Introducing Immerse: Luke & Acts

We’re pleased to announce that our publishers at Tyndale have produced a new edition of Immerse featuring Luke and Acts.

You can read the story of Jesus and the life of the early church, presented in the easy-to-read Immerse format without chapters, verses, or modern additives. Use it for personal reading or enjoy and discuss it in community using the included 20-day reading plan.

At the time of this writing, Tyndale has Luke & Acts available for 25% off. Learn more and order here: Immerse: Luke & Acts

In Memoriam: A Tribute to Jim Steere

Our dear friend and colleague, Jim Steere, died Tuesday, December 6, 2022, after battling liver disease. Jim served with IFBR from our earliest days, working closely with Paul Caminiti to invite churches and denominations to read Scripture together with Immerse: The Bible Reading Experience.

He transitioned to Tyndale House Publishers in 2017 and worked collaboratively with us to launch and promote Immerse. After he retired from Tyndale, he rejoined our team in a part-time volunteer role as Senior Associate.

Jim was passionate about helping churches read the Bible in community, and he helped us forge connections with Christian leaders to build awareness about Immerse. He also willingly shared his wealth of experience in fundraising and organizational leadership, which continues to benefit our organization in numerous ways.

Jim’s life modeled curiosity, an imaginative mind, and keen relational skills. These characteristics were on full display in his diverse vocational career which included professional photography (including serving the Chicago Symphony), retail gemology, marketing and development work for two Christian ministries, and then finishing his career with IFBR. He was known for his integrity, sense of humor, building trusting relationships, and diligence in his work which he understood as a part of the grander, sacred mission of the Creator he loved and followed.

Peace to his memory.

Immerse Crosses the Atlantic

We’re thrilled to report that Immerse: The Bible Reading Experience has made its way across the Atlantic and into the United Kingdom. The UK wasn’t in our immediate strategy for spreading the vision and impact of Immerse, but the Lord likes to work in surprising ways.

Last year, out of the blue, our team was contacted by Keith Danby. Keith’s a Brit with a long and illustrious career in Christian publishing, and several of us had worked with him when he was CEO of the International Bible Society.

Keith had retired several years ago and we’d been out of touch. Then he stumbled onto Immerse. The more he dug into the new reading-friendly format and organic conversation structure, the more he wondered if Immerse might be perfectly suited for the UK’s post-Christian culture (approximately 5% of the population attend church, many of whom are immigrants).

In Keith’s mind, Immerse had the right stuff: no chapters or verses to confuse a generation unfamiliar with the Bible, the easily-accessible NLT translation, and a “Book Club” model that sparked curiosity and imagination. It felt revolutionary. In time he sensed a call to establish Immerse in the UK, perhaps his last major achievement in a long career.

Keith leveraged his connections with Premier Media, the largest Christian media company in Europe, to form a partnership between Premier, Tyndale House Publishers, and the Institute for Bible Reading. Together we’re working to spread the word to pastors and church leaders across the UK about how Immerse can help draw their congregations in to the Bible again.

Today there are Immerse initiatives in England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and the Republic of Ireland. Over 40 churches are actively using Immerse, and stories of transformation are beginning to come in.

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Last spring I was invited to speak to a group of church leaders in St. Andrews, Scotland. The hotel where I spoke was situated on the Old Course at St. Andrews, widely considered the oldest golf course in the world. When I wasn’t gawking at the course where I’ve watched numerous Open Championships on TV, I was sharing the history, vision, and impact of Immerse on churches here in the United States.

During that speaking event I met Kenneth Ferguson, a businessman living outside of Edinburgh. Kenneth was taken with the idea of Immerse, and decided to start a group in his home with his wife, Doreen.

Doreen was admittedly skittish about the idea at first. Immerse was just a little too strange for her tastes. “I’m wary of new things” she confessed, “It took me a wee bit of convincing.”

Doreen and Kenneth

But the Immerse experience itself opened her up. “I could see how people in the group were being helped, and it was easier in some ways to read.” It was different than the many Bible studies she’d been a part of. “[The Bible studies] have ten questions and sometimes it feels like they’re steering us away from what God is saying to us. I hated all the questions and I found them boring.”

Doreen works as a podiatrist, and shortly before their group started reading the Messiah New Testament, she met a woman named Dierdre in her clinic. Doreen has a gift for getting people to open up (Kenneth says she’s good with soles and souls), and soon Deirdre confessed that her parents had recently died. She felt lost. She’d seen counselors. She tried going to church. “It made no sense to me.”

“My life had become a cry for help,” Dierdre later told us. Thankfully, Doreen sensed Dierdre’s need for community and invited her to their Immerse group. Deirdre accepted the invitation with the caveat that she knew absolutely nothing about the Bible and didn’t want to impede the group’s progress.

Deirdre bravely waded into the Immerse 8-week reading plan, which requires reading about 45 pages a week. Despite the intense schedule, she was hooked. “I found myself engrossed; it felt like reading a novel.”

After a couple of weeks reading the New Testament, Deirdre quietly shared with the group, “I think I want to become a Christian.”

Dierdre (front left) Doreen, Kenneth, and their Immerse group

The Immerse group at the Fergusons has now read Messiah, Beginnings, Kingdoms, and Poets without taking any breaks. Only Prophets and Chronicles remain. Kenneth says, “Each time we finish a module I ask the group if they want to take a break, and each time they unanimously want to keep going.”

Deirdre comes every week having both read and listened to the Immerse audio Bible. She was pensive when I ask her if reading Immerse had impacted her personally.

“I wanted a bit of peace in my life and in my head. Today I feel personally more confident, and I look at the world differently. Through our Immerse group the pieces of the puzzle are coming together for me. It’s given me strength, even though I don’t know all the directions it’s going to take me.”

Our mission at IFBR is to invite people into God’s transformative story by changing how they read the Bible. So far that has largely taken place in the US and Canada, but we have been delighted to see the ways God has delivered this new way of engaging Scripture into the UK.

I believe the proper term is “cheers” to Kenneth, Doreen, Dierdre, and their group which had the courage to try Immerse. We’re thrilled to see a group of Jesus followers in Edinburgh experiencing the Bible together in transformative new ways.

Immerse: The Reading Bible Wins 2022 Bible of the Year Award

Our flagship resource, Immerse: The Reading Bible, has won the ECPA (Evangelical Christian Publishers Association) Gold Medallion Award for 2022 Bible of the Year!

The Gold Medallion award is a highly sought-after recognition in Christian publishing, akin to a Pulitzer Prize or Oscar award. The ECPA gives the award each year to books and Christian resources in a number of different categories. See all of the winners here.

It’s a thrill to see such an out-of-the-ordinary Bible win this prestigious award. Six volumes, no chapters, no verses, no fancy notes or features. Just the Holy Scriptures with room to breathe.

Click here to learn more about Immerse

Reading Blind: The Urgent Need For Christians to Understand the Bible

Confused. Angry. Apathetic.

That was how Clay Crofford, a recent graduate of Indiana Wesleyan University, characterized his experience with the Bible. Like so many others in his generation, he knew that the Bible is supposed to be important, but every time he opened it he ended up with more questions than answers. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

In response to his struggle, Clay produced a new documentary, Reading Blind, which features IFBR’s Glenn Paauw as one of many voices speaking into this epidemic of Bible illiteracy.

The first two minutes of Reading Blind do a great job of capturing the essence of the problem the Institute for Bible Reading is working to address. People have Bibles. They know they’re supposed to read them. They simply don’t know how.

Watch the documentary below, and check out our conversation with Clay about the process behind creating Reading Blind.

READING BLIND: How We're Meant to Read the Bible | Full Documentary