A custom Bible Reading Plan is a great way to engage your congregation daily and to foster community with your custom schedule of readings.
Supplementary content or guided notes cannot be added to any reading plan but can be added elsewhere in the app.
Creating Your Plan
You can use the tool linked below to build your custom Bible Reading Plan XML file. Detailed instructions for using the tool and constructing your plan are provided within the tool itself.
The plan will reset after 365 days, therefore, ensure your plan is no longer than 1 year.
Host Your XML File
Upload the custom XML file generated by the tool to your server or hosting space, and make sure the file is publicly accessible.
SnapPages (Recommended)
Upload it to the Storage section of your SnapPages site, even if not using SnapPages as your website builder you can upload and store files here for public use.
Dropbox
If you choose to use DropBox to host your XML file, you will need to change the "0" at the end of your sharing link to a "1" to make sure it is compatible with your mobile app.
AWS
Create or use an existing S3 bucket and upload the XML file into it, be sure the bucket or file is set to be public.
Set Your Custom Reading Plan URL
Once your plan is hosted and you have your publicly accessible URL, go to your Bible tab in the Mobile App section of your dashboard, select Custom Bible Reading Plan from the dropdown menu and add your URL to the Custom Plan field.
When setting a start date for your reading plan, consider the plan length to make sure it shows within your desired time frame.
FAQ
How do I edit my plan and XML?
How do I edit my plan and XML?
Once you download your XML from the Bible plan builder there may come a time when you need to make changes, feel free to update the XML file directly instead of putting together a new spreadsheet!
XML uses tags in a particular order and with particular spaces or line breaks. Make sure you follow these instructions exactly.
Make sure not to change the <plan> or <title> tags as they are needed to properly display the Reading Plan.
Add these exact tags for each day of the reading:
<reading>
<day></day>
<passage></passage>
</reading>
Fill in the day. 1-365 based on the day of the year. Month is not used. For example, December 1st is day 335.
For Leap Years, make sure you account for Feb. 29th in your plan.
Fill in the passage. If a day needs to have more than one passage, just add a new passage on the line below the first passage using the passage tags.
If you have a day that doesn't have a reading, put 'No Reading Today' in the passage tag to alert readers that there will be no reading that day.
Example of a day with 1 passage:
<reading>
<day>1</day>
<passage>Matthew 1</passage>
</reading>
Example of a day with 2 passages:
<reading>
<day>1</day>
<passage>Genesis 1:1-24</passage>
<passage>Matthew 1:1-2:14</passage>
</reading>
Make sure you use the full name of the book and insure that there are no extra spaces before or after the entry.
Updating your Custom Bible Reading Plan
Open your copy of the XML reading plan that is saved to your computer. You can open this with your favorite text editor, such as Sublime Text (download here) or TextEdit.
Scroll to the bottom of the XML document and add your new content above the closing </plan> tag.
Save the document and re-upload it to your host (e.g. SnapPages, Dropbox, AWS, your own hosting) to overwrite the previous document.
The best way to name the document is with no spaces and just letters, numbers, dashes ( - ) or underscores ( _ ). Example: daily_devotion.xml or DailyDevotion.xml
And that’s all there is to it! Once you overwrite the old XML doc, the plan will be updated in the app.