Skip to content

Scripture Engagement

Loving The Nations One Neighbor At A Time

Neighbors are people who share space and physical context.  We recognize their faces as they walk by; we swap chit chat and maybe even know them by name.  When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, our neighbors checked in on each other and howled every evening alongside neighborhood pets, just to somehow feel connected through the isolation of quarantine.  It was during that difficult season that I knelt down in prayer with hands opened heavenward and asked God the next step in intentionally loving our neighbors.  

Read More »Loving The Nations One Neighbor At A Time

Bibles and resources – UPDATED

Updated Aug 8, 2024
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?
This is an update of a post from 2021 since when several hundred translations of the Bible have been made available online.  As of Aug 2024 YouVersion’s Bible app (also available at Bible.com) provided 3,184 versions in 2,100 languages. (up from 1500 in 2021!)

Read More »Bibles and resources – UPDATED

Don’t forget the women and children

For several years, Paulette helped lead a women’s conference, where most of the women didn’t speak French. ‘They were ashamed because they thought they had to speak about the Bible in French,” she says.

“We want to join in, but we don’t know how,” they told her.

Paulette explained that they could study the Bible in Contemporary Wolof, and share it with others in their own language too. Each day she gave them a verse to memorise in the Wolof language.

“That’s why this oral translation will help them,” she says. ‘They will be able to listen and know that they can grow in their faith. There shouldn’t be barriers to knowing God. Each person should be free to wake up each day and know: there is a God who is Lord over everything, and I can talk to him.”

 

Read More »Don’t forget the women and children

Davar Audio Bibles – deploying God’s Word to accomplish what He desires

  • by Davar

Davar believes that all people should have the opportunity to know the God who made them and that the truths of the Bible are not bound to the reader or ink on paper. Isaiah 55:11 says, “so is my Word that goes from my mouth; it will not return empty but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”

So, how does Davar encourage deployment of His word to accomplish what He desires?

Read More »Davar Audio Bibles – deploying God’s Word to accomplish what He desires

Listening and Learning at The Africa Scripture Engagement Conference 2024

The conference was held in Nairobi, Kenya, from 22 February to 1 March 2024. It brought together 100 participants from 23 countries of Africa. It was an opportunity for Scripture Engagement, Media and Ethnoarts specialists and consultants to get together, to share resources, ideas and strategies and receive training on some of the latest approaches in encouraging engagement with the translated Scriptures.  The conference was bilingual, in English and French.  Four participants formed a ‘Listeners’ team’. Their role was to listen carefully to the key themes coming out of the presentations and discussions, both formally and informally, seeking to hear what the Lord was saying to us. Here is a summary of what they heard…Read More »Listening and Learning at The Africa Scripture Engagement Conference 2024

Living Water …a different kind of audio Bible

Originally blogged by Peter Brassington on Feb. 13, 2024 HERE

I recently realised that across the different bible apps on my phone I have access to over 30 different audio Bibles, read from different versions, in many different voices, and with or without a backing track, but I didn’t realise until yesterday that I had the entire New Testament sung by award winning Gospel artists to a piano accompaniment.

Read More »Living Water …a different kind of audio Bible

International Council for Evangelical Theological Education (ICETE)

ICETE & Michael A. Ortiz

Theological Education more Globally Connected

At present, there are nearly 50,000 training programs for church leadership worldwide. Some are formal, while many are less structured. Some are complicated and at times bureaucratically stalled, while others are nimble and ready to shift on a dime. Some are accredited, some are not and desire to be, and some are not and do not care to be. Some are in-person, some are distance models and highly flexible including online formats. Some are local, perhaps regional programs in a single language, while some are global and even extending across various cultures and languages. The array of programs, objectives, modalities, and scopes have expanded beyond our capacity to quantify all of them. 

Read More »International Council for Evangelical Theological Education (ICETE)

The Power of Lament

Lament is loving our neighbors with our tears. 

~Lamma Mansour~ 

Lament as an Offering

As I sat quietly listening to Filipe’s heartbreaking story of the brutal attack that left him paralyzed from the neck down, tears streamed down my cheeks.  The video crew, along with Filipe and his wife, passed around a single role of toilet paper as we each tore a piece to blot away tears.  Our small crew borrowed an office on the outskirts of Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Malawi to record powerful stories of transformation and healing from trauma that many in the camp had been experiencing.

Read More »The Power of Lament

Bible Engagement Workshop

  • by EMDC

 

The Bible Engagement Workshop is a free online virtual learning hub by SGM Canada where participants are equipped to receive, reflect, remember, and respond to the Bible. The Bible Engagement Workshop takes the form of video blogs using PowerPoint presentations that are ±13 minutes long.

Because everyone is unique, people engage with the Bible in different ways. So, the workshops teach a variety of Bible engagement approaches suited to visual, auditory, reading/writing, or kinesthetics learners. In addition to teaching Scripture engagement practices, the workshops provide instruction on the principles and paradigms of Bible engagement.

Read More »Bible Engagement Workshop

The Story of Proclaimer

  • by FCBH

An Answer to Prayer: The Proclaimer

‍From dial-up to high-speed internet, the world around us constantly transforms as innovations arise. At Faith Comes By Hearing (FCBH), this need for constant innovation is ever present. More than twenty years ago, Faith Comes By Hearing dedicated the ministry to share Audio Bibles on cassette tapes. But the world began to change, and new ideas were needed.

In 2000, FCBH found that cassette tapes were not practical for the millions of people around the world without electricity. Faith Comes By Hearing saw a need for a new, solar-powered player restricting no one from God’s Word in audio. This new machine would have to be a dedicated playback unit—it would play God’s Word and nothing else. But while this new gadget seemed incredible on paper, the ministry struggled with how to produce such a complex device.

Read More »The Story of Proclaimer

One Matchstick – The Senga Fire

  • by FCBH

“When we work together with our different gifts, we can say, ‘God has accomplished this.'” 
Rev. Katete Jackson Jones, BiLTA, Zambia

One year ago, Faith Comes By Hearing‘s video team set out to capture an incredible story of community transformation through God’s Word in audio. Now, the organization is ready to share that story with the world.

One Matchstick: The Senga Fire, tells the incredible true story of the Senga of Zambia receiving the Bible in their language for the first time in the tribe’s 2,000- year history.

Prior to this monumental breakthrough, no written or oral translation of Scripture existed in the Senga’s mother tongue. For years, interaction with the Bible in any meaningful way required the Senga to learn the languages of neighboring tribes. Though they desired to know and understand the Bible, their tribe was deemed too small to receive a written translation.

Read More »One Matchstick – The Senga Fire

Pencil Bible

Pencil Bible is a beautifully simple Bible app for journaling, crafting notes, and visually capturing scripture. ✎ It doesn’t matter if you’re a notetaker, artist, prayer warrior, journaler, or just a daily reader. Pencil Bible helps you experience the Bible on a whole new level.

Read More »Pencil Bible

EMDC.guide – The Scripture Engagement Guide

EMDC.guide – The Scripture Engagement Guide

The Scripture Engagement Guide (SE Guide for short) is designed to help you understand your situation and decide how to encourage your people to use the Bible. It 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. It empowers communities to make informed and sustainable decisions for their future. This is more about the process than the products that may be created or used along the way. We believe that working through the journey with others will benefit your community by helping you understand your situation better. Then, you will be able to choose wisely from the many scripture engagement resources on this site or design your own special SE activities. Your answers to the questions in the Journey and the list of resources here can be used again and again to find new ways to hear or read the Bible.

Read More »EMDC.guide – The Scripture Engagement Guide

The Word at Our Fingertips

  • by Joshy K

The Bible has the distinction of being translated and read in the largest number of languages across the world. Technology has come to the aid to present the Word to all people groups speaking diverse languages. The divine plan of God behind such developments can be understood when we examine the recent historical account. The technological advancements are making major contributions to the fulfillment of the last command and associated Bible translation activities. The relevance of technology in mission activities in the 21st century is highly significant. In order to share the gospel as well as for church activities, most churches and mission organizations are extensively using digital technology. In today’s digital world, social media serves as a powerful communication channel to reach out across the world with great speed. To present the Word to a larger group, digital media takes precedence in the present time. The emergence of the Apple store on 10 July 2008 and the Android market (Google Play store) on 22 October 2008 marked a paradigm shift in receiving the Word at our fingertips. Read More »The Word at Our Fingertips

Deditos

EMDC webinar on what Deditos offers your project, Wednesday, 19 of October

Children fascinated and filled with hope as they come into contact with God’s Word.

Everything was geared for adults

Children need to know God from the time they are small, but it can be hard to share Bible stories with them in a way that is captivating AND true to Scripture.

Read More »Deditos

Translating the Bible Into Action

Translating the Bible into Action (2nd Edition)

  • by Peter B

Translating the Bible into Action has become a key resource for anyone interested in helping people discover the relevance of the Bible in their lives, especially in terms of newer translations in minority languages. This new edition includes new chapters and updates that take into account new opportunities and changes in technology in the last 10-15 years. Written in an accessible way for use with churches, most chapters can be introduced and explored in an hour or two. The book provides recommendations and links to further articles, many of which are available on https://scripture-engagement.org/ and https://www.ijfm.org/

Read More »Translating the Bible into Action (2nd Edition)

Does your church link to an online Bible?

Does your church help people to find Bibles?

  • by Peter B

Church websites are often quite good at telling people about service times, linking to sermons, and even giving information on how to hire rooms in the building. Sadly, in my experience not many are very good at helping people access the Bible. Perhaps they assume that anyone who can find the church website can also search online and find a Bible.

But perhaps this is a missed opportunity to highlight that the Bible is essential to the church, and that the church leaders actually do want people to read it for themselves.

Read More »Does your church help people to find Bibles?

MOSES

  • by Nicolas

Medical Outreach for Scripture Engagement Sustainability (MOSES): A Case Study on the MOSES methodology in South Asia

Submission for the 2021 Bible Translation Conference

 After decades of tireless sowing by pioneers around the globe, national movements to translate the Scriptures into non-dominant language groups have truly sprung to life in the Global South. With hundreds of translations being published in the last twenty years, recent data shows that many of these Bibles do not have much of an audience. In many cases, the problem has become people-less Bibles rather than Bible-less peoples. Our team was convinced that the remedy to the lack of demand for the book is to introduce people to the Author. The Medical Outreach for Scripture Engagement and Spiritual growth (MOSES) approach adapts the Leader Source spiritual formation program design methodology to working with local stakeholders to build bridges to the Bible through God encounters that meet the felt needs of the community.

Read More »MOSES