Spen church in 87 hour Bible-a-thon

Members of St Mary’s Church in Gomersal are planning to start the reading on Sunday September 14 at 11am, and expect to finish 84 hours later on Wednesday September 17 at 11pm.

And they are looking for people to help them complete the challenge.

Trees Fewster, from the church, said: “The reason for reading the Bible this way is to make people aware of the Bible, give people the chance to read it, handle it, sense it.

“People will be asked to come and read for 15 minutes at a time. We could accommodate 336 readers, but some people might want to do two or more stints. Readers could be friends, neighbours, family – anybody is welcome.

Trees believes the event could be the perfect opportunity to attract people wanting to do a charity event.

“Although this is not meant as a fundraising effort for St Mary’s, if you want to get sponsorship for your own charity, you can do so,” she said.

“The church will be open day and night, anyone can pop in to listen at any time, stay as long as they want, have a look round, say a prayer.”

She got the idea from Sikh temples, where worshippers would read the Guru Granth Sahib from cover to cover.

She said: “This is not the first time this has been done – I used to deliver meals to Sikh temples and they said they were reading their holy book all the way through.

“I suggested we did this to our parish priest and she was very enthusiastic.”

She hopes for a big turnout, and believes it can bring the community together.

She said: “We hope many people will come and enter our church to support this reading from Alpha to Omega.”

Contact Trees on [email protected] or on 01274 873485 for more.