Getting Started Reading the Bible from Lent to Lent

The Goal is to begin on March 5, Ash Wednesday, 2014, and, following a schedule, join people in my congregation as we read the Bible together, meeting regularly to reflect on the experience.

I am starting early.  It's really February 8th.  I am excited that my parish will be starting the Bible Challenge, with the support and encouragement of The Center for Biblical Studies, beginning in Lent.  The Rev. Marek Zabriskie has set up a schedule of readings that will enable a reader to read the entire Bible in a year.  I hope that some people from my congregation, maybe many!, will join me on this journey.  I want to be able to offer encouragement, and to be thoughtful about where there might be challenges for people who have not done something like this before. 

I've always had mixed feelings about reading the Bible in a year.  I've read the Bible in course many times.  Then I always return to the two-year cycle of Daily Office readings, incomplete as it is, in order to be reading, so to speak, in solidarity with Episcopalians throughout the American Anglican community. But reading that way is frustrating because, while the readings are more or less "in course," there are exceptions all over the place for holy days; there is no attempt to read from Genesis to Revelation in biblical order; and there are lacunae that are not, apparently, considered appropriate for reading aloud in community in the context of worship (and I think that is probably correct).

I don't think I can do both outside of a liturgical setting where there is a community of people--monastic, parish, or academic-- praying the Daily Office together daily. I'm just not that good at doing ANYTHING day after day.

I've loved reading "in course" in the past.  I didn't feel any guilt if I missed a day.  I just picked up where I left off the last time.  I read 1 chapter of Torah, 1 chapter of some other part of the OT, 1 psalm, 1 chapter of a Gospel, and 1 chapter of the rest of the NT.  That may not sound, either, like very much continuity, but it worked for me.  And I think it generally took me about a year to read the Bible.  For years, I would purchase a new copy, and date my progress through, along with adding notes in the margins, often references to the Greek or Hebrew text. 

So, here goes: a fresh blog.
A fresh start with Genesis 1-3, Psalm 1, and Matthew 1.
And a hesitation to start something that I'm not sure I will finish.