I registered for the 2011 TGC national conference for two reasons: because it was in Chicago where I was living and because my friends told me I’d go home with a lot of free books. But of all the books I brought home that week, the one that stands out among the rest was one that carefully toes the line between a book and a pamphlet: One-to-One Bible Reading by David Helm.[1]

I still remember sitting in a quiet corner of the convention center reading it for the first time. The book outlined a tool for one-to-one discipleship that promised to be uniquely powerful yet mercifully simple. It claimed that when two people, armed with a fistful of generic questions, dive headlong into God’s word together, they come out on the other side closer to Christ and one another.

I was skeptical. How could something so simple be so powerful? I had no idea, at the time, how much that book would shape my life and ministry.

Today, as I pastor a small church in rural New Hampshire, one-to-one Bible reading has become a central part of my ministry. I’ve seen it bear spiritual and relational fruit in the lives of the people in my church and begin to spread amongst the members. I believe one-to-one Bible reading has become a fruitful and reproducible part of our church not in spite of our small location, but at least to some degree, because of it.

Here are four reasons why one-to-one Bible reading is uniquely suited for ministry in small places:

1. Dense Relational Network

News travels fast in small towns. That’s what happens when you live in a dense relational network. It seems like no matter who you meet, they either know someone you know, or used to play baseball with your neighbors’ cousin. One-to-one Bible reading has the potential to flourish in the dense relational network of small places because it thrives most naturally in already well-established relationships. If the people in our churches are equipped to read the Bible one-to-one with someone else, they will be ready when their sister's neighbor (who was also their high school lab partner) starts asking questions about Jesus.

2. No Financial Resources Required

During seminary, I served as the pastoral intern at my church in Pepperell, MA. While there, my job was to help introduce one-to-one Bible reading into the culture of the church community. Though I was given a modest budget to accomplish the task, at the end of two years all I had bought was a few cups of coffee and a box of doughnuts no one touched. One-to-one Bible reading requires no childcare, no space, no staff, no materials and (apparently) no doughnuts. While the limited resources of churches in small places might limit the ministries those churches can offer, there are no financial barriers to prevent one-to-one Bible reading from flourishing in your church community.

3. No Trained Staff Necessary

No pastor is able to do all the ministry in a church. This is especially true in small places where many pastors are solo or bi-vocational. If the work of ministry is going to happen, it means the whole body will have to chip in.

One-to-one Bible reading is a simple way to easily train and release the people of our churches to step up and take responsibility for one another’s discipleship. At our church, we arm our people with four simple questions to ask of a passage: 1) What immediately jumps off the page? 2) What does this teach us about God? 3) What does this teach us about mankind? 4) How will this shape your life this week? Each spring, our men’s and women’s ministries offer an annual season of one-to-one Bible reading, in which many new Bible partnerships blossom in our community. Each year this season reminds us that people don’t need a seminary degree to read the Bible one-to-one, they just need to be willing to embark on a journey of humble discovery together.

4. Unimpressive ≠ Unimportant

One-to-one Bible reading, like ministry in small places, can appear simple and unimpressive. Giving your time to one person in your church, like giving your life to one small place, might seem to the world as a waste. However, God doesn’t consider the things that are small and unimpressive as any less important.

One-to-one Bible reading finds its value not in size or speed but in the heart of a God who doesn’t sneer at what is small. He’s a God who leaves the ninety-nine in search of the one and bends his almighty ear to the prayer of a child. To the statistician, one-to-one Bible reading might seem like a waste, but in the eyes of our God it is worthy.

[1] (https://www.amazon.com/One-Bible-Reading-David-Helm/dp/1921441984)

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