At Easter, we remember that in the moment of deepest despair, Jesus’ resurrection brought new hope and with it the birth of the Church as a worldwide movement, a revolution born of Love. This Easter, as followers of Jesus we face the isolation, grief, and confusion of these turbulent times. This context presents new challenges to share God’s Living Word: that’s why we are writing to ask for your support as we engage with this newly emerging era of Bible ministry. Through Covid-19, we have sadly lost many dear and faithful servants who have served Bible ministry across decades; the natural ‘passing of the torch’ accelerated to an extent that mission has been greatly affected. With your prayers and support, we will be ready to ‘tell the old, old Story’ in new contexts and ways as daily life slowly re-emerges. Here are three specific areas where your help can make a big difference:

Digital outreach
Lifewords digital communications enabled us to continue ministering right through the pandemic as we responded to churches looking online for worship, teaching, and fellowship. Now, the digital ministry is no longer an ‘add-on’ – it’s how a generation shares its pain, its hopes, its fears, so curating digital spaces for engaging Scripture with young people is vital. Our vision is to create authentic ‘digital-first’ Bible encounters by engaging with the young people that so expertly and naturally use the technology. “We are in a new era where people are prioritising social media as a tool of engagement, alongside physical resources,” explains Murima, Lifewords Digital Lead; “Sharing our content online works in a similar way to dropping a booklet round to a friend. So, it’s natural for us to reach out to people with God’s Word online. If we don’t adapt, we risk missing a wonderful outreach opportunity.”

We want to get this project running as soon as possible: with your help we’ll invite young digital content creators to release the potential of Lifewords in digital spaces!

Projects and programmes
From counselling children-at-risk through Pavement Project, to reaching lowliteracy communities through The Visible Story in Indonesia, to introducing teenagers to Choose Life’s Bible values in Kenya & Brazil, to presenting the beatitudes of Jesus through NINE BEATS, and many more – our Bible projects and programmes are a distinctive part of our ministry. “The range of our work often surprises people,” says Creative Director, Steve Bassett; “Bible engagement, spiritual formation, Theology, the Arts, an appreciation of the ‘signs of the times’ – all inform this strand of our ministry. It’s a great challenge, an unfinished task, and we need support to share more resources.”

Please help us to create new ideas to reach out to those in need, speak hope to those in despair, offer a new vision to the hopeless, and hold out the word of life to a sad, lost world.

Languages
Scripture Gift Mission was built on a core range of Bible literature in multiple languages – equipping hundreds of thousands of Christians all over the world in their witness, evangelism, discipleship, and proclamation of the Gospel. We are especially known for our work in more than 200 ‘pioneer’ languages. Today, we offer a range of literature in over 20 languages.

Jarek explains, “Lifewords is all about creating ways into the Bible, so we want to carry on presenting Scripture in ways that resonate with people’s sense of identity and belonging. Language is key.” That’s why we are launching a phased project offering resources in more priority world languages. We aim to refresh our existing library and extend the range of languages every year, building up to at least two core titles (print & digital versions) in 50 languages by 2023. This will be an incremental project, and your support now will help achieve the first batch of translations. Other specific partnering opportunities will come later on. Of course, we’ll keep a lookout for other language needs along the way as well.

We are not out of the Covid-19 ‘woods’ yet, but there are signs of a slow opening up of the world again. We want to be ready! Please would you be part of the new era for this 133-year-young ministry in prayer, giving, and support? If you would like to give, we are very grateful: each supporter signifies that Bible ministry still makes a difference. If you are not able to give right now, please pray for the work as we create resources that better serve the whole church and reach the whole world.

Please partner with us and donate if you can, and together we will share life words in a new era.

Thank you for your prayers, support and encouragement – we pray that this will be an Easter where the promise of New Life and Resurrection Joy will bring hope to us all.