It's official, it's appeared in the secular media, so it must be so! Australian Christians are struggling to read their Bibles. Linda Morris reported the findings from the National Church Life Survey in The Sydney Morning Herald yesterday. Here are some of the less than encouraging statistics:

It might be the greatest story ever told, but Bible literacy is slipping and not just among atheists. Devout churchgoers, especially Catholics, are losing touch with the scriptures of their faith, research shows.

Of those Australians who go to church, 21 per cent read their Bible daily, 14 per cent open it a few times a week and 6 per cent once a week.

But 24 per cent said they read their Bibles only occasionally, 18 per cent hardly ever and 17 per cent said they never read the Bible on their own as a private devotional activity, according to the research, which is based on the 2006 National Church Life Survey of 500,000 people who attended church from 22 denominations.

My question is, what should we say or do in response? Should I write a post bemoaning the alarming trend? Should I ponder the changing social circumstances that are leading to such a terrible state of affairs? Should I read Romans 1-3 over and over again to remind myself of the nature of sinful human beings and our desire to listen to any voice other than the voice of God? Well, while all of these might be possible responses, what I would love to do most of all is to encourage people to get back to reading their Bibles.

So what I thought it might be good to do would be to hear from people who are reading their Bibles. What kinds of practical things are you doing to make Bible reading a part of your life? Where do you read your Bible? Are you using other resources to help you in your Bible reading? Have you struggled for a while and made a breakthrough recently under God? We'd love to hear about it.

Now, in the interests of doing your deeds of righteousness before God alone, we would like you submit your responses anonymously in our Bible reading survey. These will not appear online but will be sent directly to the editors of The Briefing. We have been thinking about doing an issue dedicated to Bible reading for some time, and would love to include some encouragement from brothers and sisters who are reading regularly.

You can access the survey by going to

http://solapanel.org/article/survey/

Make sure you click ‘submit’ when you're done!

I am really looking forward to hearing about how people are working at knowing God through his word.

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