Bible study app users increase tenfold during pandemic

A Bible study app has seen unprecedented engagement during the coronavirus pandemic.

WordGo, created by the Bible Study Fellowship (BSF), is a free app offering two and six-week long Bible courses that combine Scripture readings, questions, study notes and audio teachings. 

The WordGo app saw a one thousand per cent increase in users between January and July this year, with three-quarters of users being female. 

Simon Lennox, Director of WordGo said the app could help to create a "sustainable daily rhythm of reading the Bible".

"With the pandemic stripping away our social interactions face-to-face, there has never been a better time to grow the community aspect of church," he said. 

"WordGo has been a great way of doing Bible study together during lockdown, creating a daily rhythm of Bible study for the user and their church community to grow spiritually in the Word of God." 

A recent study by the American Bible Society (ABS) pointed to a huge opportunity for the Church to boost Scripture engagement. 

The State of the Bible study found that Scripture engagement had declined during lockdown, suggesting that many Christians struggle to engage with the Bible outside of a formal church service setting. 

While in 2019, over a third of US adults (35%) said that realistically they never use the Bible outside of a large church service or mass, by June of 2020, that proportion had fallen to 31%.

The proportion of Americans who use the Bible daily also fell below one in ten (9%) by the middle of this year, the lowest number on record in the decade since the first State of the Bible report. 

Commenting on the findings, ABS' Dr John Farquhur Plake said: "This study supports the idea that the Church plays a significant role in benefitting people's wellbeing and Scripture engagement."