An estimated 2 million students across the United States are believed to have participated in Bring Your Bible to School Day, an annual event designed to foster conversations about Scripture among students and adults alike.

Focus on the Family’s annual Bring Your Bible to School Day was held on Thursday. According to data from the socially conservative advocacy group, nearly 1.3 million people from over 70,000 schools joined in last year’s event, with more than 10,000 churches involved.

In an interview with The Christian Post, Emerson Collins, the Parenting and Youth Program Manager at Focus on the Family, projected even greater participation this year.  

“Based on signups this year alone, we’re projecting close to 2 million participants,” Collins stated, predicting that this year’s turnout of churches and schools will be one and a half to twice as many as last year’s.

“We’re looking at thousands of churches, thousands of schools and 2 million students total participating,” he emphasized. Collins mentioned that if the current projections are accurate, this could be the most participation the event has seen since it started in 2014.

He summarized the goal of Bring Your Bible to School Day as “starting a conversation about Christ and the Gospel with a believer or an unbeliever to create that connection point for students in schools and, of course, be a light for Christ wherever they are.”

Although the primary purpose is to encourage students to bring their Bibles and share Scripture in their classrooms, last year marked the first time adults were invited to take part as well. Reflecting on adult participation from last year, Collins said, “It went fantastic last year.”

He explained, “The inspiration for that, of course, was that every year we heard students who were hesitant to participate in bringing their Bibles to school until mom or dad or a brother or sister or even an uncle said they would bring their Bible with them to work wherever they went if their student participated as well and they’d make it a whole family thing.”

Collins estimates that around 3 million adults joined Bring Your Bible Day last year, and he added, “Based on sign-ups alone, we can anticipate more than last year. We’d be looking at probably the 3.5 to 4 million range.”

Collins stated that Focus on the Family offers various resources on its website for those planning to participate, including “conversation guides, answers to tough questions that you may face throughout the day about Christianity or apologetics or theology,” as well as “legal memos from our friends Alliance Defending Freedom.”