Scripture Engagement

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.