Ever wondered how to go about reading the Bible? Pete, from the Cathedral parish, talks about how he went about finding out more...

I decided to read the Gospel of Mark after the recent Lumos weekend at High Wycombe. It was a great weekend in which I felt I moved forward in my relationship with God. One of the main focuses of the weekend was getting to know your Bible and there were a number of talks on the different parts of the scriptures and I thought this would be a good opportunity to get into reading my bible.

At the end of the weekend each young person was given a guide to reading Mark’s Gospel in under a month. The guide gave a verse to read and then a reflection on that verse. It was really helpful because it mean that I was reading a little each day and then reflecting, praying and generally deepening my understanding of this version of Jesus works. All in all it took me just under a month with the help of the guide.

Reading Mark’s gospel was quite exciting and new for me so I learned a lot. I had never really seriously read any parts of the bible so it was also quite a challenge. I really enjoyed it and I think it is a very good way to get into reading the bible for the first time. I learned a lot of things about Jesus I didn’t know before and it was a really enlightening experience for me.

I am now beginning to read the other Gospels, Luke in particular. After that I am planning to go onto Acts because it is written by Luke as well and also the other Gospels. I read some of proverbs and Song of Solomon which I found interesting.

I really think that for any young person looking to start reading their bible Mark’s Gospel is a really good way to get into it because it is interesting but not too long or strenuous so it can be easily read bit by bit.

You can download the guide that Pete's talking about by clicking on the box to the right of this text... 'Mark in a Month' was put together by Leeds Diocese - to visit their website, you can follow the link to the right

To view some of the teaching from the weekend that Pete mentions, you can find short clips of Emily's introduction to the Bible in our 'The Score' section, look under 'brilliant or boring?'