In 2010, following conversations on social media, and after attending #DigiSymp, I was asked to use Tom Wright’s Lent for Everyone: Matthew and “do something digital” with it. Following ‘The Big Read 2009’ in the North-East, we took the project national for 2010, and sought to blend conversations online/offline through housegroup/online materials. Knowing that many in the church were not equipped (or interested) to engage online, ‘The Big Bible Project’ was created to encourage those in the church to improve both their digital literacy and their Biblical literacy. Around 24,000 visitors joined us over Lent, and we secured funding for 2011, and experimented further with Tom Wright’s Lent for Everyone: Mark.
Having built relationships online, summer 2011, I invited some of those who engaged with us to consider writing maximum monthly as a #digidisciple, which has raised an interesting range of questions about what it means to be a Christian disciple in the digital age. Outside of Lent time, this has led to a fairly steady audience of around 6-7,000 per month, with over 4,000 followers on @bigbible, around 450 on Facebook, a growing collection on Pinterest, and over 22,000 views on YouTube.
In summer 2012 a further 3 years of funding was secured from The Jerusalem Trust, and I moved to Durham (4 days a week), and am currently streamlining the site, and also need to redevelop the CODEC site. The expectation is that I will spend around 3 days a week on online community development/teaching, including #BigRead13 (with Rowan Williams The Lion’s World on C.S. Lewis Narnia books), Bible webinars, CNMAC, MediaLit, and 1 day a week on research.
Visit: http://bigbible.org.uk
