‘The Bible in a Year’ podcast at 5: Father Mike Schmitz has 5 takeaways

(OSV News) — Father Mike Schmitz is sharing five takeaways, things he’s learned, from hosting the wildly popular “The Bible in a Year” podcast released five years ago.

“The reason people are listening — the reason they want to listen and the reason they keep listening — is because of him,” the Catholic priest told OSV News, referring to God. “It’s his Word.”

Produced by Catholic multimedia network Ascension, “The Bible in a Year” podcast is expected to hit 1 billion downloads in February. Since its release in 2021, the chart-topping production has become the most successful religious podcast in the world with 365 daily episodes that guide listeners through the entire Bible. 

To celebrate the podcast’s fifth anniversary, Ascension announced it is releasing free bonus commentary from Father Mike for days one through five of “The Bible in a Year” podcast in the Ascension app. Ascension also published video conversations on YouTube between Father Mike and guests including “The Chosen” star Jonathan Roumie, Biblical scholar Jeff Cavins, and author and Harvard professor Arthur Brooks.

“It’s likely that The Bible in a Year is the most important thing I’ve ever done in my life,” Father Mike, who serves as director of youth and young adult ministry for the Diocese of Duluth, Minnesota, and chaplain for the Newman Center at the University of Minnesota Duluth, told Roumie in a Dec. 28 Ascension Presents interview. 

He added, “This is God’s work; I just got to be the narrator.”

5 things Learned from ‘The Bible in A Year’

After five years, Father Mike shared five things that stood out to him after creating the podcast, which is available for free on podcast apps and online through Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pandora and Ascension.

1. People are hungry for the word of God

Father Mike said this podcast confirmed something he already knew: People are hungry for the word of God. 

Since its release, for most of 2021-2025, “The Bible in a Year” podcast has ranked #1 on Apple Podcasts’ “Religion & Spirituality” chart. The podcast has also made Apple’s “Most Shared Shows” charts annually since 2022 and was named a “2025 Most Shared Show” by Spotify. 

The podcast is a global success: The English and Spanish-language version, “La Biblia en un año,” placed #1 in “Christianity” in nearly 50 countries in 2022. In total, it has reached listeners in more than 150 countries.

“I did this partly because I was like, ‘Oh, I’ve purchased those read-the-Bible-in-a-year Bibles before and never did it,” Father Mike said of hosting the podcast. “Never made it past even like Jan. 7.”

He said he constantly receives emails from people who wanted to read the Bible except that something always got in their way. The podcast provides them an alternative format.

2. Consistency changes lives

Father Mike said the podcast also confirmed that consistency changes lives.

“I keep just saying, ‘Every day, just keep pressing play,'” he said of encouraging listeners to continue tuning in. “If you miss it, just keep pressing play.”

3. People are looking for guidance

People not only want information but also guidance, Father Mike said he learned with this podcast. Each 20-25 minute episode includes scripture readings as well as a reflection from Father Mike.

“Something that’s really humbling about this podcast is (that) the heart of it, obviously, is just God’s word,” he said. “I get to be the narrator and then get to be the guide afterwards.”

4. The Word reveals hearts

In doing this podcast, Father Mike said he witnessed how the Word reveals hearts. 

It “says a lot about our formation, that we can go to church every week, every Sunday, and still have our own ‘flavor’ of God,” Father Mike said, adding later, “It just reveals the fact that we get — we have to — take in God’s word in entirety and basically receive him as he is, not as we want him to be.”

People who attend church regularly will email him, he said, and say that, after listening to the podcast, “I don’t like who God’s revealing himself to be.” At the same time, he said he receives even more emails from listeners who say they now love God more than ever.

“It’s almost one of those images of Pharaoh, right?” Father Mike said. “That sense of the same God can melt one person’s heart and harden another person’s heart — not because God changes, but because of one’s own heart.”

5. God’s word unites and divides

God’s word can also unite people, Father Mike said.

“God’s word both unites and divides in the sense that there are so many people who are just like, ‘Oh wow, this has helped raise me above politics — helped raise me above my own kind of parochialism,” he said.

“I’ve actually had a lot of non-Catholic Christians who have said, ‘I didn’t realize Catholics are Christians,'” he added.

‘The Bible in a Year’ changes lives

Along with his five takeaways, Father Mike shared the stories of individual people whose lives changed after listening to the podcast. He remembered one man in particular who reached out toward the beginning of the “Bible in a Year.” Now middle aged, this man had lived his whole life as an atheist and raised his kids to be atheists. He had read the Bible multiple times, but the podcast struck him in a new way.

“Something about God’s word proclaimed, read out loud — he said that changed him,” Father Mike said. “He said, ‘I’m a believer now.'” 

Katie Yoder is an OSV News correspondent. She writes from Maryland.

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