In August of 2018, we had a major server problem that resulted in the total loss of our ministry website and due to the nature of all that happened, we didn’t have a backup. As a result, for those who are new to our ministry, we wanted to give you all a little history of who we are and how we got started…sorry it took so long to post this, but I think you will understand.
The Beginning
The year was 2015 and Peter Schrock was driving back from a Bible Study in southeast Missouri on a damp, but sunny Saturday morning. He had been going through a dry season being extremely busy with work and young children. While driving he recalls that he was waiting for life to change so that he could become spiritual again. At that moment, he realized that life was not going to change and that he simply needed to learn how to walk with God in the crazy life that God had given him. Later at the end of the year, Peter began talking and praying with his wife about what seeking first the kingdom of God would look like for their family. This is what laid the foundation for Create Disciples Inc.
Bible Study Together
Amid the busy craziness of life with little kids and running his own business, Peter started to ask what he could do to keep himself more spiritually consistent and stable. Knowing that daily Bible reading would be part of the solution, he felt compelled to find a reading plan that he could use to help focus his quiet times. He wanted something that would take him through the whole Bible, but also help him study both the New Testament and Old Testament. After much searching, he didn’t find what he was looking for, but an idea formed about what the ideal Bible reading plan would be. He wanted something chronological that would help him connect the stories, psalms, and prophesies together. He wanted something that connected the New Testament and Old Testament daily readings so he could see how the NT fulfilled the OT. He wanted open-ended questions that would cause him to think more about what he was studying and more than anything else, he wanted to be able to read with others. One Spring morning Peter headed out for a walk on a dirt road in front of his trailer home in the woods and prayed about this Bible reading plan idea. When he arrived back home he was determined to create this Bible reading plan. This began a long process which took nearly 3 years.
Create Disciples Inc
Before the Bible reading plan was complete many people started to get excited about what Peter was making. One of the first churches to jump on board was his own home church, Parkland Chapel. The pastor encouraged people to read through the whole Bible every couple of years and Peter’s plan seemed like a good fit for the church. At the beginning of 2017, Bible Study Together was born and people started using the initial draft that Peter had been working on. One of Peter’s friends from church, Jeremy Kennedy, jumped on board with him and they came up with a way to help people use their smartphones and tablets to use the developing reading plan. Their work together later developed into a non-profit called Create Disciples Inc. Create Disciples has become the channel from which much of the remaining work on Bible Study Together has continued.
Trials of Life
The first couple of years of developing Bible Study Together was a whirlwind of activity that became increasingly difficult. Challenging pregnancies, babies being born (but not sleeping), incapacitating surgery that put Peter out of commission for months, all three board members moving and working on home construction projects are just a few of the many things that slowed the work of Create Disciples Inc. Through the difficulties, God was working to shape us and though we are still in the midst of many of these challenges, we have not forgotten that we need to learn to thrive right in the place where God has put us. Despite these challenges, we completed the reading plan, developed our Bible Study Together App, published a four-volume Study journal that incorporates our reading plan, created daily maps and questions incorporated into the reading, and distributed nearly 8,000 booklets of our reading plan to churches and individuals all across the United States.
Going Forward in 2020
We have high hopes for this year and have three goals. First, we want to take our app to a new level by incorporating prayer tools, making it faster, and enabling people to communicate with those they are reading with. Second, we want to incorporate more content into the daily reading. Specifically, we are hoping to create sights and sounds experiences of the Holy Land to help people connect the stories of the Bible, to the places where they occurred. This will likely involve a trip to Israel and many days of post-production. We believe that this will help people remember the stories better and further help them see that the Bible is real and historical. Third, we are planning to help churches get their whole congregation reading the Bible together by putting on events and creating promotional materials they can use. Please pray for us this year as we have found that we do have an enemy who doesn’t want us to further the kingdom of God.