What would you think about a church that was actively serving God, patiently enduring hardships, exposing false teachers, and teaching sound doctrine? Sounds like a good church. But what if that same church didn’t have much of a personal relationship with God? In Revelation 2, Jesus told a church that matched that description exactly that if they didn’t return their focus to the first things—their relationship with Him—that their days as a church were numbered.
And yet that’s where a lot of believers in the West find themselves today: too busy serving Jesus to spend time with Jesus. Square One targets that exact problem by providing tools and a structure for the family of God to grow together in unity as we grow together in Christlikeness.
Commitment
Centered around spending time with God through regular Bible reading—the starting place of the believer’s life—Square One offers participants three levels of involvement:
Square one BASIC
One chapter from the New Testament on weekdays only. Square One Basic will take you through the New Testament in a year.
SQUARE ONE ADVANCED
One chapter from the New Testament and one chapter from Poetry on weekdays only. Square One Advanced will take you through the New Testament and Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon in a year.
SQUARE ONE ULTIMATE
One New Testament chapter and one Poetry chapter on weekdays, plus two Old Testament chapters daily. Square One Ultimate will take you through the entire Bible in a year.
Tips & tricks
Mix it up. Try reading in a translation you haven’t read through before.
Get some help! Find a couple people to help keep you accountable, and communicate with them daily about your progress and what you’re learning from your reading. Imagine the unity that one simple choice could produce!
Don’t catch up! This is a repeat, but don’t try to catch up. Read today’s passages always. It’s better to miss a couple days here and there but stay faithful to the reading than to get bogged down and give up altogether.
Connect. Join the online community of HBC family members who are learning and growing together at the Square One Facebook page. (Not in the group? Just ask anyone who is for help joining.)
Download a backup. Lost your bookmarks? Never fear. View or download and print the entire reading plan here.
Objections
But an annual Bible reading plan is no small commitment, and you probably have some very realistic concerns like some of these:
“What if I can't keep up?” This is probably the biggest road block to an annual reading plan, so we’re offering a key hint: don’t catch up. If you miss a day, a week, a month, always start with the reading for the current calendar date.
“I've read the Bible through before.” You’re awesome! But you probably don’t remember all of it, and you’d probably understand it differently at this point in your life anyway. What's more, you haven't read it along with this church family before. Square One aims not only to strengthen your relationship with God, but also with the little slice of His family that is HBC.
“I already have a Bible reading plan.” We’re not asking you to change much, really. If you’re already reading your Bible, we’re just asking you to read it in perhaps a slightly different way, but with the added incredible benefit of learning from the same passages and principles as others in our church family. Again, the potential for growth in unity cannot be overstated.
“That's a lot to read.” Chapters in the Bible are typically not very long. Square One Basic could realistically take as little as 5 to 10 minutes per day.
“Too much breadth, not enough depth.” True, it’s impossible to deeply study the entire Bible in a year. But often there are one or two truths that God draws our attention to whether we’re reading four chapters or four verses. Is it better to read one chapter and meditate on one principle that day, or read four chapters and meditate on one principle that day? I don’t know. But I think the real question is, can you really go wrong?
