USA (MNN) — We recently shared with you when Faith Comes By Hearing completed their 1,000th language audio recording of God’s Word. It was an exciting milestone towards the fulfillment of God’s Great Commission to make disciples of all nations.
(Photo courtesy of Faith Comes By Hearing via Facebook)
Now, Bill Lohr with Faith Comes By Hearing says they just started their ‘1,000 More’ campaign. It’s about making God’s Word available in audio form to another 1,000 language people groups.
“There’s about 7,000 known languages,” says Lohr. “Since the last time we talked when we hit the 1,000, we’re at 1,016…. If we can get to that 2,000 recording mark, that actually represents about 97 percent of the world’s population that speaks or signs one of those languages.”
It takes about $35,000 USD to complete one New Testament recording. So to finish Bible recordings in 1,000 more languages, Faith Comes By Hearing needs to raise at least $35 million.
The numbers may be intimidating, but the ministry is presenting this need to the Lord in faith. And they’re seeing donors and other Christian organizations partnering with them towards the same end — to make the name of Jesus Christ heard by every people group on earth.
“It’s not a Faith Comes By Hearing thing. It’s a we as the Body of Christ thing. We have a lot of partners who come alongside us who we work together with, our translating partners and others who do recording.”
(Photo courtesy of Faith Comes By Hearing)
You may wonder, why such a big push for audio Bibles in particular?
“Most of the major industrialized nations, they require public education. People can learn to read and write. But many, many people in the world — over half of the world’s population — don’t have that luxury. So the reading and the writing is not something they’re able to do, and even if they are a little bit, it’s not at the level where you can read a text like the Bible and really have true understanding. But these are very smart, intelligent people. They do communicate orally,” explains Lohr.
“So if you can get it into a format they can use like audio, they can sit and listen and they can really engage with God’s Word.”
Each language recording of Scripture takes several weeks to finish, but it’s truly a labor of love.
“We’re going to do many of those recordings, and we’ll do that through our typical formats where we send two-person teams to the field and we’ll get them out there and they’ll do that recording right there where those people, getting speakers from the people groups.”
Lohr says they currently have several Bible translations ready to go for audio recordings. They’re literally just waiting for the funds to come in.
(Photo courtesy of Faith Comes By Hearing)
“It always gets down to that. You have to have the resources to complete the task. We have an amazing setup between what Faith Comes By Hearing has set up and other partners have ready to go. We have the capability to do this, it’s about having the resources to come in for our recordings.”
If you are able and compelled, you can give to the 1,000 More campaign with Faith Comes By Hearing here!
And Lohr says they would especially value your prayers of encouragement and support as they work on these audio recordings to get God’s Word to more people.
“They can pray for us and they can help where they can financially. That truly is everybody coming together and doing their part so that we complete the Great Commission.”
Click here to follow updates on Faith Comes By Hearing’s Facebook page! You can even add their 1,000 More frame to your profile picture and spread the word.
