Half of the U.S. population makes a New Year’s resolution every January, but 80% of those resolutions fail by February, according to U.S. News & World Report. For those who made resolutions and took strides to deepen their relationship with God, the YouVersion Bible is committed to helping them maintain their momentum throughout 2021.
"Our team is passionate about helping people build the habit of seeking God every day because when we seek Him, we more easily recognize His presence and power in our daily lives,” said Bobby Gruenewald, Life.Church Pastor, Innovation Leader. “In recent years, we’ve added more features to help people explore different pathways to intimacy with God and develop strong spiritual disciplines.”
For people who are focused on creating or strengthening different spiritual disciplines in 2021, YouVersion is highlighting its various app features designed to help people find deeper intimacy with God.
- Read the Bible Daily—One of the app’s most popular ways to get into a daily rhythm of reading the Bible is to start a Bible Plan. YouVersion has thousands of Bible Plans offered in more than 68 languages, spanning from three days to one year, and covering a variety of topics. Each February, the YouVersion Community is encouraged to go through one or more Bible Plans for the 21-Day Challenge. The Challenge is designed to help people continue their forward progress and create a meaningful, long-lasting habit of daily Bible engagement. Anyone can complete this year’s Challenge by starting a Bible Plan by February 8 and completing at least one Bible Plan day for 21 consecutive days this month.
- Pray Consistently—YouVersion launched a new feature in March 2020 that allows people to add prayers to their Prayer List in the app. Each prayer can be kept private or shared with friends. The feature is designed to not only help people keep track of their prayer requests, but also to enrich the way they pray, help them support one another in prayer, and grow their faith.
- Pause and Reflect Regularly—For those who love the Verse of the Day but want to dive deeper into each daily verse, YouVersion created Verse of the Day Stories in April 2020. It takes people through different pieces of content each day—like exclusive video teaching, reflection questions, a prayer, a devotional, and other prompts—all centered on the Verse of the Day. A new Story is posted each day to give people the opportunity to pause, focus on a single Bible verse, and turn their heart and mind toward God.
- Strengthen Spiritual Community—With Plans with Friends, people can pick any Bible Plan and invite a trusted group of friends to complete the same devotional content with them. As everyone completes the daily reading, there’s an opportunity to have discussion, reflect, encourage each other, or ask questions about the reading to spark dialogue. It’s an excellent way to build or enhance a close-knit community that’s centered on Scripture and relationship with God.
“Our desire in helping people build spiritual habits is not so they can just check a box. Instead, we want to help people know God more intimately because we believe that’s when true transformation happens,” said Gruenewald.
About YouVersion
Created by Life.Church, YouVersion designs biblically centered experiences like the YouVersion Bible App and Bible App for Kids, which encourage and challenge people to seek God throughout each day. Since it launched in 2008, the YouVersion Bible App has been installed on more than 460 million unique devices worldwide. It offers a free Bible experience in 1,500 languages, using features like Verse of the Day, Bible Plans, Verse of the Day Stories, and Prayer to help people deepen their relationship with God. For more information about YouVersion, visit youversion.com.