Recording the crowd scene in the Kenyan Sabaot language.
Int'l (MNN) ― A recent update from The JESUS Film Project provides forward motion for the Great Commission's fulfillment. Previously, the JESUS film was only translated into languages with 100,000 speakers or more; that threshold was recently lowered to 50,000.
"That's significant because we desire to provide media tools and training and strategies so that we can connect with every major language in the world," said Berry Fiess with the JESUS Film Project. "We believe that's part of the mandate of taking the Gospel into all the world. Our goals are to provide a catalyst to help mission agencies do that."
The JESUS Film Project first finds a common language that encompasses all regional dialects of a people group. Then, working with other mission organizations including Wycliffe Bible Translators and The Seed Company, The JESUS Film Project translates their film into this language.
"The cluster concept speeds up translation efforts," Fiess says. "Yet at the same time, we've always wanted to reach these smaller language groups and we just didn't know the best way to approach that."
By translating the JESUS film into one common language, more people can hear the Word of God in a basic form of their native tongue.
Says Fiess, "It's very important that we move from the trade languages into the heart language because individuals will respond very differently if you communicate with them in the language that they first learned when they were growing up."
Fiess says challenges posed by this new threshold motivate The JESUS Film Project.
"We're excited by this new challenge. We're going into areas where very little work has been done in the past, and we are getting more help from more organizations than we've ever worked with before."
Pray for The JESUS Film Project teams as they translate Gospel media into common languages. Click here to learn how you can get involved.
