Church-Driven Bible Translation, An Indonesia Case Study

Over the past 20 years, an innovative collaboration has developed between The Evangelical Protestant Church of Timor (Indonesian acronym GMIT), Wycliffe Bible Translators, and the Seed Company. The GMIT Church has become the primary steward of Bible translation efforts in the province of East Nusa Tenggara while actively leveraging the capacity and unique contributions which their Bible translation partners bring to the table. This collaboration under official church leadership has led to a remarkable expansion of the Bible translation effort in this region, out of proportion to the relatively small number of Bible agency staff assigned to support the work.
GMIT’s contributions to the partnership include:
• Hosting a Language and Culture Unit in their synod offices. This Unit supports all Bible translation and ancillary activities in the collaboration
• Advocating for the use of local language translations in their congregations
• Requesting that all translations done under their auspices reflect a common exegesis
• Assigning GMIT church pastors and seminary professors to learn to check translations for faithfulness
The collaboration is supporting nearly 30 translation projects in the region, and 7 NTs have been published. Sustainability and enhanced Scripture engagement are among the leading benefits we have seen. The paper also looks at the risks of a church-driven approach and how these are being mitigated.