“People don’t buy what you do. They buy why you do it.”

In books and talks, leadership guru Simon Sinek discusses the importance of “starting with the why.” The context is business. Sinek’s TED talk includes references to tipping points, early adopters, and Apple products. But there are also some key principles we can glean to help us lead people into Bible engagement.

What How Why

Sinek draws a target with concentric circles. The outer ring is the What. In business terms, that’s where the products reside. Many companies have valuable things to sell, but they miss out on market share because they’re only selling products, not experience or passion. The steak without the sizzle.

The middle ring on Sinek’s chart is the How. Great products will flounder in the marketplace if people don’t know how to use them. But the true selling point is in the bull’s eye of this target—the Why.

Here’s where Apple has led the business world. Ever since that famous Super Bowl ad with the sledgehammer demolishing the status quo, Apple has been selling a belief system—along with all the tech products that feed it.

Where we’ve been

What does this have to do with Bible engagement leadership?

Collectively, we’ve done pretty well with the What. American households have, on average, three and a half Bibles at home. We have study Bibles of all stripes—men’s Bibles and women’s Bibles and teen Bibles, and far more English translations than we need.

We’ve done fairly well with the How. Various Bible study methods are available. Perhaps you haven’t yet found the right method for the people you lead, but there’s no shortage of options. For half a century, creative minds have been churning out helpful approaches—from Serendipity to the Community Bible Experience to Lectio Divina (which goes back much further than half a century but has had a recent surge of interest).

Before we move on to the bull’s eye, let’s confirm that some of our work will involve the What and the How. Your people may have several Bibles at home but that’s pointless if they now use their phones for everything. Can you hook them up with a good Bible reading app? Similarly, have they encountered a Bible study method that fits their schedule, their interests, and their style of learning? Leaders can help with those practical matters.

But if that’s all we do, following Sinek’s principles, we’re more like TiVo than Apple—promoting a good, usable product but never quite defining the dream.

Finding the Why

So, what is the Why of Bible engagement? And how can we “sell” that to the people we lead?

Traditionally, some have taken the “spiritual discipline” approach. That is, Bible reading is what good Christians do, so just do it. But the motivational power of this approach, by itself, fades quickly. Bible reading as a sacred chore soon becomes a What.

But the sustainable power of spiritual disciplines comes from their connection to the power of God. As we pray and read and fast and meditate, we put ourselves in position for the Spirit to transform us. Seen in this way, Bible reading finds its Why—as a transformative interaction with the living God. We come to the Bible because we meet God there.

Verb

This subject takes me back to an important book by an old teacher of mine. A generation ago, Robert Webber authored Worship is a Verb (Word, 1985), a seminal work in an emerging worship revolution. (This was a case where the book’s title meant as much as its content, maybe more.) Webber challenged Christians to view worship as more than a chore, more than the bread in a sermon sandwich, more than a What. In worship, we take action as we celebrate our active God.

There may be a parallel track we can follow with regard to Scripture. Let’s emphasize the action we find in the Bible and then in our own interaction with it. As Webber wrote, “Scripture is not a relic of the past, a mere historical record, but a living and dynamic activity of God’s grace, communicating his actions on my behalf now, in the present” (p. 76).

You know this. But the success of our Bible engagement ministry may depend on our ability to share this sense of “living and dynamic activity.” The Bible can’t just be “that thing I read because I’m supposed to,” but a portal to a new world in which God makes us new.