The Use of the Bible in Church Congregations

One of Bible Society’s aims is to 'resource and help churches and their members have confidence in the Bible by living it out'. The 'Pathfinder' project has been designed by Bible Society in response to research findings that suggested that Bible reading and engagement is in decline within British churches. Pathfinder, currently being run as a pilot, aims to help church congregations 'deepen their understanding of the Bible and see how better to relate it to their personal and public lives'. Working with eight church congregations of different denominations across England, the project aims to 'identify critical hermeneutical issues (i.e. those relating to Bible interpretation and understanding) for ordinary members of congregations and propose solutions which will increase their confidence in the cohesion and credibility of the text. This will enhance and change their own relationship with the Bible by helping to remove anxieties and barriers, as new approaches are provided to open the text to them and their lives to the text' (Pathfinder prospectus).  It also aims to promote 'whole-life spirituality that emphasises spiritual formation and discipleship'. The project, currently in its first year, includes sessions on communication, self-reflection and other aspects of spirituality, a basic overview of the whole Bible, an introductory course on biblical hermeneutics, contextual Bible study and engaging their local community with the Bible.

This PhD research project, undertaken by Dr Cherryl Hunt, supervised by Dr Louise Lawrence and Professor Mike Higton and funded by Bible Society, has involved the use of questionnaires to build up a picture of how the Bible is used and viewed within each of these Pathfinder groups. The project followed the progress of the Pathfinder pilot programme by conducting focus groups of those following the programme in the different churches, supplemented with one-to-one semi-structured interviews of individual participants. These have enabled evaluation how the pilot is affecting those participating in it, both individually and corporately, and have provided some indication of the factors affecting the level and degree of biblical engagement within a range of English churches.