Whatever Is Excellent with Leanne Tuggle
Encouragement and Inspiration for women choosing to rise above the “just survive” mentality and instead set their mind on thriving in all that they say and do. The ultimate goal is to equip you to pursue whatever is excellent in the midst of your ordinary life and in all that you say and do.
Whatever Is Excellent with Leanne Tuggle
10: A Journey to Biblical Literacy with Autumn Rutledge
Did you know that while many churchgoers own a Bible, engaging with it is a different story?
Autumn, the founder of Reclaimed Heart, shares her deeply personal journey from disillusionment with Bible college to leading a vibrant community of women in biblical exploration. Her story is a moving testament to the power of community support and the pursuit of biblical literacy without the need for formal seminary education. Together, we discuss how questioning and seeking understanding can transform faith into a more meaningful experience.
We dive into the findings of the American Bible Society's 2024 State of the Bible report, unraveling surprising trends in Bible engagement across generations. The data reveals an intriguing picture of cultural and regional influences, and our discussion sheds light on the barriers and motivations that shape scripture engagement.
Embarking on a spiritual journey can be daunting, but change is essential for growth. With practical tips for overcoming the barriers to Bible reading, we remind listeners that even brief, imperfect moments can ignite a desire to pursue God in a deeper way.
To get in touch with Autumn, you can email her @hello.reclaimed@gmail.com.
For more resources to help you read through the Bible, check out:
BibleProject - https://bibleproject.com
YouVersion Bible Reading App - https://www.youversion.com
For additional reading: Women of the Word by Jen Wilkin
Connect with me!
You can find me on Instagram @mrs.leannetuggle or you can email me at leanne.tuggle@gmail.com. I love hearing from you!
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Autumn. I am so happy to have you here today to just have this whole chat. I kept thinking about all of our coffee dates that we would have in Japan and how I wish that we could be having actual conversation together in person, but doing this over Zoom is the next best thing. So thank you so much for joining me here today and I'm excited to talk about biblical literacy with you and all kinds of really great things. But before we jump into that, would you mind telling just a little bit about who you are and about your family and that kind of thing?
Autumn:Sure, and I loved our coffee dates and thank God thank God for zoom um that we can do this from across the world too. So my name is Autumn, I have two kids that are in middle school and I live outside of the US. We've been here for a couple of years. I lead Bible studies. I've taught at churches within women's ministry. I've taught at women's conferences and girls' conferences. I've led a small girls' junior high ministry here, which I was not anticipating. That was a cool you know God moment, and so that's been kind of fun. I have a passion for biblical literacy within the church and I think it's completely attainable you do not need to go to seminary to read the Bible and so I just have a passion for that and for building up the church.
Leanne:I love it. Oh, that's so good. Well, I'm excited to dive in here with that. You have this really cool thing that you've been doing for nine years now and it's called Reclaimed Heart. Can you talk a little bit about this program that you started or how? What would you call it Program? How do you use it? Yeah, a program.
Autumn:Okay, so the Reclaim Tart I started that in 2017. So we just completed our eighth year together and I started reading the Bible, chronologically, on my own the year before Um, so this was my ninth year reading through the Bible and my eighth year doing it as this group. I probably echo a lot of your listeners' stories, and I grew up in church for the most part. I went to Bible college and after my first year of Bible college, I was just like this is not what I thought I was believing, because there were ideas and stories and parts of the Bible that were really uncomfortable. They were new, they brought up more questions than answers and I didn't know where to put any of that and I didn't feel like I had a very good support network to ask the questions that I had. I didn't feel comfortable asking them, um, and so I completed a second year of Bible college and I just I just walked away after that Like I maybe would have still called myself a Christian, but I was not going to church, I wasn't praying, I wasn't reading my Bible.
Autumn:I don't think I could have articulated what I believed. I don't think I understood much about grace. It was. It was just kind of a dark time, although I didn't feel like sad or upset, but I, looking back, it was definitely not illuminated by Christ and um, I just kind of moved on to other things. I ended up getting married, I had my kids, um, so that period lasted about 10 years, I want to say. And then, um, when my kids were little.
Autumn:I had like a legitimate nervous breakdown, I think, um, I think the stress of being a stay at home mom with a husband who does not come home every day was, uh, was a lot to handle and I legitimately like something inside of me broke and, um, god oftentimes uses that to bring us back to him. And so I just thought like, okay, I'm going to give this another go. I'm going to try to go to church every week and I'm going to try to go to a woman's Bible study and this time I'm going to ask every question I have and, in some sort of naivete, with a pinch of arrogance, I thought I might be able to prove the Bible wrong. Arrogance. I thought, um, I might be able to prove the Bible wrong because, you know, people haven't been trying to do that for thousands of years.
Autumn:I'll do it for sure. Um, and so I just kind of resolved to go to Bible study, go to church, ask the questions, and if I ended up getting to the point where I really did believe, like this is wrong and I'm not going to trust it anymore, then I'll just walk away. Um, and so I started going to, we started going to this church, started going to this women's ministry and the the size of the women's ministry and the women's Bible study was a really large, so they sat us at smaller tables with smaller groups and it turned out that my small group leader was the women's ministry director at the time, I didn't know that. And it turned out that my small group leader was the women's ministry director. At the time I didn't know that, but it turned out that way. And so as we went through the semester and I'm asking all these questions that are pretty brazen and I'm not holding any punches, and I think she was a little bit entertained by me and I think the other women were probably somewhere between entertained and mildly offended.
Autumn:Yeah, um, and it was funny because she did not shy away, she didn't, she didn't feel like she had to answer all my questions and she also didn't um disregard me. She totally welcomed them and she ended up becoming a mentor to me. So I spent the next um the next year, I read through the Bible on my own. Chronologically, I just found a plan, like on Pinterest or something at the time and resolved to do it every day and I felt like man, I wish I had a community to do this with.
Leanne:Like it's just me.
Autumn:And I have so many questions about what I'm reading and, um, I don't have. I think that there's probably other women who have questions, so let's start a Facebook group, um, and that's kind of how that started. So with, in conjunction with coming back, being open to the Bible, what it has to say not necessarily just how it makes me feel, um, along with being a part of a community and having a mentor that I could bounce ideas off of is kind of how the Reclaimed Heart started, and it's it's more. It morphed and changed over the years, um, and so how it is now is very different than how it looked at the beginning, but the basis has always been we're going to read the Bible through chronologically as a group of women and we're just going to talk about it.
Leanne:I love it. It's so simple and yet so powerful. We're just going to read the Bible and talk about it as a group, and your group is all women, is that correct? Okay, very cool, do you feel?
Leanne:So I kind of want to get into some of the you said biblical literacy within the church too. So, even just within the church, there is a lot of people that come to church and they don't necessarily know or read their Bible. I pulled up just one stat and I know that you have a lot more, but I found this one thing that said that there are about 80%, 80% of Americans have a Bible at home, and this is just all of Americans, not necessarily Christians. Uh, and only 22% read it at all. Do you like? Do you agree that? Does that stat make sense? Absolutely, I absolutely think that makes sense. Yeah, awesome, um, so it's crazy to me, but you, having worked with some women and helping them read through the Bible, what have you found to be true about biblical literacy for women in particular, or Christians in the church? Um, what are some stats that you have found and why is there this huge discrepancy?
Autumn:Good question. So I'll start with the statistics that I found and then I'll talk about what I have personally experienced and what I think the discrepancy is so um, I got these statistics from uh. The American Bible Society puts out a state of the Bible kind of report every year. You can go online and you can find it through them. It's quite a lengthy production they put together a lot of research and it's really really well done.
Autumn:So I would highly recommend that. If statistics or this kind of stuff is your bread and butter, then for sure go check it out. So I got all of this from their 2024 State of the Bible USA, from American Bible Society. One of the most interesting things I found is they talked about this group of people who are open to the Bible but don't necessarily like they don't read it every day or even come into contact with it regularly. They could be swayed one way or the other to either swayed pro Bible like it is inerrant, or just kind of walk away from it. So there's this really big category. So there's this really big category and in the report it said that that constitutes about approximately 65 million Americans who are in this movable middle and out of that, 42 percent don't attend church. So we have 42 percent, which is about 30 or, I'm sorry, 42 percent that do not attend church but are open to the Bible. They're open to what it talks about and the inerrancy. But the really surprising statistic here is that 58% of this group do attend church every single week. So we have a large group of this movable middle that attend church every week but do not interact with their Bibles and don't even really. They're not really even sure yet how they feel about the Bible. So if we do some, if we do some like math here, that's about 37.7 million people who attend church and of that, about 11.7 million people attend church weekly. So that's quite a lot of people who are attending church and not interacting with their bible, nor really even knowing if they believe that. And the most likely to be in this movable middle category are generationally, are the boomers and the gen Z Um. Equally, the millennials, which we are millennials, the generation born between 1981 and 1996 are the least generational category to engage with the Bible. So out of boomers, gen X, gen Z, millennials, millennials have the least Bible engagement. Um, which is very, very interesting statistic that I'd love to look into Um and Gen X um tends to be the most Bible engaged. So that's the generation born between 1965 and 1980. So the most engaged generation is followed directly by the least Wow Generation. So that was pretty interesting, yeah, um.
Autumn:Another statistic was American Bible Society and the Pew Research Center also found that women are the majority of regular bible users. Um, when we say user, that's just categorized because not everyone can physically read the bible. Maybe they have to listen to it or they're getting it um in some other kind of way. So we'll just call them bible users. So women tends to be. About 60 percent of women are engaged with the Bible, versus 40% of men.
Autumn:For biblical engagement, we also have a little bit of a drop. So from 2011, when the American Bible Society started gathering this data and putting out their state of the Bible between 2011 and 2021, so for a decade, um, the standard was pretty much between 48% and 53% of Christians um were Bible users regularly. So that could be once a week, once a month, every day. Um, that's about an average of 50% in the decade between 2011 and 2021. In 2022 that dropped by 10 percent. Wow. So now we're sitting at in 2022 they were sitting at about 40 percent. In 2023 that went down to 39 percent. Uh, I'm sorry. In 2022 that went down to 39 percent. In 2023 that sat at 38 percent. So we're seeing this trend downward now a huge drop from 2021 to 2022, and even further downward spiral of this biblical engagement.
Autumn:Another interesting thing was, among the Bible users who say that they read the Bible regularly, 84% of them said they want to read the Bible more regularly. 84% of them said they want to read the Bible more. Among the people who say they don't read the Bible regularly, only 34% want to read the Bible more. So what that says to me is, if you're reading the Bible, you desire it more, and if you're not reading the Bible, it can come as an afterthought. You don't really have a huge desire to read it. And then the last thing I want to say is the highest level of scripture engagement. So they put together demographics, regional, where you lived, regionally within the United States, your ethnicity and your age. They put all that together. The highest level of scripture engagement is black American evangelicals born between 1955 and 1964. So boomers. So if you are a boomer black American evangelical, oh, from the South, you are the highest biblically touching person, according to their research, which I just thought was so interesting. Um, yeah, so that was really really yeah.
Leanne:There's, it's.
Leanne:There's so many interesting little nuances in all of those statistics.
Leanne:Yeah, I think the thing that stands out to me the most is just kind of what you were saying in the beginning about that movable middle, that there are people who literally could go either way, like sure I could read my Bible, or actually I don't really care.
Leanne:And I think that that just makes so much sense, because there are a lot of people that I will come into contact with, I think, share that same thought of like oh, I could take it or leave it. And then what you said there towards the end is like the more you interact with it, the more that you desire it, and, as I know, you and I very much enjoy reading the Bible and continue to seek that. It is mind boggling to me that someone could take it or leave it when it comes to scripture, and yet it matches with those statistics and so that's so interesting. Um, so why do you think there is this like discrepancy between like okay, there are people who are going to church. I think that that aspect is really people who are going to church but they're not interacting with their Bible, like what's happening there in your opinion?
Autumn:So what I've seen with the women that have come through reclaim, the reclaimed heart is one of the questions that I would ask them on the registration form is why do you want to do that? Why do you want to do this this year? Why do you want to read through the Bible? And the top three answers are always like I've always wanted to do it, I just never knew how to get it started. Um, I, like, have gone through a really hard time in this year. Is the year Okay, um, or something along the lines of I've done it before, but I dropped. I dropped off, like I started it before and I ended, and so I really want to complete it. And I think what I've noticed by making this available to everyone I never publicized it, it was always word of mouth, no-transcript it grew quite large, um, so there are plenty of women that I don't know but should have some, like you know, three degrees of separation or something. Um, but what I've seen is a lot of times we just don't know how to get it started, like I, it seems so big to think of doing something every day for a year. Um, we shorten the plan to 10 months, so every day for 10 months seems overwhelming. But if they know that a friend has done it or that a friend has tried it, they're way more likely to start doing it.
Autumn:Um, I've noticed that women get really upset when they sign up for something and life gets in the way and they don't complete it and then they have this huge amount of guilt and shame because they really wanted to do this thing and they didn't. And now they're a month behind and so they just give up instead of um. You know, we tried to make it a really big point, like, if you drop off the plan, just jump back in wherever we are. You don't have to throw it all away, just jump back in. Right, there's no shame and guilt and nobody's asking you, you don't have to like, you know, send me your checked boxes every day or something like that, like it's fully just you and um what you want to do. So I think women get, they anticipate that they're not going to be able to do it. So they they don't want to Um, but I don't think that that has deterred them from trying it. So the biggest deterrent from trying it is they didn't know how to start. They didn't know where to start, what to do.
Autumn:And the other thing is we have so many I can only speak to women, but people, I'm sure, but women, um who do not have a solid foundation on what they believe. So, like me, in Bible college, when they do come to the Bible, it's like this is not what I thought it was Right and my goal has been to take them from this is not what I thought it was to this is not what I thought it was Like. Yeah, instead of it being a negative thing, being this really cool positive thing and I have seen that in the women that have completed the plans. I have seen I've seen them say God is not who I thought he was.
Autumn:In the best ways, they live with more freedom, a more full understanding of who God is and his character, because the Bible is no longer about them. Maybe that's how they've been treating the Bible, or the Bible is no longer the scary thing that only seminary students, or the Bible is no longer the scary thing that only seminary students or a Bible college student or professor or pastor could understand. So I think, I think the just getting it started is a big issue and equally, being a little bit nervous about what it's going to mean to come, come to the word of God, yeah, and to read it consistently part of it consistently, Can you you kind of touched on a little bit Can you think of a specific story of someone who was really positively impacted by reading through the Bible?
Leanne:Does there, is there someone who comes to mind?
Autumn:Oh my gosh, so many, so many come to mind. So I have one woman um, this is her second year reading through. She grew up in a different country, so she did not grow up as an American and the country she grew up in was very heavily Orthodox Christianity. So she comes from a very regimented, um, kind of upbringing, which is not bad necessarily, Um, and then just moving through, kind of American Christianity and this, you know, very pervasive idea of God gives us only good things, or all bad things are from Satan, um, or if you pray for something, let's say healing, and you don't get it, or the person doesn't get it, then God must be mad at you. You know she's kind of coming from that and I have seen her wrestle with those thoughts so much over two years.
Autumn:But I think she would definitely say that the wrestling has been awesome and she no longer has that fear of disappointing God. She doesn't worry about if I don't pray the right way, or if I don't read my Bible every day, or if I don't do X, y and Z, then God will be mad at me and he's not going to give me good things. She doesn't have that view anymore because that's not a scriptural view, but if she hadn't read the Bible she wouldn't have known it. So I have encouraged women and I've told them at the beginning of our reading like what you believe about God today is probably going to change, and that's good.
Autumn:I've had women who are really resistant to that change. They don't want to believe the God of the Bible really. They want to believe that in this God that they've been kind of given and that's comfortable for them in some way. And I mean we could go. I can go on and on and on about how it's a control issue and we really want, you know, god to be our magic genie in the sky and we want to submit our plans to him, for him to just you know check off on.
Autumn:You don't have to, even, you don't have to check, don't know editing, just check it off, Um. So yeah, it's, it's definitely been impactful that way.
Leanne:Oh, I love that. Oh, that's so good. Yeah, there's so many. There's so many truths in that. Um, that's so good. You kind of touched on this a little bit, but I'm thinking of the person who is kind of in that place of like I just I would love to read through the Bible, but I just kind of feel a little bit unsure. How would you encourage someone to stay motivated with reading through in those moments when life gets in the way or they just don't feel like it? What would be your like advice?
Autumn:I would say there's. There are kind of two different issues. So the first one that we hear a lot is I just don't have time. I don't have time to read the Bible. Um, and for me it's like if you have time to listen to this podcast, you have time to read the Bible. Or if you have time to scroll social media, you have time to read the Bible.
Autumn:Or if you have time to read the, news or whatever, x, y, z, right, you have time to read the Bible or even listen to it, um, and so time is not the issue, and I think we have to be a little bit firm on that and we have to say, like you can make time.
Autumn:When I started reading with the first time I read through the Bible, chronologically, did it on my own, with nobody else, just me and pulling my bootstraps every day. My kids were two and four, so they were in it. I was in it, in it thick, um, and so I get it from that aspect of just like we have busy lives, maybe we're working, maybe we're working in the home, um, but there are so many resources these days that can help you with that, and there is no shame are so many resources these days that can help you with that, and there is no shame, like I think. Another thing we we dupe ourselves into thinking is I have to have the perfect setting in my Bible. It has to be quiet, I have to have instrumental worship music on in the background, I have to have a cup of coffee and my candle on, the bathrooms have to be clean and then I can sit down and read my Bible.
Autumn:I have to have my highlighters and my journal and all the things Right, and that is a lie. That is an absolute lie. I have done my Bible reading while cooking dinner. Just, you know, sometimes you just cook in a baby a dinner that you have to babysit. You just have to stir it every couple of minutes. You can read your Bible.
Autumn:Then those times when we're like, oh, I just sat down with my Bible and all I can think about is how I need to clean the bathrooms, it's like, just you can take 10 minutes and read your Bible and then you can clean the bathrooms after. Or maybe the bathrooms just don't need, they're just not going to be clean today. Okay, sorry, just not going to happen. Um, so I think that's part of it, but the kind of I'm overwhelmed because it seems so big and I don't know where to start, so I don't want to start. Attitude is a little bit different and I and I get, I get both of these few points. It's a little bit different, but I would say, look at it as you're just doing, one day at a time, just read whatever the reading is for that day and if you don't do it the next day, then try the day after that and, um, don't get bogged down with feeling like you have to understand it all or like you have to comprehend everything. Um, it might be an unpopular opinion, but sometimes you just, sometimes you just have to get it done. Like, sometimes your heart's just not going to be in it, and that's okay.
Autumn:I think, um, when it comes to disciplining ourselves, our heart, especially at the beginning, is probably not going to be into it, right, um? But the Bible says repeatedly, over and over and over again, that our heart is wicked and deceitful. Jeremiah tells us that. So, just because we don't feel like we want to do it, or we don't feel like we're even in the right place spiritually to do it, to me is not a very good cop out.
Autumn:Like, if that statistic is true that, whatever it was, 84% of people who read the Bible in some capacity want to read it more, then that should speak to those of us that are feeling a little bit underwhelmed by the prospect that once we start it, we're going to want it more. And for anyone who started, you know, I've started and stopped workout plans and I've started and stopped eating healthy and giving up coffee and whatever, whatever, um, and so it just takes that like you just got to do it a little bit each day. Just try to mark off today and that, and don't worry about 10 months from now. If you do it every day, just looking at today, then I think you'll find that the 10 months or the 12 months goes by pretty fast.
Leanne:It's that one foot in front of the other, and one of the things that I like to say here on this podcast is doing the next right thing with excellence, for the glory of God, and just that. One step at a time, I think, is the most like it makes the most sense. One step at a time, one day at a time, in 10 minute increments, and you get there, get to the end, you get to revelation at some point. So, autumn, how can listeners connect with you if they have questions about reading through the bible or would like some resources? What is the best way to connect with you?
Autumn:So they can email me at hellothe reclaimed heart at gmailcom, which I will send to you so you can put in the show notes. Um, or I would say there I'm a dime a dozen. There is probably a woman just like me at your local church that you can talk to about how to read the Bible. Um, there are so many resources today. You version is a great app. It has tons of Bible translations on there and they have a lot of read the Bible in a year plans and it just gives you your daily reading and you can check it off. If you're a checklist kind of galley, you can just check it off, which makes it kind of nice.
Autumn:Um, and then there are resources for helping to kind of understand, like, the context and who's writing this book and who are they writing it to and when are they writing it. That's so important, um, but my favorite is Bible project. They make really short quick videos for each book of the Bible, um, and it's like cartoon style, so you can short quick videos for each book of the Bible. Um, and it's like cartoon style, so you can, you know, watch it with your family or watch it on your own, um, but just even watching those before reading each book, um, is really really helpful, cause then you can kind of visualize and auditorily process, like what is this book about? And then you can go into it and read it.
Autumn:Um, and those are, those are things that you can do on your own and I would say to a listener if she's feeling really convicted about wanting to read the Bible, first find someone at your local church a women's director, a pastor, anyone, um, who would maybe want to do that with you and, um, just just start it. If your church doesn't have a plan like that, just start it. I just started it, so if I can do it, you can do it.
Leanne:Oh, that's so good. Just just go for it. Just do it, All right. My last question for you is just kind of for fun. I know that you love to read books, as do I, so right now, if you could only recommend one book for someone to read on the spot putting you on the spot and only recommend one what would you choose?
Autumn:Is there like a genre or like a topic?
Leanne:Shoot. I know I didn't prep you for this one.
Autumn:I would say so. I'll just say what my favorite book of this year was reading, and that was dominion by Tom Holland. Okay, he, um, he's an atheist, which actually makes me so much more excited to have read this book. But the book is a massive look into church history and why the gospel and Christianity have been good for the world, and I would say, yeah, I love his writing style, I love his research, and I will have to read it again to try to absorb all of the information, um, but it was much more enjoyable than I thought it was going to be and it was my favorite book that I've read this year, so that's what I would recommend.
Leanne:I love it. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Autumn. This was so fun just to be able to have this conversation about biblical literacy and really just encourage women to open up their Bibles and start reading. So thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate it.
Autumn:Thank you so much.