Not too long ago, perhaps about two weeks ago, a friend, Sandra Entermann, contacted me about joining a Facebook group she had started, The Great Controversy Readathon. The purpose of the group was to read the 42 chapters of the book The Great Controversy in 42 weeks, starting September 1.

At the time of my invite, there were only 8 or 10 members of the group. I had been reading The Great Controversy as part of my research for a series of articles I’ve been writing for 3ABN World, called “Our Heritage.” I thought joining Sandra’s group would be a great way to study the book more deeply, since I had not read it straight through since college. Being able to dialog with other readers would help me gain fresh insights, and would also provide a place to share what I’ve been learning. I thought maybe the group might grow as large as 20 or 30 participants, and we’d all have a great time sharing with each other.

Things have happened so quickly, it is hard for me to keep it all straight. But shortly after I joined, I decided to invite a bunch of my Facebook friends. Sandra and her friends were also continuing to invite people. The numbers were really growing fast. Sensing the momentum, Sandra suggested we invite church friends, and start making local announcements. (She’s such a go-getter!)

Sandra and I both felt impressed that this could grow far beyond Facebook. So I suggested starting a website to allow non-Facebook users to participate. Thus the website www.gcreadathon.com was created.

Sandra was calling conferences everywhere, in her home country of Australia, as well as here in the United States, trying to get announcements in church bulletins, etc. I posted a notice to the popular FIG list. Meanwhile, Facebook was working its own magic, as people continued joining, prompting their friends to join.

In one week we had more than 1000 Facebook members in our group, which is totally amazing. In fact, as of today the first full week of the Readathon has not ended yet (here in the USA), and now there are nearly 1700 members. Considering that the largest SDA group on Facebook, Seventh-day Adventists, has just over 10,000 members, our growth is quite impressive.

We’d love to have you join us! It’s not too late. In fact, we begin chapter 2 tomorrow. All you really need to do to participate is commit to read one chapter each week. If you’d like the additional blessing of interacting with others online, visit www.gcreadathon.com. You can sign up for e-mail notifications to help you stay on track.