THE TikTok video that generated hundreds of requests for free Bibles was not, the Revd David Sims admits, his most dignified.
“I was dancing in my office, waving the Bible, and saying ‘If you want one, I’ll send you one for free,’” he recalled this week. “Within around three or four days, it had had over 100,000 views, and I’d had hundreds of messages saying ‘I’d love a free Bible.’”
Mr Sims, Vicar of St Thomas’s, Aldridge, in Walsall, has been broadcasting on TikTok for more than six years, and holds a regular Sunday service on the site. But, while at one time he sent out two or three Bibles a week, the dancing video last spring has brought the total to more than 2800. He now has a team of ten to 20 volunteers who spend Monday mornings packaging up Bibles to send out.
The requests mainly came from people, typically aged 20 to 40, who did not go to church, he said. “A good number of people are interested in church and spirituality but don’t know where to go. I don’t get the sense that we are the beginning of the journey for people: that hunger is already there.” Some people had come across his TikTok after asking God for a sign.
With every Bible, usually in the New International Version, the team sends the “Why Jesus” booklet produced by Alpha International, and a guide to the books of the Bible, with a suggestion to begin with the Gospels.
The volunteer will also include a note expressing the hope that the Bible is a blessing to the recipient. Mr Sims also recommends to those that get back in touch that they try the 321 course produced by the evangelist Glen Scrivener, and that they connect with their local church. Some of those who received the Bible have since been baptised or are pursuing a call to ministry.
While Mr Sims advises beginning with the Gospels, he was told recently by one woman that she was “halfway through Leviticus” and had become a Christian. He reflects: “Who I am to tell the Lord how his Word can be used? . . . I think what this is teaching me is that God can bring people to himself through the power of his Spirit. He doesn’t need our help.”
The narrative of a “quiet revival” resonated with his own experience, Mr Sims said. “People have turned up at our church already wanting to be baptised having read the Bible.”
“I’ve never seen evangelism be this easy,” he observed. “But there is also a sense that I am becoming a bit bolder. . . We are not going out doing big evangelistic campaigns. It must be a work of God, which is really exciting.”