Living and Working in God’s Ecosystem

In the Old Testament, the sad description of the age of the Judges was, “Each did what seemed right in his own eyes”. No unity, no higher standard for right and wrong, no foundation for God’s people serving and working together. We are also aware that this describes more recent history in missions–each organization making decisions in isolation, with little or no effort at working together. In contrast to this past, we know from Jesus that God’s heart desires unity in the church and its work–a visible testimony that we live and act as one, as God is one.

We see this becoming reality in missions as the Holy Spirit is changing the hearts of organizations and churches that are more than ever choosing to work in partnership and collaboration in our common desire to make Christ known to the world. It has been the most gratifying aspect of our work, that progress.Bible is providing a collaborative foundation that invites organizations to plan and work together.

However, unity does not stop there.  A couple of months ago, I  was asked to make a presentation at a global summit meeting that reflected the intentional pursuit of working and acting as one as we pursue the Great Commission.  My opening statement was, “We honor God when we work together in all that we do in His name.” We were able to celebrate this emerging reality as over 100 organizations are now functioning as parts of a shared ecosystem.  An ecosystem is an environment where success is not measured by the strength of any individual part; but by how they work together and help all parts of the ecosystem succeed.  The diagram above begins with efforts that translate the Bible into languages that do not have God’s Word.  It then shows how different partners serve different functions.  Some create amazing tools like Paratext that help us translate Scripture faster and more accurately.  Progress.Bible supports coordination of planning and projects across organizations. Once translation is completed, The Digital Bible Library and Global Bible Catalogue steward the translated content and make it available to produce Bible publications (printed, audio, or video) or “apps” that reach people in each language with God’s Word. And generous donors provide the resources to make it all possible. It is an incredible partnership and this is how the process of Bible translation looks today.

God is doing amazing things, and we get to be a part of it!