Scripture Engagement

Most of us think of the Vikings as a pretty scary lot, and the recent BBC TV series 'The Last Kingdom' has done little to disillusion us on that front. One thing brought out by the series is the difference between Alfred, a Christian, and the Vikings, who are called pagans by the Saxon believers. The Vikings didn't become Christians until the mid-11th century, and many of their beliefs and customs remain with us today. For instance Wednesday is from  Woden's day , Thursday is from Thor's day . and so on. Once they had converted to Christianity some relics of their old religion remained: 'The pagan "Yuletide" became Christmas, but Scandinavians still use the word "Jul" for Christmas. The fertility rites used in spring to ensure good harvests were substituted by blessings from the Christian priests, but for hundreds of years many farmers also added some of the old rites just to be sure. Each Viking farm had its own "farm-god"

A bunch of us just completed an oral storying workshop. I was involved as both student and teacher, and loved it! Many missions are involved in oral storying, or chronological bible storying, as it is a great way of taking oral groups through the message of the Bible from beginning to end, with lots of stories that communicate tonnes to them, perhaps more than they do to those of us from mainly literate societies. Watch the above video to find out more about why oral communities respond so well to storying approaches. Here are some obvious advantages: People don't need to be able to read and write The stories are crafted orally, without pen and paper, so they tend to be much more natural than a written translation The stories are told in fellowship groups, which often turn into churches The method is designed to be reproducible - easily replicated by others It's hard for the authorities to repress an internal message (no books or media are needed, as people learn t

http://www.biblesociety.org.uk/news/dr-gooders-6-top-tips-for-reading-the-bible/ is a good place to start if you want to get stuck into the Bible. On top of that a few words of my own: Memorising a Bible verse is a good way of getting it inside you and mulling it over. It will help you slow down. Make sure you read it in context before you start. Listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit as you mull a verse over. Try reading a passage together in a small group, and ask each other, 'What really stood out for you from the passage? What did you find hard to understand?' None of us have all the answers and it can be encouraging to hear that others struggle with parts of it too. Find a song that quotes scripture and learn to sing it. Music adds life! (Not Coke, sorry CC).

It's often thought that syncretism is the result of over contextualising, going too far in enculturalising the good news. This is to misunderstand two things: The gospel is always incarnate, explained in one culture or another Too little contextualisation can also cause syncretism. This is because the gospel won't be understood, or doesn't meet the felt needs of the people it's being shared with. These needs can be spiritual, emotional or physical. For example, folk Muslims start to follow Isa, but keep visiting shrines and fortune tellers, because that's what they used to do in a crisis.

This is a book review of the above good book. Two reasons why you should pack it along with your crocs or flip-flops this summer! 1. ‘Disciple-Makers Embrace Lessons Taught by Failure’ Often, without realising it, mission-workers bring a lot of cultural and denominational baggage with them. We naturally tend to reproduce ourselves and our churches, but what we are aiming for is to produce followers of Jesus. David says, 'God taught me, through many failures, that I had to focus on making disciples of Christ, not followers of my church or denomination. He also taught me that I needed to teach these disciples to obey the commands of Jesus, not my Church/denominational doctrines or traditions.' His focus is on Disciple-Making Movements and Church-Planting Movements instead of working in one small area and carrying out one small church plant. The work may be slow at first but once it takes off there is much fruit, and many indigenous churches are planted. Disciples are

There are some shocking aspects to this story - see below. Zacchaeus was a tax collector and was considered to be a 'notorious sinner' (v7 - see yesterday's blog) because he was betraying his own people, the Jews, by collecting taxes for the occupying state, the Romans. Judea was part of the Roman empire and was ruled by a puppet leader. Not only that, the tax collectors were mostly corrupt, collecting more than necessary and keeping the difference to feather their own nest (3:12-13). This did not go down well with Jewish nationalists who had quite an influence on the ordinary person on the street.  The other slightly shocking statement is by Jesus. He calls Zacchaeus 'a true son of Abraham' in other words a true Israelite or Semite. One who follows God in the way the ancestor Abraham did. Surely a true Israelite would be a nationalist, not a repentant sinner? Not so, says Jesus. It's not those who try and build a political kingdom who get his approval, b

It used to be 'sin'. Preachers regularly preached against it. You've probably heard the story of the American President known as silent Cal. After church he was once asked to explain the topic of a minister's sermon. 'Sin' he replied, lapsing back into silence. 'What did he say?' asked the enquirer. 'He said he was agin it,' said the President. These days preachers don't preach much against sin. This may partly be to a change in theology. Some churches have gone down the self fulfilment avenue. The Holy Spirit is there to help you realise your wildest dreams. Whatever you have on your top list of things you've always wanted to achieve, He is there to help you. Alternatively (and more encouragingly), some speakers avoid the word because it has dropped out of the ordinary vocabulary of most folk. If you eat a large piece of chocolate cake your best friends might call you a 'sinner'. Otherwise people have little idea what it m

There has been a lot of discussion recently as to what constitutes a scripture product and what constitutes a scripture-based product. In one sense it doesn't really matter. But what needs checking by a TC (translation consultant) and what can be checked by someone else? A scripture-product is one that stays fairly close to scripture. For instance a multi-voice audio recording of scripture could be considered a scripture-product. A Bible app would be in this category too. These would need checking by a TC prior to publication. Scripture engagement products that are more loosely scripture-based are called scripture-based products and wouldn't necessarily need checking by a TC. It really depends how loose or tight to scripture they are. If they are fairly loose then a Christian materials checker could check it rather than a TC. If the product contains scripture quotes that are from books not yet translated by the translation team (if there is one), then those quotes wo

I was at a meeting recently where one of my colleagues was supposed to be chairing a discussion on, 'How we can integrate Scripture Engagement into language projects.' He said it was the wrong question, because all projects are scripture engagement projects. The impact we are looking for is changed lives! In some regions of Asia the above cycle shows how we work in practice. Language development and study of the culture leads to making films and publications in the language and about the culture. This helps us learn enough about the culture to do scripture engagement research. The goal of this research is to find out what activities and products might be appropriate. We then get stuck into these scripture engagement activities and distribute the products which hopefully leads to impact in peoples' lives. Once lives begin to be changed there will be a greater need for the translation of scripture portions, which will lead to a need for further research and further

You want to reach the entire world with one product? Dream on! Yet there are many who advertise their ministry in exactly that way. 'This app/web-site/DVD is the answer. With this we will reach the world for Jesus!' Go to a meeting about digital media and just about all the missions represented will have a product that is the one product that will reach the entire planet. Would that it were so. Of course in the real world no one product works in every situation, and at a typical meeting where a representative presents their product to potential users the first question will often be, 'Can I adapt what you have done for such-and-such an audience?' At first the inventor of the product will decline, but eventually they will realise the pressure is too much and they will cave in, reluctantly perhaps, or in some cases willingly once they have heard the barriers put up by certain terms, illustrations or images. Lord teach us humility, teach us adaptability, teach us to

It seems that we are all making the Scripture Engagement the be all and end all of our work. It's right that all Bible translation activity should lead towards SE outcomes (?) and impact (definitely). We still need language development, anthropology and a whole bunch of other disciplines, however. If you read the article I recommended last time called the 'Eight Conditions' you will see that various of the conditions mention language, including 'Appropriate Language, Dialect and Orthography'. It's no accident that this is condition one, as if people can't understand what you're saying what's the point in saying it? This leads me onto one of my hobby-horses. Pastors in many countries spend much of their time translating a LWC (language of wider communication) Bible instead of preaching. If a mother-tongue Bible comes out, or portions of it, they may feel redundant. Why? Because instead of learning to preach mainly exhortation and application they s

It's amazing the difference it makes to work with indigenous believers to work on Scripture Products. They have read the Bible and understood the gospel as it applies to their culture. When they explain it they do so in ways that are relevant and powerful to the people they know and love. Our ideas and products are always going to be second-rate compared to theirs, not in terms of production, maybe, but in terms of content. And as for production, why not have a professional film-maker work with a local team to train them as they make their own videos, or a professional musician as they record their music? But the idea is to work in partnership, see what God is doing, and join in with that. Foreign films are often going to have scenes that jar, that don't fit with the local culture. This is because foreign film makers often don't know the things you have to do in a certain context, such as taking off shoes at the door or shaking hands or using only your right hand. An

People are always having good ideas. In business, ideas are checked out using market research techniques. In translation, drafts are checked with ordinary speakers of the language. What can we do with Scripture Engagement work and products? We can do some research before we begin to find out what the needs are. One of the best tools for this is the Eight Conditions Questionnaire, based on the article by Wayne Dye: Eight Conditions You basically answer a set of questions (written by Tim Hatcher) and give each condition a score. Based on those ratings you can work out what the main needs are. For instance it might be a need for spiritually-sensitive materials that will appeal to the heart condition of the people and help replace fear of the evil eye. These materials can't easily be translated from English or another lingua franca . It's best to ask a local believer to write them. The eight conditions will also help you work out the best media options for the people group y

Some arts consultants in Asia tell the story of one village who had a church that had a hymn book with nearly one hundred hymns translated from the lingua franca . The trouble is the songs were not in their 'language', musically. These consultants ran a song-writing workshop and pretty soon the church had several new songs, all written locally, all using the music the village people loved, on local instruments they enjoyed playing. Pretty soon the church began to grow, and the worship times grew more vibrant! Few people would have thought that locally-written and performed music would have made such a difference. This principle works just as well for dance, drama, and other art-forms.

We tend to assume that if a person speaks a language as their mother tongue they will want to read in that language. Not true. Often people read and write in one language but speak another in preference. The language they are literate in is often the lingua franca of the country or region. Also some churches operate mainly in that lingua franca. People's heart language may be different, however. This means having different products in the various languages and using audio or video as appropriate. The print Bible isn't necessary in all these local languages.

If we wait until the book or entire NT/Bible is finished until we begin with Scripture Engagement activities we've left it too late. SE needs to begin right at the beginning of a project by studying the world view of the people group then beginning to: Identify barriers Find some bridges Start looking for door-openers (things you might not expect people to be open too, but which seem to be very effective) Only then should you choose which products to work on. Here's another tip: you don't need to translate a whole book before producing some SE products. Just find out which portions are going to be useful and work on those. What if they want an entire Bible at a later point? Fantastic! By then they'll be a whole group of pastors and other trained believers to work on it. What we're aiming on now, at the start, is impact. Oh, and don't forget to include some local arts in your planning.

Welcome to this new Scripture Engagement blog! What is Scripture Engagement, you ask? We in SE encourage people to access the scriptures in whatever language and media is most appropriate. It also relates to other areas of Bible translation such as planning, local ownership, and bilingualism. It is therefore very practical and not at all ivory tower. Planning and local ownership: local churches and the believers in them are often the best people to decide the way forward in terms of planning for SE, as they know what will work and what won't work.  Bilingualism: if someone speaks one language at home and another in the market or at work, in what language should we give them a Bible? The answer is not straight-forward and may relate to their education level. For instance they may have been educated in the lingua franca of the region but would rather speak access the Bible in their mother tongue, in which case videos and audio versions of the Bible might be most appropriate.