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Scripture Engagement Research Initiative

Here are the latest resources on the Scripture Engagement website:
Scripture Engagement Research Initiative<   Mar 03, 2022 10:53 am

A multiagency research program of Dallas International University

Dallas International University (DIU), in collaboration with SIL’s Pike Center for Integrative Scholarship, has launched the Scripture Engagement Research Initiative (SERI). The SERI program hosts a series of large grant-funded Scripture Engagement research projects. Research topics are proposed both by participants and by the SERI leadership. Participants can serve for short periods of time or as part of a longer-term assignment.

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What makes a good oral Bible story

Story group in West Africa

What makes a good oral Bible story? There are many ministries that develop oral Bible stories, and they have varying approaches on the process of developing an abbreviated and simplified story from a biblical passage(s).

Good story development follows four principles embraced by many in the story community of biblically faithful to the textual Bible passage(s), orally reproducible (meaning that that story can be easily learned and told by others), naturally told and the story is appropriate to the culture, often expressed in the use of key terms understood by the local community. In addition, a good oral Bible story based on a Bible passage(s) has a plot or story line that keeps the listener interested and engaged. The actual storyteller can also influence the quality of the story experience to the listener

When developing an oral Bible story, a ministry may embrace common elements practiced by other story practitioners (e.g., testing the story with those who don’t follow Jesus) while having nuances (e.g., use of technology) in the story development process that is unique to the ministry.

So what makes a good oral Bible story? Two important aspects are fidelity to an established process and people embracing the story.

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Unaddressed Trauma

To attend the session on this subject go to https://emdc.online/list

or if you miss the session,  the video of the emdc online session may be found here https://emdc.online/archive/687

Unaddressed trauma creates barriers to hearing, understanding, and accepting the love of God. In other words, trauma can keep someone from truly hearing the gospel and creates barriers to spiritual growth. If we are concerned with sharing the gospel and planting healthy and reproducing churches, we must pay significant attention to trauma. We must equip and empower lay people with the basic tools they need to address trauma safely, responsibly, and effectively. As lay people learn to use these tools, healing multiplies alongside the Good News.

Healing cannot take place in 7 or 10 simple sessions – it is an on-going journey. From entry into a community to leadership development, it is important to help communities establish environments where healing community, faith, and purpose can flourish. Comprehensive frameworks that integrate a trauma-informed approach into church planting strategy provide structures that allow for lay people to be trained and for healing to happen over time appropriately, in a healthy way, and in a way that multiplies. A trauma-informed approach should take the following steps:

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Which kind of translations make more impact? 

  (photo credit: esperanzatolentino.wordpress.com)

Which kind of translations make more impact?

This is a good question.  It is also a complex issue and more than one set of parameters comes into play. That is, there’s more going on here than “literal vs meaning-based.” Long ago David Landin did research in Bolivia to see which indigenous Bibles were being used there 10 years after completion. Answer: the ones with the hymns in the back. And in those, it was the hymns that were being used, not the translations themselves.

One key factor that has proven true over the years is whether or not the local church leaders (pastors, evangelists, teachers) choose to use a new translation or not. If the local and regional church leaders do not show support for a translation, it will likely fade into obscurity. This is why nowadays many projects begin by contacting local and regional, even national church and denominational leadership in order to hear from them what kind of translation is most desired by them for their people. And continued conversation with these leaders is fostered all along the life of the translation project.

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The Untapped Power of Media for Mobilization

  • by Joshua

The State of the World

In a survey done by Barna Research, it showed that 51% of the U.S. churchgoers do not know the Great Commission and 63% could not even correctly identify Matthew 28:18-20 as the Great Commission when given 5 verses to choose from.  Media and social media have played a major role in desimination of information whether true or false, and have lead to response and action among people. Are we creating enough digital awareness through videos and on social media about the needs of the Unreached People Groups?

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Scripture In Mission – Three Major Priorities In Eradicating Bible Poverty

 
Illustration  from TV – Eradicating Bible Poverty@call2all

Scripture In Mission: Three Major Priorities In Eradicating Bible Poverty

The Scripture in Mission Multiplex Resource Team

Written by John Watters, PhD, Chair of the Forum of Bible Agencies International.
This Cape Town 2010 Advance Paper was written by the Scripture in Mission Multiplex Resource Team as an overview of the topic that was discussed at the related session on ‘Scripture in Mission’ at the Cape Town 2010 Congress. 

Abstract

Peter and Angela are busy with their middle-class lives. Next door, Lucy is a Buddhist from East Asia and her housemate is into New Age religious matters. Mma Echu has no Scriptures in her language, and the chief of her village has built a shrine for his god. Amin is interested in Jesus but is illiterate, while Hussein is deaf.
What do all these people have in common? They suffer from a malady that afflicts billions of people scattered throughout every nation in the world—Bible poverty. But none of them realize it.
What are the signs of Bible poverty? It is present where people are hindered by barriers from having access to the Scriptures in a language they understand well and engaging with them in ways that transform their lives. It cuts across economic levels, social status, religious identity, ethnic groups, and languages. Bible poverty affects regions of religious persecution. It affects the non-literate, the deaf, and the blind. Still others, like the Befang of Cameroon, simply do not have any Scripture in their language. And a host of professionals in cities from Shanghai to Munich to Bogota have no confidence in any truth but their own experience. Barriers to engaging meaningfully with the Scriptures show up everywhere: in urban contexts, in rural contexts, in regions where other major religions dominate, and in the post-modern West. But once we identify these barriers, can we also work to build bridges that enable people to overcome these barriers?

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Innovation Does Not Equal Technology

  • by Jon Hirst
Illustration from 10 Types of Innovation: The Art of Discovering a Breakthrough Product

Imagine that someone was to say to you, “I’m involved in an innovative project.” What assumptions would you make about the project? Take a moment to be in that conversation and truly consider my question.

The word “innovative” will tip you off that they are working on something new. You may also assume that there is a degree of risk or uncertainty in the project’s outcome because it is new. It is also likely that you assume that the project involves some new technology, or an existing technology applied to a new domain. 

It’s that last assumption that I would like to focus on for a few minutes. Why is it that we tend to associate innovation with technology? My guess is that we are simply used to seeing the two go hand in hand in our 21st Century world. There have been so many astounding advances in technology in the past 20 years that our brains are almost conditioned to join the two concepts together. 

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PTXprint – Instant publishing tool for Paratext.

PTXprint – Bible Layout For Everyone

Rapidly create Scripture PDFs for quality trial publications

PTXprint is a stand-alone program which allows you to create high quality PDFs for trial publications of Scripture. It has a multitude of easily configurable options allowing a whole range of outputs. The interface is user-friendly, enabling anyone to produce Scripture for testing within their local context.

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The Bible Explained

  • by Art Ayris

When Google launched Chrome they created a comic book to explain Google Chrome. After the U.S. government spent millions of dollars compiling the 9/11 Commission Report they had a problem – no one was reading the voluminous text. That is, until it came out as a graphic novel and catapulted to best-seller lists and the front of USA Today. Comics, it turns out, can be the language of choice to explain stories of significance.

Below and countless other letters and e-mails we receive attest to the fact that people need to understand the Bible. That is why the Comic Bible Society focuses on serializing and explain in a systematic, chronological and visual manner the whole testimony of the Scripture.
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Open Bible

  • by Biblica

In the Open.Bible initiative, Biblica is publishing Bible texts with a Creative Commons (Attribution-ShareAlike) Licence. This means that you are free to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format. You can adapt, remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially. You must attribute the original work to Biblica, and if you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.
“By releasing complete Biblical texts for free under Creative Commons licensing, the traditional Bible licensing, publishing, and distribution pipeline can be completely replaced with a much faster, more efficient vehicle.”

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How is Scripture Engagement different from Bible Study

 
How is Scripture Engagement Different from Bible Study?
Dr. Phil Collins
Scripture engagement is not the same thing as studying the Bible. It is a complement to deep study of the Scriptures. In the process of promoting Scripture engagement, the last thing we want to do is detract from the importance of studying the Scriptures. Let’s be very clear here: Studying the Scriptures is absolutely essential to the Christian life. 2 Timothy 2:15 tells us that we are to come to the Bible as a “worker who . . . correctly handles the word of truth.”
Teachers of the Scriptures are a gift to us from God (1 Corinthians 12:28). Jesus came as The Teacher (John 13:13). The Apostle Paul was a scholar (Acts 22:3). The inductive study of the Bible—the process of observing, interpreting, and applying the Bible—is how we understand what the Bible means. We must know what the Bible means if we are to have an accurate understanding of God as we meet with him.

Reach4Life

  • by Biblica

The Choice is Yours

Reach4Life is a comprehensive, Christian life skills program for young people — with a particular focus on identity, sexuality, and relationships — that brings about holistic spiritual and behavioural transformation. It is based on the idea that real comprehensive behavioral change is only possible once there is a spiritual revolution in the hearts and minds of young people.

Reach4Life is designed to inspire youth to plug into a relationship with God, the raw power of the Bible, the wisdom of saving lovemaking for marriage, the support of a local church, the beauty of a transformed life, and the opportunity to change the world one person at a time.

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Eight Conditions for Scripture Engagement

Online Scripture Engagement courses

Scripture Engagement: Planning for the Journey 

It’s not enough to translate the Bible. It’s not even enough to distribute the Bible. Our desire is to see real Scripture Engagement: people encountering God’s Word in life-changing ways. A three part series (3 sets of 10 one hour sessions) centred on Wayne Dye’s Eight Conditions for Scripture Engagement (below) will be hosted on EMDC.online early in 2022. These conditions are the ones at the heart of the EMDC.guide and  Scripture Engagement courses taught at university.

Each one hour class will have 20 minutes of discussion. Update: Classes are now finished but stay connected for news of when this runs again!

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Crescent Projects

I work with Crescent Project and we have a ministry opportunity called Embassy that I believe EMDC members would be interested to know about.  Embassy mobilizes ordinary followers of Christ into the extraordinary work God is doing among Muslims – online.
When Tom retired from his government job he wondered what he would do to occupy his time.  He hoped early retirement would open new doors of opportunity to use the gifts God had given him but he wasn’t sure what that looked like.  He had talked to his pastor about serving at the church and his wife had a healthy list of “opportunities” at home but he still felt there was more.  And so when a friend from church invited him to be a part of a Bridges Study, a six lesson DVD series created by the Crescent Project Tom thought, “Why not?”   Despite some initial reservations about the whole Muslim thing, he was excited to see where God would take him.

At the end of the third session the leader shared a short video about a ministry of Crescent Project called Embassy.  Embassy connects Christians with Muslims who speak their language online.  This intrigued Tom and so he decided to give it a try.  Tom applied and then quickly set to work with the onboarding process and then, with the guidance of the Embassy team and the encouragement of other volunteers, he began working to make new friends on secular websites where Muslims who speak English hang out.    

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Bibles and resources

Bibles and resources

Peter Brassington
Do you know where to find Bibles in all the languages spoken by people attending your church (live or online), and the people living in your community?
As we started 2021 YouVersion’s Bible app (also available at Bible.com) provided 2,212 versions in 1,512 languages. By Dec 31, 2021 this had risen to over 2,646 versions in 1,794 languages .
Many versions can be downloaded for offline use and easily switched between using the compare function. The interface is also available in over 60 languages.
The site and app includes reading plans, tools for creating verse images, or sharing notes and variety of other resources. There is also a Bible app for kids in over 60 languages
faithcomesbyhearing.com now has Audio Scripture recordings available in over 1560 languages. Increasingly these are also being made available as videos of at least one of the gospels, and they also have many additional versions in text only.  The Bible.is website and app includes these plus the Jesus Film Lumo gospel videos.

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Thinking Anthropologically about Media: How Bodies Communicate

The way we use our bodies in communication is deeply significant. How we move different body parts often expresses something we can’t easily say in words. We also use body language subconsciously. Therefore, it is often easier to learn a spoken language than the gestures and facial expressions that go with it.

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Abide Bible

So often we think of Scripture Engagement cross culturally.  But what about for ourselves?

The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means to bring men to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of God, that they may enter into Him, that they may delight in His Presence, may taste and know the inner sweetness of the very God Himself in the core and center of their hearts.
A.W. Tozer

Has anyone ever taught you how to abide in God’s Word?

Do you know how to come to the Scriptures in a manner that promotes a thriving, living relationship with Christ? For many, the guidance ends at read your Bible and pray every day.
Too many people have come to the Bible with an inadequate approach, flounder around, and then stop coming to the Bible; thinking that something was wrong with the Bible or with themselves.
Or, perhaps your time in the Bible is rich but you’d love to teach others how to grow spiritually through Bible reading but just aren’t sure how to go about the process?
The Bible itself teaches us how we are to abide in God’s Word. Words the Bible uses besides “abide” (1 John 2:14) include “meditate” (Ps. 1:2, Josh. 1:8), “consider” (2 Tim. 2:7), “look into” (James 1:25), “dwell” (Col. 3:16), “see” (Jer. 2:31), “bind” (Deut. 6:7), “receive” and “search” (Acts 17:11), “hide” (Ps. 119:11), “hold fast” (1 Cor. 15:2), “piercing” (Heb. 4:12), and even “eat” (Jer. 15:16).

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