important to growing faith.