Scripture Engagement

Outcome Harvesting is a way to find concrete data on actual changes that have taken place within a community. From a Scripture engagement perspective this might be an investigation of changes that have taken place in peoples' lives (transformation) as the result of a project being in place and/or products being produced and programmes being implemented. So, let's imagine an actual project. There have been two 'wings' to this project. The first is the Bible translation 'wing', producing products like Scripture portions (in both print and audio format, and they have a Bible app too). The second is the Oral Bible Storying 'wing' that has also produced products (audio recordings of stories) but is mainly a programme. The question is, what impact has this project had, overall? The usual procedure is to train local workers to interview people, using participatory methods, to find out how much they have engaged with Scripture as the result of this project. The...

If you want to get useful answers you have to ask the right questions. Do you agree? Yes, of course you do. In the Bible translation world we often ask a very narrow question when planning for the next stage of work: 'What would you like to see translated next?' Now, if you simply want to translate, and that's it, that question is fine, but what if you want to see some kind of result from your translation work? What if, for instance, you want to see transformation occur? Then a more powerful question to ask the community and positive stakeholders in the project would be: 'What kingdom goals would you like to see reached?' These kingdom goals should meet felt needs of the community - they should solve problems that are apparent to most or all in the community. See below on how those can be met. If that's too abstract, then try, 'What kinds of things, in your extended family, do you tend to worry about?' This will help establish some felt needs, from which...

When a new programme starts it's often tempting to set it up as a Bible translation programme. Sometimes that's appropriate. In many cases, for a variety of reasons, it's not. This is because: It's a minority language People tend to be bi- or multi-lingual (at least if they live in towns, or have been educated) They're oral preference They're illiterate or semi-literate, or literate only in the language of wider communication They aren't yet Christian believers etc. If any or all of the above are true, then it's good to start with language development and Scripture engagement rather than full-blown Bible translation, where you translate whole books of the Bible, and aim for a full Bible or New Testament + Psalms or Panoramic Bible. Sometimes the only reason for doing the latter is the kudos of the team, which is not a good reason. We're aiming for transformed communities, not team kudos! The above flowchart shows the various stages. Note that the pro...