{"id":143073,"date":"2026-02-05T17:11:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T22:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=143073"},"modified":"2026-02-05T19:14:30","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T00:14:30","slug":"church-times-vicars-tiktok-turns-walsall-church-into-a-mini-bible-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=143073","title":{"rendered":"(Church Times) Vicar\u2019s TikTok turns Walsall church into a mini Bible society"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/topics\/social-media\">TikTok<\/a>&nbsp;video that generated hundreds of requests for free&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/topics\/bible\">Bibles<\/a>&nbsp;was not, the Revd David Sims admits, his most dignified.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI was dancing in my office, waving the Bible, and saying \u2018If you want one, I\u2019ll send you one for free,\u2019\u201d he recalled this week. \u201cWithin around three or four days, it had had over 100,000 views, and I\u2019d had hundreds of messages saying \u2018I\u2019d love a free&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/topics\/bible\">Bible<\/a>.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mr Sims, Vicar of St Thomas\u2019s, Aldridge, in Walsall, has been broadcasting on TikTok for more than six years, and holds a regular Sunday service on the site. But, while at one time he sent out two or three Bibles a week, the dancing video last spring has brought the total to more than 2800. He now has a team of ten to 20 volunteers who spend Monday mornings packaging up Bibles to send out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The requests mainly came from people, typically aged 20 to 40, who did not go to church, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/articles\/2026\/6-february\/news\/uk\/vicar-s-tiktok-turns-walsall-church-into-a-mini-bible-society\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p><blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/TikTok?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#TikTok<\/a> video that generated hundreds of requests for free <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Bibles?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#Bibles<\/a> was not, the Revd David Sims admits, his most dignified<br><br>Read the full story &#x1f447;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/freebibles?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#freebibles<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Evangelism?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#Evangelism<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/churchnews?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#churchnews<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/churchtimes?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#churchtimes<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/fow0hfxJhT\">https:\/\/t.co\/fow0hfxJhT<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Church Times (@ChurchTimes) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ChurchTimes\/status\/2019018007918285090?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 4, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The TikTok&nbsp;video that generated hundreds of requests for free&nbsp;Bibles&nbsp;was not, the Revd David Sims admits, his most dignified. \u201cI was dancing in my office, waving the Bible, and saying \u2018If you want one, I\u2019ll send you one for free,\u2019\u201d he<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=143073\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433,94,92,324,89,435,184,169],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social-networking","category-blogging-the-internet","category-books","category-church-of-england","category-media","category-ministry-of-the-ordained","category-parish-ministry","category-theology-scripture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=143073"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":143077,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143073\/revisions\/143077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=143073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=143073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=143073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}