Thousands Worldwide to Read KJV in 400 Seconds
For 400 seconds, people from around the world will connect with each other as they read the entire King James Bible in unison.
In honor of the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, YouVersion has challenged people all over the world to read the Bible during a six-minute-and-40-second time-frame collectively starting at 12 p.m. ET on May 2.
“We were looking for a way we could celebrate the 400th anniversary, in a way we could engage people in the Bible. So we came up with this idea to have our community participate in an event that would give people the opportunity to read the King James Bible collectively in 400 seconds,” Bobby Grunewald, innovation leader at Lifechurch.tv, which created YouVersion, shared with The Christian Post.
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So how exactly is the world going to read the entire King James translation in less than seven minutes?
“We’re each going to read a small section from the Bible out loud, simultaneously,” the organizers stated.
Encouraging people to go back to the Bible is one of their main priorities for the project, Gruenewald said. “We wanted to come up with a way we could draw attention to the KJV on that day because we feel like it’s been a great Bible translation for 400 years.”
Since the YouVersion announced the project this month, about 700 people signed up to participate within the first two days, something that didn’t surprise Gruenewald because after all, anyone participating will be part of history.
“To my understanding it’s the first time that something like this has ever happened in history and so people don’t just want to celebrate the history but be part of the making of history. We believe that at the rate that people are signing up, tens of thousands will sign up and participate.”
The developers of YouVersion, one of the fastest growing Bible apps, are encouraging participants to also make videos and take pictures while reading an assigned portion of the KJV Bible and archive it for future generations.
Earlier this year, in honor of the King James Bible Celebration, YouVersion and Zondervan gave away free digital copies of the NIV Bible for 400 hours, during which hundreds of thousands of people downloaded the NIV.
On that note, Gruenewald was happy to report that “it went great! It was designed to help ordinary people connect with God’s work through the translation, and that’s exactly what we accomplished.”
As May 2nd approaches, YouVersion encourages people to not only celebrate the anniversary but also make the Bible a part of their everyday lives. For anyone who wishes to do more with the Bible, they can simply go to the YouVersion website and have free access to different Bible versions ad well as Bible reading plans.
“We think it’s a great way to not only look backwards but also look forwards going in the next 400 years and to allow people, who normally otherwise wouldn’t be talking about the Bible, to talk about it. We hope that there will be a lot of conversation about the Bible.”
On the Web: www.youversion.com/kjv400
