The latest 2026 findings point to a widening gap: people remain curious about the Bible, while fewer are building a steady habit of reading it. Churches can respond by making questions welcome, offering small practices, and keeping growth rooted in relationships rather than pressure or AI-generated answers.
At 8:17 on a Wednesday evening, Maya sat in the back row of a church in Phoenix with her phone face down on her knee and a borrowed Bible open to a page she had already read twice. She had come because a friend mentioned that the church welcomed questions. Now the discussion leader had asked what people believed about suffering, and Maya was deciding whether to leave before anyone noticed she had nothing to say.
The risk was simple. If the church treated curiosity as a test she could fail, she might not return. If it treated Scripture as a collection of quick answers, she would leave with information but no reason to keep reading.
Then someone near the front said, “I do not know yet. I am still trying to understand it.” The room made space for uncertainty. Maya stayed. Before leaving, she wrote one question in the margin of her Bible and asked her friend if they could read the passage together the following week.
That small turn offers a useful direction for churches facing the current gap between openness and practice.
Curiosity needs a welcome before it needs a program
A person may be interested in the Bible without knowing how to approach it. They may have questions about faith, suffering, prayer, justice, or Jesus. They may also carry memories of being corrected, ignored, or pressured.
A church can make the first step safer by saying plainly that questions are allowed. Leaders can explain what a gathering will involve, invite disagreement without humiliation, and model the difference between confidence and certainty. A thoughtful “I do not know” can build more trust than an instant answer.
This matters because sustained reading usually grows from repeated contact. People return when they feel permitted to notice, ask, reconsider, and learn. Curiosity is not a rival to discipleship. It can be the doorway through which attention begins.
Small practices can turn interest into attention
A church does not need to begin with an ambitious reading challenge. It can invite people to read a short passage, write down one observation, and bring one honest question. The practice may take ten minutes. Its purpose is to create a repeatable meeting point with the text.
The habit model associated with James Clear’s Atomic Habits can offer a useful behavioral lens here. Repeated actions become easier when a clear cue leads into a manageable response and a meaningful reward. That model helps explain why a Bible left open on a desk, a scheduled conversation, or a shared reading group may support consistency.
It remains a lens, not a complete account of spiritual formation. Scripture reading cannot be reduced to behavior design, and a person’s response will be shaped by grief, health, work, family responsibilities, culture, and access. A small practice can support attention. It cannot guarantee faith, healing, or a particular outcome.
Churches can therefore offer structure without turning attendance or reading streaks into measures of worth. A missed day calls for a kind restart, not shame. [Bible-reading motivation versus a sustainable rule of life: what each offers younger adults]( /blog/bible-reading-motivation-versus-a-sustainable-rule-of-life-what-each-offers-younger-adults-and-why-encouragement-needs-a-next-responsible-step-83f3e02d/ ) explores how encouragement can lead toward a next responsible step.
AI can assist inquiry without becoming the teacher
People will use AI to find background, compare interpretations, summarize passages, and generate questions. Churches should teach careful use rather than pretend the tool is absent.
A responsible approach keeps the Bible, trusted teachers, historical context, and accountable community at the center. AI can help someone identify vocabulary or prepare questions. It can also invent citations, flatten disagreements, reflect hidden assumptions, or offer a polished answer without spiritual wisdom. Readers need to check sources, distinguish interpretation from fact, and bring important questions into human conversation.
The church’s role is therefore more than distributing information. It is helping people become attentive readers who can listen, test what they hear, practice what is good, and recognize when a question needs patience rather than speed.
Give Maya a next step she can actually keep
A week later, Maya returned with the question still written in the margin. She had not finished a reading plan. She had read one passage, talked with a friend, and noticed a sentence she could not easily explain. That was enough to begin again.
A church responding to the 2026 findings can do something similar: create welcoming spaces for honest questions, offer short and repeatable ways to read, and connect private attention with patient community. The goal is not to manufacture urgency. It is to help a curious person take one faithful next step, then have somewhere to bring the next question.
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