Today is day two of unfoldingWord’s Church-Centric Bible Translation Forum, a gathering aimed at strengthening global collaboration in Scripture translation. The event brings 100 leaders from 18 countries and 28 language groups to Nairobi. Read about last year’s CCBT Forum here.

“Some of them work in countries that have religious opposition, all the way up to death threats and assassinations,” Dane* with unfoldingWord says.

(Graphic courtesy of unfoldingWord)

Kenya provides the neutral territory needed to facilitate a meeting of this size. Dane says, “We chose Kenya because it’s a very welcoming country, and it seems much easier for many of our global partners to get visas to Kenya than other parts of the world.”

unfoldingWord supports church-planting work among every people group by equipping believers with open-licensed biblical resources and training to translate God’s Word into their heart language.

“If we tried to do all of this translation work ourselves, we would immediately exceed our capacity. That’s why we are equipping a network of church planters and disciple-making ministries across the world with church-centric Bible translation tools, technology, and training,” Dane says.

“That network continues to expand, and as a result, hundreds and hundreds of new languages are being engaged in a formative process for them, individually and for their people.”

Learn more about unfoldingWord’s approach here.

“We’re not alone”: building a global family

The Church-Centric Bible Translation Forum builds upon unfoldingWord’s global church planting network, connecting believers near and far. The four-day meeting is comprehensive, offering education, training, and opportunities for collaboration and networking.

“Almost half of the people coming are new, and so it will be an introduction to how church-centric Bible translation works,” Dane says.

In addition, “They’ll have testimonies, and breakout sessions on overcoming barriers, security, funding, technology, and all of those kinds of things.”

(Graphic courtesy of unfoldingWord)

Believers gain more than practical skills at the forum. “What they tell us is, ‘It’s very difficult what we do, but when we meet brothers and sisters from other parts of the world who do this with us, we realize we’re not alone,’” Dane says.

“When they get to meet each other for the first time, face-to-face, it’s like this family that they didn’t know they had.”

Pray that the Holy Spirit would fill all the presenters and breakout leaders. Pray for the work that God is doing and is about to do through church planters and Bible translators.

Believers in Benin tell unfoldingWord, “We see Muslims giving themselves to Christ, imams giving themselves to Christ, kings giving themselves to Christ. Give us more. We want to keep going.”

Consider partnering with unfoldingWord to support this work. A $45,000 matching grant will double every gift made through December 31.

*Name withheld for security purposes. 

Header and story images courtesy of unfoldingWord. 

“The traditional means of translation that we’ve employed for decades has reached its limit in accomplishing the goal of having Bibles in all the world languages,” John* with unfoldingWord says.

“Most of the ones remaining are smaller language groups, and they’re in difficult-to-reach circumstances.”

unfoldingWord comes alongside church planting networks to begin Church-Centric Bible Translation. More about that here.

“The strategy here is to equip the local church to produce translations that no one else would be able to do anytime soon,” John says.

There are over 7,000 languages spoken in the world. Around 3,589 have little to no Scripture.
(Photo, caption courtesy of unfoldingWord)

The result is indigenous Bible translation, not unfoldingWord projects. Communities welcome the Scripture their members worked on; it wasn’t handed to them by an outside group.

“The (global) Church itself has gotten far ahead of Bible translation,” John says.

“As we go into these places and fully equip, invest, and teach them everything they need to know, their own energy and passion for having it in their mother tongue takes over.”

Sign up for a free prayer calendar on unfoldingWord’s profile page.

John says, “Difficult geographical circumstances in some of these locations are combined with heavy spiritual opposition, so prayer is of utmost importance as we try to progress in these areas.”

*Pseudonym

Header and story images courtesy of unfoldingWord. 

For example, the current war in Sudan cannot stop unfoldingWord and its partners from moving translation plans forward.

“2024 will be a continuation of what we’ve done in 2023 [with the] ‘Whole Bible, Whole Nations’ project,” unfoldingWord President/CEO David Reeves says.

“It’s a comprehensive, collaborative project to complete all 131 Bible translation needs in the country of Sudan.”

(Graphic courtesy of unfoldingWord)

The Sudanese team completed Open Bible Stories in five languages, with four more languages beginning soon. Next, the teams will move into whole-book translations, starting with Jonah, 3rd John, and Titus.

At the same time, “Our friends in the Bible Society of Jordan are right now working on Arabic resources for the entire MENA region,” Reeves says.

Just like the apostle Paul received the Macedonian Call in Acts 16, “We have a line of people saying, ‘Can you come help us?’” Reeves says.

“We would love to do more of those (translation projects); we have invitations from multiple countries.”

unfoldingWord needs your help to accept these invitations. “We’re always facing the struggle of how much can we grow and do with the funds required,” Reeves says.

Support church-centric Bible translation through unfoldingWord here.

“We certainly enjoy God’s unmerited favor at unfoldingWord. It’s not because we’re more spiritual or smarter than anyone else. It’s because God cares about this far more than we do,” Reeves says.

“He wants this done, and despite all the things that seem like impossible obstacles, it is getting done.”

Header and story images courtesy of unfoldingWord.

Christian leaders representing 16 different nations gathered to learn from each other and develop strategies. “We had 11 different church network entities there [from] places like Russia, Ukraine, and Iran,” unfoldingWord’s David Reeves says.

unfoldingWord comes alongside church-planting networks as they translate Scripture into minority languages. More about that here. Each network focuses on the unreached people groups in its region, making the work dangerous and difficult by nature.

“Almost every one of them [faces] huge obstacles: pressure from their government, Communism, Islam, Hinduism – there’s always some issue they’re facing,” Reeves says.

“But, in the midst of it all, they continue to press ahead because they love their people deeply.”

(Photo courtesy of unfoldingWord)

Connecting in person instead of over Zoom allowed the translators to deepen relationships. “They got to share ideas [about] processes, what they’re doing in Church-Centric Bible Translation, information about their software tools,” Reeves says.

During one of the event’s breakout sessions, team leaders from Eurasia and South America collaborated to teach the entire group about highly technical topics.

One event overseer, unnamed for security purposes, spoke of “a tremendous victory to hand off the microphone and see our partners train each other!”

Believers also created ministry plans during the conference, which they are implementing today. Pray that global collaboration will continue and grow.

“We’re seeing a phenomenal sense of unity across these networks. They have a common cause, and they realize they need each other. No one of them can do this by themselves,” Reeves says.

Header and story images courtesy of unfoldingWord.

The country is one of the world’s most difficult places to follow Christ, with a “very hostile religious context – difficulties, persecution – yet the Church is vibrant and healthy and reproducing,” unfoldingWord CEO David Reeves says.

“The Church is underground. They’re scattered in house churches led by some very passionate and wonderful godly men.”

Governmental leaders view religious minorities as threats that must be eliminated. “Christianity is something they’re trying to fight against because it’s growing rapidly and expanding,” Reeves says.

“You’re dealing with hostile religious contexts that would love to see them (believers) wiped off the planet.”

A church-centric approach to Bible translation works well in places the traditional model cannot reach. For example, in this country, “you can’t bring in outsiders to learn the language, or do training and consulting, things like that,” Reeves explains.

(Photo courtesy of ccbt.bible)

unfoldingWord equips large-scale church planting networks with the tools and training they need to translate God’s Word into regional languages. Learn more about Church-Centric Bible Translation here.

“We’re coming alongside and helping them with their Scripture translation needs and a theological formation for these new young churches,” Reeves says.

Pray unfoldingWord’s partners in this country will have the courage and endurance to withstand persecution.

“One guy we talked to and his wife had just gotten out of prison from simply sharing their faith and planting churches,” Reeves says.

“Time in prison is a normal part of their walk with Christ.”

Prayer is the believers’ top need in a location like this. See the latest requests here.

“There’s spiritual darkness trying to push back against what is happening here. Sometimes we see it in terms of the opposition, whether it’s someone being thrown into prison or beaten, or other things like that,” Reeves says.

*Location withheld for security reasons.

Header image is a representative stock photo courtesy of OpenClipart-Vectors/Pixabay.

“Zoom is great for being able to continue to keep connections, but it’s not the same as when you sit down across the table and converse,” Reeves says.

“The South Asia context had been isolated; I’ve been unable to get there. After a couple of years, we needed the face-to-face time.”

One partner recently completed New Testament translations in 15 languages. Other partners are laying the groundwork for new projects in 2023.

“The South Asia context continues to expand. They’re doing a lot of work with unreached people groups,” Reeves says.

“As they work with these (unreached) people groups, part of the problem is there are no Scriptures to communicate the Gospel in their heart language.”

Church planters use training and tools from unfoldingWord to create a solution. “Our goal at unfoldingWord is equipping the Church to do Bible translations for themselves,” Reeves says. Learn how you can support Church Centric Bible Translation here.

“One of the underlying principles of Church Centric Bible Translation is God has chosen the Church as His primary instrument to communicate His love. There’s nothing wrong with parachurch organizations; we can come alongside and help, but we shouldn’t replace that (the Church).”

Pray many people will turn to Christ as they read Scripture in their heart language.

“The Body of Christ in the 21st century looks a lot like the Body of Christ in the first century. It’s expanding rapidly into places where Jesus’s name is not known,” Reeves says.

Header image courtesy of is a representative stock photo courtesy of PhotoWorldDreamArt/Pixabay.

For example, “most folks are not going to have strong bilingual abilities,” unfoldingWord CEO David Reeves says.

“So, if the resources are in the national language, they can’t understand them well. [However,] putting God’s Word in their language and allowing them to be in the (translation) process becomes part of the spiritual formation of that community.”

Translating Scripture into minority languages gives more people access to God’s Word. unfoldingWord partners with large church-planting networks to do Church-Centric Bible Translation. More about that here.

“We’re always working with large-scale church planting movements – people that are doing work amongst unreached people groups, pressing into areas where the name of Jesus is unknown,” Reeves says.

“It used to take 10 to 25 years to get a New Testament. All of these are finished in five years or less.”

unfoldingWord’s partner in South Asia just completed New Testament translations in 15 languages and Bible portions in 100 languages. A “cluster” or “batch” approach accelerates believers’ progress.

The Asian continent accounts for one-third of the world’s spoken languages.
(Photo courtesy of Matthew Nolan/Unsplash)

“They do them (translations) in batches,” Reeves says.

“[In] March of 2019, they did a batch of 12 [languages]. In March 2021, they did a batch of 15 languages that covered about 12 million people.”

Find your place in the story

Praise God for opening doors of opportunity in South Asia so believers can access His Word. “This is the first fruits from church planting efforts. Most of them (the people groups involved in translation efforts) were previously unreached people groups,” Reeves says.

Pray for discernment as local believers begin work on a new translation project.

“The last few years have been very challenging for everyone. It’s even more difficult [in countries] where you don’t have the medical resources or the capacity to handle COVID outbreaks,” Reeves says.

“They keep getting work done despite all the difficulties.”

Help accelerate Bible translation worldwide through unfoldingWord.

Header image is a representative stock photo courtesy of Sajal’s Gallery/Pexels.

“In many ways, it is there that the fate of our Donbas is being decided.”

Russia aims to capture the Luhansk and Donbas provinces on behalf of Russian-speaking separatists.

May 31 attack on a chemical plant in Severodonetsk by Russian forces.
(Wikimedia Commons)

Officials say Russia controlled roughly seven percent of Ukrainian territory before invading in February, including the Crimean Peninsula, which it annexed in 2014. Today, Russia controls 20-percent of the country.

Meanwhile, in Kharkiv…

Arne* with unfoldingWord says Ukrainian forces recaptured Kharkiv in May. But continual Russian bombings mean Bible translators cannot return yet. “The main church body doing this work was located in Kharkiv” when the invasion began, he says.

“They were hunkered down in their homes while the bombing was taking place. They eventually dispersed, leaving to places that were less targeted,” Arne continues.

“[The fight for Kharkiv] had a considerable impact on the team; it’s hard to work when bombs are falling on you.”

Bilingual believers in Ukraine partner with unfoldingWord to do church-centric Bible translation. Using resources and tools in Russian, they translate God’s Word into minority languages without Scripture.

“They had completed three books of Scripture, paused to do the Open Bible Story series, finished that, and now [they are] coming back to Scripture again to pick up where they left off,” Arne says.

Pray believers can find a safe way to reconnect and restart the project. Learn more about the Eurasian Gateway Language project.

“We’ve seen remarkable resilience in the face of all these difficulties,” Arne says.

“They are highly motivated to do this work and will find a way to do it once they can reorganize themselves.”

*Pseudonym

Header image shows Russian territorial gains in Ukraine since the invasion began in February. Updated as of June 9, 2022.  (Wikimedia Commons)

Using the CCBT model, unfoldingWord helps church networks translate the Bible into minority languages. More about that here.

The end goal is to help church networks “understand tools, methodologies, and processes so well they turn around and teach another language community how to do it,” Reeves explains.

(Photo courtesy of unfoldingWord)

“They (believers) want to talk about Jesus in their language. We’re empowering them to do that in a way that doesn’t require our involvement at every step.”

Success stories

Many networks pair church planting with CCBT and unfoldingWord’s Gateway Languages Strategy to reach entire communities for Christ. “They’re trying to do church planting in minority language communities or unreached people groups,” Reeves says.

The “language of wider communication is inadequate to communicate the Gospel, or there are some geopolitical issues” that stand in the way, he continues.

To overcome challenges like these, unfoldingWord teaches its partners how to do translation work in the majority or “gateway” language. Then, believers can “take that same methodology and training and do it for all the minority languages they work with,” Reeves says.

“We do this in multiple countries across the planet.”

One endeavor helped believers in a former Soviet Union country. “They had never touched translation at all,” Reeves says.

“But the community walked through this journey [with] the Russian team helping them, and they translated 3 John by themselves.”

(Graphic courtesy of unfoldingWord)

People in the Russian Gateway Language church networks had scholarly skills in Greek and Hebrew, and theology.

“They were able to look back into the Greek and identify whether there were words added or words missing, the right meaning, all that, and we (unfoldingWord) never touched it,” Reeves says.

“I feel a lot more confident in that process because it is not a spot check, it’s a thorough check. It’s not done under the time crunch of you’ve only got it (the translation consultant) for two weeks,” he continues.

“They had the time to work at it thoroughly; look at it in detail.”

Find your place in the story

Now that you know, how will you respond? “We need prayer warriors. We’re dealing with some of the most difficult parts of the world,” Reeves says. Use prompts listed alongside this article to guide your intercession.

“Secondly, we need help,” Reeves says. See job openings at unfoldingWord.

“Interested? Please reach out and contact us.”

Last but not least, “we need Gospel patrons, benefactors, to join as partners in this. We’ve got several great opportunities [and] matching grants for our tools and software,” Reeves says.

Find three ways to join the Church-Centric Bible Translation movement here.

Header and story images courtesy of unfoldingWord.

unfoldingWord’s David Reeves describes a critical aspect of the typical Bible translation process: “Someone has gone in and done a translation over the years. Along the way, they’ll have a translation consultant, who has deeper expertise in linguistics, step in and do spot checks.”

These checks are essential because they ensure accuracy. However, “there’s a serious shortage of people qualified as translation consultants globally. There are way more projects than there are consultants available to help check them,” Reeves says.

“There’s no criticism of that methodology, but the system cannot keep up with the pace of what’s happening.”

As a result of this shortage, people have to wait even longer to get God’s Word in their heart language.

“The Church has stepped up and said they’re tired of waiting; they’re going to move ahead. They’re doing this (Bible translation) themselves.”

Changing focus

unfoldingWord empowers church networks by providing the tools and training needed to do Bible translation. “The church networks have everything that a translation consultant would bring to the table,” Reeves says.

“They would know the list of every key term, every metaphor, every idiom. We have software tools with machine learning built in to help that process.”

“People who wanted to make a translation, without a theological education, were able to achieve their goal due to the fact that the tools were prepared by unfoldingWord specialists and their employees who speak Russian.”
–Pastor Ivan K.
(Photo, caption courtesy of unfoldingWord)

Unlike traditional models, unfoldingWord’s end goal is not to produce a Bible alone.

“Lots of Bibles are needed in lots of languages; there’s nothing wrong with that (approach), it’s a great thing. We need to do more of it,” Reeves says, describing what he calls a “Bible-centric” approach to Bible translation.

“We’re focused on equipping the church to produce a Bible or help others produce a Bible.”

A new approach

Church-Centric Bible Translation (CCBT) provides believers with a sense of ownership. “They’re empowered to correct and improve [draft translations] just like we do in our English texts all the time, and they’re using it as they’re translating it,” Reeves says.

This approach functions well when paired with a network of believers resembling the first-century church. “When we say ‘church,’ it’s large-scale church planting movements: very dynamic, growing, moving the Gospel into places where Jesus is not known,” Reeves says. More about that here.

Church-Centric Bible Translation (CCBT) follows the example of early Bible translators. “The translation consultant model is only a fairly recent thing in history,” Reeves says.

“That wasn’t the way it was done when Luther translated, or Tyndale or Wycliffe or Jerome; they didn’t have a translation consultant come along and check them. They were theologians themselves.”

Join us tomorrow for “part two” to find your place in the story. Until then, learn more about unfoldingWord’s approach to Bible translation.

Graphic used in header image is courtesy of unfoldingWord.