For more than a century, the church in the United States has been actively involved in supporting nearly 7,400 language communities of the world by sending missionary Bible translators, praying and funding Bible translation.
According to recent statistics from ProgressBible, 4,172 languages now have full Bibles, New Testaments or Scripture portions. Another 2,461 languages have Bible translation programs in progress.
But this isn’t primarily a story about the U.S. church. It’s a story about churches all over the world that have brought life to God’s word by receiving, living and helping translate the Bible — today more than ever before.
As of May, 765 language communities still are waiting for Scripture translation to begin for the first time. In many of them, local churches are taking up the task directly. This is evidence of an incredible movement of God across Asia, Africa, the Pacific and elsewhere.
But for some, it prompts the question: What is the U.S. church’s role now? The need for U.S. missionary translators on the field has shifted as the church in the global South and East equips and sends local Bible translators who don’t need to learn a foreign language and culture.
I’ve seen important — and sometimes monumental — shifts in the way we structure translation work.
I’ve spent decades on the field in Africa and in American Bible translation leadership, and during that time, I’ve seen important — and sometimes monumental — shifts in the way we structure translation work.
But I also see the profound and lingering need for collaboration and capacity building. The need for strong partnership — training, funding and other means of support as these communities live out God’s calling on them — remains great.
Perhaps even more significantly, the commands of Scripture still apply to the U.S. church. We are expected to make disciples of all nations — to go, pray, give and advocate for the people of the world and the local churches that are established among them. This hasn’t changed, even as how we go about that work looks necessarily and wonderfully different.
Russ Hersman
A church in Florida, for instance, decided they wanted to partner with a church in Southeast Asia by praying with them for the Bible translation work they were doing in their language. Hundreds signed up to pray for specific passages local team members were translating — kids and adults alike in small groups, as families and individually. This model, with humility and prayer at its center, has wrought profound change in the hearts of people in both communities.
Another church, this one in Washington, decided a decade ago to partner with an international mission organization. They “adopted” a community in West Africa, where the majority of people follow another major religion. The church has sent more than 50 short-term global workers to assist in everything from medical care to educational ministries, as well as two long-term families to engage in discipleship and church planting.
They also discovered the community was engaged in Bible translation and began advocating for and donating to the local project.
In 2015, when the community’s New Testament was completed, one of the pastors and five other church members traveled from Washington to the community in West Africa to celebrate the Bible dedication alongside the community in which they’d invested their labor, prayers and money.
The impact on the church body was so significant, their global missions team has now adopted three other language communities in equally challenging parts of the world and is actively seeking to choose a fifth.
Every one of the churches that enter into these translation partnerships probably would tell you they have gained far more than they have given. They have developed deep relationships with the partner churches, translators and people who have been the focus of their prayers, giving and advocacy.
In the words of one pastor in Virginia, “The church in (the Philippines) is not a project we invest in but a sister church we are privileged to serve and grow with.”
The modern work of Bible translation looks quite different than it did even a generation ago.
They also have seen their parishioners transformed from locally focused believers to globally minded intercessors, stewards, missionaries and storytellers. And throughout the partnership, God has blessed these Bible translation efforts more abundantly than the congregation could have imagined.
The modern work of Bible translation looks quite different than it did even a generation ago. But it remains a powerful testament to the enduring power of God’s word. We are all called, just as we always have been, to share the love and hope of the gospel with all nations.
The U.S. church doesn’t need to be central to translation work to be essential to it. That’s because we all are essential and have a role to play. Every church, every community, every language, every heart and every mind comprise an irreplaceable part of God’s plan to renew the world and draw people to himself.
Russ Hersman is a Wycliffe Bible Translators field coordinator for Anglophone/Lusophone Africa.
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