What has Biblefresh done for Britain?

1611 was the year in which King James published the New Authorised Version of the Bible.

400 years later, on 1 January 2011 the Evangelical Alliance launches Biblefresh.

1 overriding aim of the year-long campaign has been to encourage churches, communities and individuals to find new and creative ways of rediscovering scripture:

6 months on, the Biblefresh campaign has inspired an unprecedented number of related activities throughout Great Britain.

The record so far:

120 different organisations and agencies have come together sharing a single vision under the Biblefresh banner.

1 world-wide photographic competition has taken place. Entrants were asked to answer in one sentence ‘how has the Bible changed your world?’. One of the winning entries was taken in Israel where a group of men covered in mud from the Dead Sea held a placard reading ‘Now I am washed clean.’

30,000 Britons contributed to the first hand-written Bible in multiple languages. Methodists put together the book that includes verses in English, Chinese, Welsh and Braille with illustrations.

12-plus different dishes inspired by the Bible such as locusts and wild honey, Passover supper, pigeon, partridge and quail and bread and fish were served up by members of the Churches Together in Sidmouth.

3,000 shoeboxes were filled with different items to represent each of the 66 books of the Bible. Boxes included knitted figleaves, Lego men being massacred and the feeding of 5,000 jelly babies. The shoe boxes were displayed at Peterborough Cathedral. 

70 Biblefresh-inspired theatre performances have toured Great Britain.  

10 top robbers, foods, relationships, deaths, animals and fashions in the Good Book became the inspiration behind Nanny Goat Productions’ play ‘Bible on a Washing Line’ which has toured England. 

200 limited edition Viral Bibles have been published. These Viral Bibles are being given away at random to people at 25 Christian festivals who are asked to underline the verses most meaningful to them and share these online before passing the book on to another person to repeat the process.

3 continents: Viral Bible has travelled to Africa, mainland Europe and North America so far and also to events as diverse as Glastonbury Festival in Somerset and General Synod in York.

21,000 GBP pounds has been raised so far by asking people to donate £1 for every copy of the Bible they own. This has gone towards translating the Old Testament into Bissa Lebir and the New Testament into Bissa Barka – two native languages of the Bissa people of Burkina Faso, the world’s third poorest nation.

2 people with visual impairments treated shoppers at a book store at Market Harborough in Leicestershire to a live reading of the Gospels of John and Matthew read in Braille.

70 training courses have been held at Bible colleges and training centres across the UK.

Krish Kandiah, director of Biblefresh, said: “The Bible's 66 books are inspiring thousands of Christians to live for God 365 days a year. The words of the Bible are being translated by Christians into millions of acts of kindness and compassion. Countless people, across the UK and around the world are receiving the message of God’s love and forgiveness. We're looking forward to the creativity that churches will bring to the Bible in the second half of 2011.”