Over 300,000 students went to school spiritually equipped on Thursday as Christians observed the annual "Bring Your Bible to School Day."
The national event was sponsored by Colorado Springs, the Colorado-based Focus on the Family. Jim Daly, president of Focus on the Family, told The Christian Post that it's the third straight year that the socially conservative group organised the event, and they are proud that it has seen "inspiring" growth in participation.
"In 2014, around 8,000 students participated. But in 2015, that number exploded to more than 155,000 students from every state in the nation," said Daly. "It's fun to see second-year and third-year participants — such as [a student named] Carson, from Indiana, who started a Bible Club at his school last year."
Daly said religious freedom is very important to them, so it's something they wanted highlighted during the observance. He described "Bring Your Bible to School Day" as a "a nationwide, religious-freedom initiative for students from kindergarten to college" where Christian kids put on a united front for evangelism.
"On this day, they celebrate religious freedom and share God's hope by taking a simple action — bringing their Bibles to school and talking about it with friends before and after class," said Daly.
He found it sad that a lot of schools nowadays are actually preventing kids from displaying their faith. Christians are being pinned down whenever they pray or carry the Bible, so the "Bring Your Bible to School Day" helped affirm that the Word of God is something good and must be valued, he said.
"I think the exponential response among youth has do to with the fact that it's something positive, redemptive, and tangible that Christian students can easily do in their schools to celebrate their faith — and to visibly see that they are joined by thousands nationwide," he said.
Daly stressed that every student has the right to express their faith in public, just as long as they are not disrupting their school activities.
