Scripture Engagement

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.