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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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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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Digital Strategy Guides

Here are eight guides to help as you plan digital Scripture engagement strategy:
  1. Audience Questions
  2. Digital Strategy in Partnership
  3. Design Questions
  4. Distribution Options
  5. Digital Promotion
  6. Digital Scripture Engagement Pathways
  7. Monitoring, Evaluation and Analytics
  8. Training Pathways

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Policies and Procedures for Sexual Integrity

The Sexual Abuse Around Us

The Ravi Zacharias sexual scandal has been a sobering experience for us all. Here’s a man we all looked up to; an insightful author, a winsome speaker, a beautiful family, a picture-perfect marriage, children who worked with their dad in his ministry.The list could go on and on.

Yet, now his family is humiliated and they’re forced to apologize for the sins of their father. His life’s work has been dismantled, his books recalled and discontinued, his once rich Christian witness now a stain upon Christian testimony.

And yet his situation isn’t uncommon.It’s only the most recent and high profile.

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AniMissions Seminar Update

  • by David H

Create Taiwan

AniMissions Seminar Update
 

As of today, the 2021 AniMissions Seminar has been underway already for one week. Fourteen students from seven countries have jumped into this adventure in learning animation for the purpose of frontier missions. This is our first ever online school, so you can imagine a lot of issues had to worked out during the first week. Thanks to Keegan, the designer of the Campfire site, things are running relatively smoothly.

 

A Nudge

One of our hopes in transitioning to an online program was to expand our training to reach those who are working on the field and would not have the ability to travel to Taiwan. We are delighted to see this hope being fulfilled already as two teams working in the 10/40 window are participating, along with other individuals from the Global South.

In fact, all fourteen students are either involved or are preparing to be involved in missions, so we are already more effectively reaching our target audience. The recent pandemic and especially the closing of the Taiwan border gave us the push we needed to move quickly into this online learning venture, and we are grateful to God for this.

A Foundation

Last week, the students learned about culture and contextualization, story structure, scriptwriting and storyboarding. These are all foundational teachings on which we build the main 3D graphics and animation section of the course. They were also introduced to our main software tool, Blender, and ended the week with a tutorial on how to build and animate a simple rocket. This week, they will dive fully into learning the Blender modeling process, so things will get a bit more complicated.

“The recent pandemic and especially the closing of the Taiwan border gave us the push we needed to move quickly into this online learning venture, and we are grateful to God for this.”

We are already talking about our next seminar, which we plan to run in Spring 2022 from April to the end of May. Several students that couldn’t get into this seminar will be doing the seminar at that time. If you have an interest in learning to create animated short films to bring the gospel to the world’s unreached people groups, consider joining us in 2022!

– Dave H.

 

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Which Audio Player

AudioDigital
Which Audio Player?
Listening to the translated Scriptures: a review of today’s digital audio players
Author: Richard Margetts (2019)

Fourth Edition – Revised for 2019

It is not hard to convince those involved in Scripture access and Scripture engagement of the value of listening to audio Scriptures. We want to assist communities in making strategic choices about how best to make them available and how best to encourage people to engage with them. One of the ways people listen to the Bible today is using a digital audio player. But since there are so many different audio players to choose from, how do we make a good choice?

This in-depth review (66 pages) compares a range of today’s digital audio players including the Proclaimer (from Faith Comes By Hearing), the Envoy 2 (from MegaVoice), the Audibible K1 (from Kivah Distributors), the Papyrus and The Torch (from Renew World Outreach), the Kulumi Mini and Lost Sheep from Hope Tech Global.

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Using Wi-Fi boxes at large events.

Digital Distribution Strategy for Bible Dedication Celebrations
A Step-By-Step guide for using Wi-Fi media boxes at your event
Author: Martin Lange (2020)

“While stacks of the newly published Scriptures awaited eager buyers, those embracing the digital age were not forgotten. Five Wi-Fi hubs had been set up at various locations around the stadium. A large vinyl banner promoted the availability of a free Bible app and other Scripture resources for those who connected to these units.”

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Using Your Wi-Fi Media Box

28 ideas for digital distribution
Author: Martin Lange (2020)

For years, Missionary Aviation Fellowship’s pilots carried a box on planes containing Bibles and Christian literature. When they landed, these resources would be offered for sale. Eventually, due to the popularity of smartphones and the weight of books, they switched to carrying less printed resources. Instead, a Wi-Fi Media Box was often substituted. It weighed almost nothing and could hold more resources than a physical box.

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Scripture Engagement Guide

The Scripture Engagement Guide (SE Guide for short) is a web-based tool for local communities to explore a variety of topics to consider their needs, then find the resources to help them get there.

We exist so that local communities everywhere are engaging with Scripture in transformative ways.

We empower communities to make informed and sustainable decisions for their future. The journey isn’t ever a perfectly linear process – instead we come alongside communities as they try an idea, evaluate the results, and then take their next steps. This is more about the process than the products that may be created or utilized along the way. The journey through the site can be expressed in four general stages:

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