June 4, 2007

Summer in the Word, Part 1

For many it’s a big, black book and it’s very uninviting, but for others the Bible brings life because it is God’s Word. I’m Charles Morris and welcome to Haven Today, telling the great story that’s all about Jesus and a program called, “Summer in the Word”. We’re going to be joined in the next few minutes by an old friend from Houston, Texas, Ted Cooper. He’ll share his life story, how he went from being an agnostic to not only reading the Bible in 90 days but also a believer in Jesus. So don’t go away. But let’s get started now with music that leads us to worship as we then look at God’s Word.

Song:
Performed by:

Welcome Back to Haven Today and I’m Charles Morris and “Summer in the Word” is what we’re calling this program. And I’m from Southern California but on with me live in Houston, TX from KHCB radio is my good friend Ted Cooper. Ted, founder of the “90 Day Bible program”, welcome back to Haven Today.
TC: Thanks Charles, it’s great to be on. It seems like just yesterday that I was on with you.
CM: That’s right. We were doing it hot and heavy in January when we encouraged a lot of people to read the Bible in 90 days. Some people started but didn’t finish. Some like myself, took a little bit longer than 90 days. What are you hearing from people? What encouragement would you have as we’re inviting people to join us in spending summer in the Word?
TC: Well first of all, Charles clearly I can’t speak for God, but I do suspect that God’s concern is not really whether somebody completes this in 90 days or not. The big thing of course, is to read his Word and we do think that there is some advantage to reading it at a good pace and kind of within a 90 day range, but clearly the real issue is, are you reading God’s Word? Have you ever had the opportunity to read all of God’s Word? And I think he honors that.
CM: Now, we pointed these statistics out before. 80% of the people who start trying to read the Bible in a year fail. They never make it through. And the average Christian has thought about it but has never read the Bible completely through. Why the Bible in 90 days?
TC: Well I think, among other things, that we’re in a society today where we’re used to shorter time frames. 90 days just kind of, I think appeals to a lot of people from the standpoint of, “Gosh, you know, I can hang on. I can set a goal and meet that challenge.” It works very well within the confines of a season and one of the things that we’re really finding really helps people is to do this as part of a program primarily through churches or neighborhood groups.
CM: That’s the best way isn’t it? Yes. We went on the air in January with a number of radio stations around the United States and also Canada, challenging people to do this and we’ve heard from a number of people that finished. I think we ought to point out that there are actually some tips that we could give you. I hate to use the word “tips” in relationship to God’s Word but one thing I did that you did, was to use a version of the Bible with a little larger print. Zondervan has actually put it out now and it’s called “The Bible in 90 Days”. It’s an NIV Bible but it’s marked up for you so that you know where to start and stop every 12 pages. I think that helps, don’t you?
TC: Absolutely. You know I think there are a lot of practical things that we can do that allow us and help us read God’s Word. And certainly one of those is to pick a Bible that is a good reading Bible. One of the things that we need to be clear about is this is a Bible reading approach, this isn’t Bible study. So if we break those 2 things up what we want to do is find a Bible that helps people with reading and reading it at this pace and we feel like that there are a whole lot of great study Bibles out there, but not as many Bibles that are suited to reading the Bible at this pace.
CM: Yes, I should mention as well Ted that you just couldn’t study the Bible all the way through with a study Bible in 90 days. That’s not the point of this program. The point of this program is to not see what others have thought about the Word and commented on the Word, this is a way in 90 days for God, through his Word and through the power of the Holy Spirit to speak to you, to your heart and your mind. And it’s like a grand overview of scripture which most people have never done. Even if you go to church for many years you’re going to be studying one verse, two verses, one passage or maybe even a book of the Bible at one time but not the whole Bible, reading it through. Big difference, isn’t there?
TC: There’s a huge difference and Charles, as we’ve talked before, about 20% of the people who go through this process with us have already read the Bible in some way, shape or fashion in the past. And what these 20% are telling us is that this is a huge difference that the revelation that they see in reading it from cover to cover is staggering for them. The relationship they build in doing this is just something that is very divorced from other processes where maybe you read Old Testament, New Testament, a Proverbs and Psalms section and in that process you do read the entire Bible but in a very different sort of “Reader’s Digest” sort of way.
CM: Ted Cooper is on with us from KHCB radio in Houston. He is the founder of the 90 Day Bible and I would just invite you, if you are new to Haven Today or if you didn’t hear our programs back in early January when we were challenging people to join us in reading the Bible in 90 days, you’ve got a whole summer ahead of you. I would encourage you to go to haventoday.org. And you don’t have to do this in an NIV Bible which is what I used and Ted used originally and has used since. We’ve got the Bible reading plan linked to our home page and just go to the 90 Day Bible reading blog and there you can download it and put it in your favorite translation, your Bible that you’re comfortable with and get started. So Ted, there may be a few people that didn’t hear your story before. I’d like to ask you, in a nutshell to just explain how you got started because you weren’t even sure there was a God not too many years ago.
TC: I wasn’t at all. Eight years ago, in fact, I wasn’t sure there was a God and frankly I didn’t care. I really kind of felt like, if there was a God I would find out after I died and I would find out just as soon as Charles Morris. We’d both find out with absolute certainty when we died. So, obviously that was short sighted of me.
CM: Should be a little scary, but not for all Agnostics.
TC: Should be a little scary. But what was interesting was 8 years ago, suddenly I felt very compelled to read the Bible. I wanted to really settle, I guess, once and for all my own question about whether there was a God or not and felt compelled to read the Bible. And the amazing thing for me was, half way through I realized that I believed in what I was reading. And I believed that there was a God and I understood that he had sent his son for us, to save us, and that changed my life.
CM: And I’ve heard you say before, you’ve told me before, that it was the believing in God and that the Bible was God’s Word, that was the hang up for you. Going on then, that Jesus Christ was the Messiah, died for your sins and you needed to repent and seek forgiveness, that was the easy part, wasn’t it?
TC: Sure. I didn’t have any problem with that at all. If you believe in an all powerful God then the evidence in Christ is right there for you.
CM: We should talk, just briefly, about your family. Your wife was also Agnostic but yet you had your children, and tell us about going to church too.
TC: Becky and I were both Agnostic. We were spiritually compatible and yet we decided that we weren’t Atheists, we weren’t saying absolutely this couldn’t be the case so we wanted to allow our children to make up their own minds and so we took them to Sunday School and made the mistake of crossing the threshold ourselves. And this was the point at which I had attended a few Sunday School classes and some things were said in those classes that I think were the things that sparked my initial thought of, “Gosh, maybe there really is a God and maybe I better find out and what’s the best way to find out? Well, gosh, well maybe I ought to read the Book that’s reportedly his.” And I found out it is his.
CM: My goodness that’s exciting. Ted, even in your own church, you became a believer after reading the Bible all the way through and knowing it was true. God was speaking to you. The Lord changed your life. You know Christ as your Savior. That had an influence on other people in your church too as you shared, didn’t it?
TC: Well it did. And I think the main thing was certainly I, in my reading and sort of sparked some interest, “Hey, here’s this guy who was an Agnostic and now all of a sudden he’s a believer. Isn’t that something?” The important part was that the response was, “How do we put together something that would help other people in our church do this reading?” And we did this and just had a phenomenal response, were so surprised, or the pastoral staff was really just surprised at how many people would want to read the Bible, and then even more so at how many actually finished. So at this point now we’ve had hundreds and hundreds of people in our church who have read the Bible for the first time, read it from cover to cover and read it in 90 days.
CM: And I know since you were first on Haven Today you were in a number of states but you’ve been hearing from a lot of people, but one of the most exciting things was you were telling me the other day that a town in Northern Ohio, what they’re considering doing. Would you mind sharing that with all our listeners? We’re on in several stations in Ohio, the Moody station in Cleveland. Just share that with us if you don’t mind.
TC: Absolutely. We received a call, oh 3 or 4 months ago from a gentleman in a town in Ohio that is just on fire with the idea of putting together a program with the 13 or 14 churches in his town of 6000 to read the Bible in 90 days and invite everybody in the town, all 6000 to do this. And this gentleman has already been in touch with all of the churches, and there is tremendous interest they’ve already raised some money to do some of the infrastructure kinds of things that need to be done in order to invite 6000 people to read the Bible from cover to cover. So we’re thrilled and they are thrilled and we’ll just see what God has in mind for all this.
CM: My goodness. Wouldn’t that be exciting for all the churches in a town of 6000 to band together and just get most of the people in that town in Northern Ohio reading God’s Word together coming this January?
TC: Well, you know, and it’s an amazing thing Charles and we see this in church after church where there’s a certain level of skepticism like, can this work? Can we get a good group of people? Can we even do this church wide? And what’s happening time after time is that as this comes in, as the Bible in 90 Days comes into a church the staff is just amazed at the number of people that want to do this and on top of that the number of folks who actually finish. We had a church that we talked about in January that started with 510 people and in 90 days 400 of them had finished.
CM: It makes you realize God put you into this program and you didn’t just come up with the idea yourself for the 90 Day Bible Program.
TC: Oh, absolutely. You know listen Charles, the people that know me scratch their head and they go, “How on earth can that guy be involved in that?” And I’m right there scratching my head too.
CM: That’s right. You were a computer nerd, in that kind of business at one time.
TC: Well –
CM: I’m sorry to call you a nerd
TC: I prefer not to call, to say nerd, but yeah I was in the computer industry, yes.
CM: That’s right. You know, I think one of the important things that we’ve talked about before, if someone is thinking, “Well, maybe I really could do this, spend the summer in the Word and in 90 days this summer read the Bible through.” Forget about reading the Bible, the whole Bible in 3 months. That’s too formidable a challenge for most of us. But instead if you just think about, well in this version you and I are reading, 12 short – not long – 12 short pages a day, 30 minutes maybe 45 minutes depending on how fast you read. Shoot, that’s less time than a lot of people spend driving to and from work. It suddenly becomes not so hard.
TC: It really isn’t. You chunk it down and really look at this and say, “Hey, that’s some reading that I’ll be doing and maybe instead of reading the sports section or the front page or portions of that, it is just a process. And once you get into it you’ll just be amazed at just how current the Bible really is. We’ve laughed before at the things that go on in the Old Testament and we realize, “Hey, really hasn’t changed much.”
CM: People in those first few books of the Bible are just as despicable then as they are today and certainly every bit as much in need of a Savior, which we thankfully have in Christ alone. You know, just last week Ted, Gallup – many polling agencies release polls periodically – and Gallup released their poll of US adults. It was a telephone poll of, oh 3000 adults and it was conducted in May 2005/2006 and then they just finished 2007. 31% of US adults believe the Bible is the literal Word of God while 47% said the Bible was inspired by the Word of God. 19% said the book was a collection of fables, legends, history and moral precepts recorded by man. Ted, that last category might have been you 8 years ago, but God really spoke to you in reading the Bible all the way through, didn’t he?
TC: Absolutely, I would have been in the last group and really been one of those people that said, “You know, why even worry about this?” God was awfully kind and showed a lot of grace to me by inviting me, probably once again to do this reading and to allow me to, of all people, to get to take a small part in helping people to read God’s Word. And Charles what we’re really finding is that in doing this and in doing this with the curriculum and the support of others and with our weekly meetings, we’re making the difference between people really doing this reading and not being able to be successful in this. When we developed the program, the curriculum, one of the things we would ask people at the end was, “Would you have ever read the entire Bible without taking this curriculum?” And 2/3 of the people regularly said no, so we really believe that this is something that God led us to. We’re finding that it works and that people are transformed in the process and we’re real clear that the transformation occurs because people are reading God’s Word and their reading all of it.
CM: I would encourage people to go to our website and, haventoday.org, click that little “Bible in 90 Days” icon that we’ve got. That’ll take you to the blog that we have which can help you do it on your own with others. You’re welcome to add some thoughts and look at the thoughts that other people had on particular days but also check the kit out that we have that has a DVD, a leader’s guide. It’s a way that a church, a small group, a Bible study of any kind could do it and it’s there on our web page. Ted Cooper in Houston give us the challenge. We’ve got some listeners who thought about doing it and didn’t. We’ve got some who started it and didn’t finish. Some people like me took a little more than 90 days. I had a big, long, foreign trip in there but it’s still worthwhile. And you can finish even if it takes a few days more than 90 like it did me. Throw the challenge out there for us.
TC: Charles part of the mission of our organization is to simply encourage people to do this and to help them understand that they can do it. We’re really in a society where I think most people don’t really believe that they can read all the Bible. They think it’s for somebody else, or for a different time or that it really doesn’t apply to them so why do it. And what I’ve found in my reading and what many, many others are finding in reading it and reading it this way and reading at a pretty good clip is that it is a very contemporary read but much more importantly, it is God’s Word speaking to each of us. I would encourage everyone to do this. George Barna did a study that said that 72% of the people who have never read the Bible before want to do so some time in their lifetime, but the fact is the vast majority of those people will never do it. And what I would encourage each one of you is to be a person who takes that challenge, that goes ahead and says, “Yes, I can read the Bible”. And gather some people around to meet with you once a week. Get some of the resources, go to the website as Charles has said. Bring this to your church and get the church involved and I think you’ll see just some phenomenal things happen in your own life, in the life of your congregation and even in the life of the community.
CM: We’ve got a link also to your website as well. Ted Cooper in Houston with the “90 Day Bible” would you mind closing us in prayer that people would read God’s Word and that some of them would read it in 90 days?
TC: Gracious Father, you invite us to do so many things and so many times we just don’t hear the invitation, we don’t respond to it. For each of the listeners out here today I ask that they prayerfully consider whether or not Father you are inviting them through the words of Charles and myself to read the Bible for many, the first time. Read it from cover to cover. Read it this summer. Read it with others. Read it through your church. Father you have given us so many blessings and one of the blessings is your Word. And yet so many of us, including myself, for so long really have ignored it or have not paid the attention to it that you would have us to pay. Father it is a gift to us and please help each one of us to fully receive that gift. In Christ’s name I pray, amen.
CM: Thank you and just an “amen” to the prayer there of Ted Cooper the founder of “The Bible in 90 Days” here on Haven Today and a program called, “Summer in the Word”. Well, if you didn’t hear about us starting the Word in 90 Days and we talked about that a few months ago when we were starting this year, 2007 now, it might be something that you really would like to do. You’ve thought about maybe reading the Bible through or maybe you even have read the Bible through. There is a difference in seeing this big picture, this grand overview of what scripture is all about in such a short period of time so that’s why we’re challenging you to spend the summer in the word. And here’s how you can do it. We have a special NIV, hard back Bible that it tells you where to start and stop each day so that you can read the Bible 12 pages a day and before you know it you’ll be finished. You’re even given 2 grace days. And it’s available as a thank you for your gift to Haven Today. Our internet site is haventoday.org, that’s haventoday.org. There you can read about the NIV Bible, the Bible in 90 Days. And if you though, however, have your own version of the Bible that you use or a favorite Bible that you just don’t like to give up and that’s what you want to use well, you can still read the Bible in 90 days. Just go to our blog on our home page. You don’t even have to know what a blog is. It just says, “The Bible in 90 Days: Haven Blog” and there you will find a downloadable version of the reading schedule that you can tuck in your own Bible and just check it off like I did when I read through the version of the Bible that I used. It’s there for you, the entire reading schedule on how you can do it and you can also submit your own thoughts, every day or some days as you go through the Bible and read what other people have to say as well. So just go to haventoday.org. Or you can give us a call at 1-800-654-2836, 1-800-654-2836. Let us know the station you’re listening to as well. We also have a kit if you’d like to do this with a small group, a leader’s guide, a DVD and that’s really the best way to do it. You can read about that at haventoday.org. I’m Charles Morris. Thank you for being with me. You’re going to hear from some people tomorrow who actually did it and made it through all the way. You’ll hear about it as we tell the great story about Jesus tomorrow, together on Haven Today.