CBT not only has a plan to grow Bible literacy for individuals and small groups but our hope is that whole churches begin to embrace a plan for their Bible literacy. We offer two strategies: One Year Church Implementation and Bible Literacy as a Multi-year Journey
How does a church implement Chronological Bible Teaching over the course of a year?
CBT offers several options, including small group discipleship, personal devotions, and Sunday School (weekly) materials. The goal of CBT is to increase Bible literacy in churches and in the lives of individual believers. Churches that launch CBT should involve the entire congregation; this involvement will only occur with pastoral promotion.
Churches that want to begin Sunday School in the calendar year should follow some variation of this schedule:
August-October:
- Plan a CBT Sunday School/Bible Literacy Training Event (Late Summer/Early Fall)
- Order The ONE YEAR® Chronological Bibles (NKJV, NIV, NLT–available in large print) for each participant (Bibles may be ordered from Christian Book Distributors)
- Order the CBT 52-Lesson Teacher’s Companion to The ONE YEAR® Chronological Bible, NKJV, NIV, NLT for each teacher
- Order the 14-Era booklet for every member and urge each member to read the materials
- Order bookmarks for each student to use as a visual
October-December
- Urge students to make a plan to begin reading the Bible as soon as they arrive and are purchased (students should purchase their Bibles instead of being given them — they will appreciate them)
- Direct students to the CBT blog for the Bible for daily devotionals to aid in reading and understanding the text (hard copies of the blog may be ordered by visiting the CBT store)
November-December
- Since the goal is congregational involvement, the pastor or designated should learn the 14 eras and teach them to the congregation in November/December, so that the congregation is on the same page for a January start
- Teachers should read over and prepare the lessons (helpful materials are found on the website )
- Churches may wish to order CBT posters of the 14 eras to hang in each room as a visual aid (contact us)
- Have a day of prayer for CBT implementation
January
- Launch CBT on the first Sunday of the new year
- Encourage regular involvement
- Pastors may wish to preach from the week’s reading on Wednesday night to encourage reading and foster discussion
Bible literacy as a multi-year journey
Preliminary for Bible literacy journey (14 weeks)—Use the 14 Era Booklet or the 14 Era audios to teach an overview of the Bible’s story.
Year One: Challenging your church to read through the ONE YEAR® Chronological Bible together will unify your assembly. Choose a weekly gathering time to either preach from the week’s reading. Participants may choose to utilize the weekly #BibleLiteracyMovement videos and 365 Daily Devotion to enhance their understanding.
Year Two: The CBT 52 Lessons provides teachers lessons to use with their weekly Life Fellowship (Sunday School) as they read through the ONE YEAR® Chronological Bible together. Participants may enhance their reading with the CBT media support.
Year Three: The W3, M3, and S3 materials dive deeper into the stories of the Bible in chronological order. It’s a different pace than the reading through the OYCB (you’ll want to encourage participants to continue with the daily discipline of reading the OYCB to deepen their comprehension of the storyline of the Bible). These resources train participants to approach the Scriptures hermeneutically by providing a list of questions that enable participants to discover truth for themselves.
Year Four: Using the Book of Threads, read one of the fourteen truth-stories tracked through the Bible and discuss that story in light of 21st Christianity.
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