Unreached People Groups

A lot of our work these days is with unreached people groups: those, often smaller groups that have very few believers, and no viable church (i.e. gatherings of believers). If they do have meetings they are often in homes, and might even be persecuted - raided as in the days of Pastor Wurmbrand and Brother Andrew. Since there is no viable church it is difficult, sometimes, to know how to get going in Scripture engagement work, including translation. Probably the ideal is to have some mission workers involved, and work alongside them. If they aren't available or can't be found then, or even so, a good way forward is oral storying, or producing audio and video series based on Scripture. Either way you need to design a story set. This is a set of stories that fulfils two criteria:

It covers the main points of the Bible (not just the New Testament) such as creation, fall, the calling of Abraham, Abraham and Isaac and the ram that God provides as a sacrifice, the life of Moses, David as king of the united kingdom (all twelve tribes), and so on, culminating in the life and ministry of Jesus, his death and resurrection, the disciples being filled with the Spirit, the growth of the church throughout the Med.
It starts by meeting the felt needs of the community you are trying to reach i.e. you avoid stories that are potentially offensive (though see point 1), and try to use those that are going to be attractive to them.

On top of that don't forget that the two genres of proverbs and songs are also usually a great hit! You don't have to work on the whole book of Proverbs, just those that are similar to ones used by people where you are, as a comparison and learning tool. As for songs - see if there are Psalms that can be put to local-style music then sung, danced to and enjoyed!

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Asset Based Bible Translation (ABBT)

Many of you will have heard of asset-based community development (ABCD). How can Bible translation programmes be asset based, rather than deficit based? The best way to look at this is a comparison table: Deficit based Asset based Driven by outsiders Driven by the community Outside funding Community funded Done to meet a need Done to help the community grow Quality control done by a consultant Community checked and approved Control from outside-in Lead by stepping back Products not accepted? Products are accepted Little engagement Engagement with products Scientific Organic Not sustainable Sustainable Of course many translation programmes these days are neither one nor t'other, they are somewhere between these two extremes. Nevertheless, this illustrates a point, and shows that the current

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Scripture Engagement

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