A Baptist church in Franklin, Va., has embarked on a 75-week sermon series designed to show the Bible is more than a collection of stand-alone books in the Old and New testaments.
“One of the things I want to come out of it is an understanding of the Bible as one story. We call it a Bible with 66 books in it, but that has distracted us from noticing there is one arc that starts in Genesis and plays itself out in Revelation — and even there the story doesn’t end,” said Charles Qualls, senior pastor of Franklin Baptist Church and a BNG columnist.
Charles Qualls
The congregation, which is affiliated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, launched the “One Story” series in September after months of planning by Qualls and Jeremy Poplin, associate pastor for music.
The project includes sermons on a different book of the Bible each Sunday — with breaks for holidays and other special occasions — accompanied by hymns, anthems, prayers and readings reflecting the themes of each week’s topic. What isn’t covered from the pulpit is presented and expanded during Wednesday night Bible studies and discussed further during Faith on Draft, a monthly theology discussion Qualls hosts at a local pub. The series will conclude later in 2025 with a celebration built around a cantata composed by Poplin.
“We really want to get across that we can’t read or listen to a passage of Scripture absent an understanding of the entire Bible, that you shouldn’t read Genesis absent also reading John’s Gospel, and that you can’t understand the Gospel of John without understanding Genesis,” Qualls said. “When you take that approach, the whole thing starts to speak to you as one story. You won’t let yourself pluck things out of context.”
Another hope is “One Story” will serve as continuing religious education for every member of the congregation, Qualls explained during the Sept. 8 introductory sermon.
“We are here to spend this year-plus with the Bible in all the healthiest ways and for all the best reasons and … to see its connection to belief, life and culture,” he said. “I also believe taking this deliberate and patient of a trip all the way through the Bible will be beneficial to us from a discipleship standpoint. We will all learn more and I hope to have our love and our interest in the Bible rekindled through this effort.”
In fact, preaching and teaching the series already has had that very effect on him, Qualls said separately. “I am being discipled. It’s been incredibly refreshing to me. I am studying in a different way as the gaps in my own understanding are filled in by seeing these books in their wider context.”
Selecting music and other worship elements to fit each Sunday presentation has been musically challenging and rewarding, Poplin said.
“Each week I take what Charles does in One Story and write litanies and prayers and use the Celebrating Grace hymnal and a variety of other resources to choose the music. Basically, I look for a nugget I can draw from to make those selections for that Sunday.”
The aim is to provide added insights into each book through song and prayer. “By the time he gets up to deliver the message, I want people to be able to say, ‘Oh, that’s why we sang that.’”
In the meantime, Poplin said he already is working on the cantata that will conclude the sermon series later next year. “I’ve been taking notes on the major themes and taking from Scripture passages and from the places in Charles’ messages I can use.”
Involvement in the project also has deepened his understanding and experience of Scripture, he added. “It’s amazing to see how everything fits together from beginning to end and to see the drama unfold, and how everything points toward Christ and his love for us. Walking through it in this context and in this way, chronologically, has the light bulbs going off for me that the Bible is one thing rather than a collection of books.”
Launching the series required months of planning, Qualls said. He and Poplin kept the plan to themselves as they mapped out the overall concept and outline, began sermon preparation, music selection and came up with a title.
Qualls said he and Poplin “stress tested” the concept to ensure the two of them could live up to the plan and to determine how the liturgical calendar could provide challenges. “We looked at what do we do about holidays and things like All Saints Sunday. We were just doing whatever we could to throw problems at it. It took months of preparation.”
Then, as the opening Sunday approached, they started dropping hints something special was coming, he said. “We mapped out a publicity schedule and posters and then released the title to our congregation, and it drove our people crazy in the best way. They just knew something big was coming and the anticipation just grew and grew.”
Eventually a video announcement was released and some local businesses agreed to display posters announcing the series to the city. “Jeremy and I started planning this in March and by the time we opened in September there was a excitement about the series in the community,” Qualls said.
In its first few months, the series has generated praise from members of the church and the community, he said. “It’s this buzz that ‘I want to come and hear more about this.’ Overall, our Sunday attendance has not dramatically risen as a result of the series, but our Wednesday night attendance is now 30% higher than it was a year ago.”
Part of that may be due to how enjoyable the series has been, Poplin said. “I haven’t had this much fun in probably ever in my career and the choir has been great. It’s a joy to do this each week and the congregation has been gracious enough to go along with it and allow us to be as creative as we possibly can be.”