Facilitating Scripture Engagement in Multilingual Contexts

For the video, please contact Michelle_Petersen@sil.org.

In what variety of ways can all participants in multilingual contexts engage with Scripture in the languages and communication styles each understands well? What part does the language of worship play in the language of Scripture engagement? The gospel typically arrives in a Language of Wider Communication (LWC) garbed in the foreign attire of another culture’s literature, hymns, music, arts, and communication styles. People can begin to own their faith more fully as they begin to express it in their own languages and cultural forms. In what ways can we who value local language Scripture engagement facilitate these transformations?

We will consider interventions that have proven helpful in encouraging multilingual Scripture Engagement. Churches that use only the LWC are more likely to begin using local language Scripture when the church leadership shifts their communication styles from exclusive use of the Arts of Wider Communication (AWC) to combinations of AWC and local arts. Intercultural conversations can lead to intercultural worship and multilingual Scripture use, giving us all a taste of worship on earth as it is in Heaven.